In an endeavour to entrench myself in Eastern Cape life, I have just started a monthly supper club for like minded (potentially nuts?) women - I was part of a superb one in Johannesburg dubbed "Sex and the City", so this one has been called "Sex and the Town".  We met for the first time last evening, and it was a riot.  In Grahamstown restaurant food is better than expected and service is much worse than one would ever believe. 

We all poured our own wine all evening (this, you must understand, is a mammoth task), we had to BEG the waiter to take our food order, and at the end of the evening, when we were just starting to talk about the REALLY interesting stuff, the music was switched off, the "once were white but now off-grey" tablecloths were folded around us and removed, and it was clear there was only one way for us to go - OUT.
So out we went and continued our by now very interesting conversation on the pavement, where the car guard's face was a picture of amazement and complete disbelief.  I am quite sure he has not heard such interesting dialogue for quite a while.

What these evenings do instill in me, however, is a sense of female empathy, that I am very lucky to have found in a relatively short time.  Much like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, a character I have always hero-worshipped for everything she has - the look, the figure, the writing talent, Mr. Big, the clothes and above all, the shoes (!), there is potential for great soul friendships amongst women - this applies to those who live in a city like New York, which never sleeps, to a town like Grahamstown, which often misses the morning alarm clock completely.

I drove back to the farm incredibly slowly thanks to the ever present kudu population who love that road once the sun sets.  Whilst so doing, I was thinking about how we, as women, have so many similar experiences, challenges, moments of despair, followed by moments of elation, a mutual love of wine, followed by a mild obsession with food, and a bond that needs no words to describe its depth, meaning or prescence.

I so look forward to our next "Town" dinner, almost as much, I would imagine, as the car guard is looking forward to it!