For those interested in Who We Are :

"Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around."

- David Lodge, The British Museum is Falling Down

For those interested in the demographics, we are all female, 2 or 3 children apiece, and mainly married - more or less or thereabouts - although one of us has shed her husband in the time and is our token raver. Through her current antics we vaguely and vicariously and vainly recall our own rapidly receding youth.

There are now eight of us, identified, for seemingly obvious reasons, by initials only. Each only knew a few of the others before we got together. A core of six of us remains; Ab, escaped to live in a foreign country then, nearly 5 years in, L sloped off to spend more time with her family and A kindly joined us and more recently G found love in a young man and we welcomed J2 and a month later M. Thus we are now, alphabetically, A, C, F, H, J, J2, M and last, but most certainly not least vocally (dry chuckle), P. Our jobs are varied including in no particular order a publisher, one who works for a museum, three who work at schools to varying degrees, then we have an editor, an accountant and a former spy.

We come from all over but now live in and around Cheltenham and we think we still look quite young. Until we meet proper young people, that is, who are horrid things and therefore really best avoided (and don't get us started on bending forward over a mirror and the horrors of face-slide…). We've all of us slithered over the grey hurdle of 40 and I fear two have toppled further still. 40 may pretend to be the new 30 but we nonetheless approach Tena Lady status, and view adverts for Stannah chair lifts and walk-in baths with less post-modern, mocking irony than before. Winter vests suddenly seem a damn fine idea, tucked in, of course. Saga brochures will plop through letterboxes in due course and will be perused with sly interest. More and more, death seems to loll round the corner, buffeted only by increasing decrepitude. But all of this is forgotten on the first Monday of every month.

We love reading and we love our evenings together focusing on that month's collective book. We've read a lot of rubbish in our time as a group, but also some wonderful books which we individually may not have ended up reading otherwise. We've drunk too much, shouted too much, cackled grossly and gossiped shamelessly, survived a celebratory anniversary weekend away together, and had a thoroughly good time. We are now in our 9th glorious year and each meeting is cheerfully anticipated. While books remain the group's raison d'être, real friendships have grown and we plan to grow old together.