The awkwardness was compounded the following week when I found myself back at the same table with my husband - who had secretly booked it for our tenth wedding anniversary. It worked wonders, although we both felt a little awkward when a vast sparkler-studded pudding and a round of congratulations from the waiters and the other diners were delivered with the bill. In fact, I was having dinner with my gay best friend. I once told a swanky restaurant that my boyfriend and I had just got engaged in order to get one of the coveted tables on the terrace. My furious suitor had to cut short his ride and drive me home. My eyes had swollen, my skin broke out in a rash and I struggled to breathe. To make matters worse, I also discovered that I’m horribly allergic to horses. I fell off within minutes, dangling ungainly, with one leg caught in the stirrups. Once in the saddle I was clueless I didn’t even know you have to bounce up and down when the horse trots. Then the stable lad brought out a horse that was the size of a small mountain. But how hard can horse-riding be, I thought. When he invited me to go riding one weekend, I was thrilled - if a little anxious. When he mentioned being a keen rider, I fibbed and told him that I had been riding since childhood I was smitten, but he wasn’t exactly falling over himself to ask me out, so when he mentioned being a keen rider, I fibbed and told him that I had been riding since childhood, even though the only four-legged beast I’d ridden was a donkey at Brighton beach. In my early 20s, as a city girl from humble beginnings, I met a very charming, handsome man who was thoroughly posh and heavily into country pursuits. I said I could ride, but was heading for a fall Neither of us ever mentioned it again, for which I am eternally grateful. I quickly took the ring off and surreptitiously handed it back to his girlfriend. I was a thief.įortunately, my father was so busy cooing at the baby, he hadn’t heard. Suddenly, all the shame I should have felt all those years ago flooded over me. I wasn’t seeing my father very much, due to our busy lives, but then, one day, he and his girlfriend came round to wet the baby’s head.Īs I passed the baby over to my father’s girlfriend to hold, she spotted it. My life had moved on - I went to university, got a job, bought a house, had a baby. Years later, I came to forget that the ring wasn’t actually mine. I wore it all the time - but I never forgot to take it off whenever I went to London to see my father. It was the most beautiful, expensive thing I had ever possessed. I looked my father straight in the eye and told him I had no idea what he was talking about.ĭid I feel bad? No. Had I, by any chance, seen an amethyst ring? He said his girlfriend had ‘misplaced it’. A fresh and summery perfume, holiday dog sitting service and cleansing machine for men: The products that'll make your weekĪs we sat down to dinner later, my father said he had something very serious to ask me. or vinegar! How women are shunning shampoo for 'natural' alternatives - with potentially damaging results
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