Plans for Saturday with the girls long lunch have been in play for over a month. It was a chance for us all to catch up, have a chat and a laugh and get a little tipsy on some vino without the hassles of responsibilities of day to day lives intruding. It was also a chance for a friend who has recently given birth, and was starting to come back to work, to let loose and re-live the old days. The scene was Newtown, Sydney. The setting a Japanese restaurant because we all love sashimi and there was to be wine, of course.

The day before, working oddly late on a Friday a text arrives from a friend seeing if I have seen The Results. She had great news, the goal of years of hard work had finally paid off. She can finally relax and enjoy having the DipWSET after her name. I had not seen any communication and really didn’t want to know, given especially that Saturday was coming and not wanting to ruin the fun. Despite the needling from colleagues to check and confirm the good news I simply did not want to chance that the news was not good.

Alas, at some point in the commute – I did. Justifying to myself that I would only brood over the possibilities until I had the confirmation, that Saturday would be a lot less fun with me sulkily checking my phone and toying with the idea all day. So I did…