Now, no jokes about the participants being old broilers. I won't have you talking about my friends that way. (I'm joking girls, I'm JOKING).

But as it is indeed some years since we were spring chicks, I'd requested a sedate affair.

We shunned the bright lights, the raucous, rip-roaring bar crawls and booze-sodden hordes of sickeningly young people in the usual hen and stag destinations of Blackpool and Benidorm... and headed instead to a rented house in the Cotswolds.

It might sound boring to you, but it was spacious, stylish and peaceful – and, most vitally, it had a kitchen.

My girls and I, we've all got to the stage in our lives where chilling out, cooking, conversation and consuming quantities of good food and wine are infinitely more preferable than donning gladrags and full warpaint for a night of pulling and competitive vodka shot-drinking.

What do you think? Post your comments below.

In fact, never mind dancing around handbags at dawn, between the seven of us, only two pairs of stilettos and one glittery purse got packed.

The rest of our luggage, we discovered, was identical – white linen trousers, jeans and nice tops that covered tops of arms, plus a plethora of posh face creams and body products and enough pharmaceuticals to stock a chemists.

Any time one of us asked for a headache pill, six women would scrabble in their handbags and produce a packet. Collectively, we also had a stock of anti-allergy drugs, anti-diahorrea products, antacids, plasters, constipation remedies and HRT.

I absolutely insisted they didn't bring along furry handcuffs and a veil (let's face it I've been around the block – I certainly didn't need L plates).

And our weekend activities consisted of a posh dinner out, a mineral water-soaked pub lunch, a touch of shopping for nice little things we didn't need... and a pottery class and horse-riding because I'd always wanted to.

It was perfect. I came away with a deeper insight into all of my friends and they into each other.

I now know which one got cracked nipples from breastfeeding, who had the longest labour, whose granny once told her thongs were unhygienic and how all of us worry about becoming our mothers.

I've never been one for wild girls' nights out, not even on my first hen night (you didn't do weekends in those days).

A gaggle of us went for a meal at the San Remo on West Street in Sheffield. In 1983, it was the in place – you could get pizza with pineapple on it and flirty foreign waiters managed to make brandishing a giant pepper pot suggestive.

Then we went to dance off the dough at Josephine's (again, do please remember it was 1983).

As was the norm, we had to queue up outside for three quarters of an hour. And when you're 22 and not wearing a great deal (certainly not a coat), it gets a trifle nippy.
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