Creating niches

The team is almost entirely made up of women - women of two distinct age groups. When we get together at social functions, as we did last night at our team Christmas celebration night, the topics of conversation could be categorized into the following: the rearing of children, the joys, trials and tribulations; and going out and having fun, with the odd office gossip thrown in.

Everyone had their own little niche. The married women talked about their children and husbands. The young singletons talked about boys and shopping. I sat drinking my Diet Coke and listened to the stories, mentally storing them away to be the basis of fiction in the very distant future - and there were some pretty fascinating stories last night. I particularly liked one woman's story of how her husband had introduced an ex-work colleague to her, as she stood doubled over with labour pains in the emergency department of a hospital.

At the end of the night, the married women went home to their families, content with their world. The young ones caught a taxi to go dancing, their night just beginning. Me - I climbed in my pretty little car and went home to wait for my P.

I have a foot in each camp.