Frankly, I was more than a tad miffed.

Explaining that the reason there was so much giggling emitting from our lively table was because we were four school friends reuniting after many years, caused the friendly landlord to ask how long it was since we had last met.

“Some of us not since we were 16 years old and we’re all going to be 50 next year,” I blurted out, expecting him to faint, blanch rapidly or at the very least drop and smash the glass he was busily inspecting for lipstick marks into a thousand pieces.

However, he had the audacity to not so much as bat an eyelid at this blatantly extraordinary revelation – not even raising a mild protest at our given age.

Surely it was impossible that the four stunning women decorating his bar couldn’t possibly have clocked up almost 200 years of life experience between them.

But there you go, we so have and the tell-tale signs are maybe, just maybe, beginning to show.

Catching up on the years we shared our tales of our long labours – resulting in enough man hours and stitches between us to produce a replica of the Bayeux tapestry.

Then we discussed the stretch marks, wrinkles, failing eyesight and weak bladders we now experience.

Not to mention pondering over some of life’s mysteries, such as how food starts getting visibly stuck in your teeth and how it’s possible to go up a whole dress size after a meal out from the very day after you turn 45.

It’s been a long time since our only concerns were about who we might snog at the next youth club disco.

Our conversations no long revolve around who’s suspected of stuffing their bra and the previous night’s events up the local.

There the boys deserted us to play Space Invaders and left us to take it in turns to go to the bar to order our Pernod and blacks.

A perfectly normal pastime for 15 year olds in the 70s – if you were old enough to pay, you were old enough to be served.

Obviously life has taken us in different directions from settling happily in the village of our childhood to emigrating to Australia.

However, as we pointed out, we may have come a long way but there’s a whole lot of living to be done before we’re moving into nursing homes and donning giant slippers.

Although our new fondness for support tights, gardening and allotment-keeping may suggest we may well have begun that journey.

But here’s the great thing, over the years we’ve raised eight fantastic children between us.

We’ve also survived divorces, built careers and battled health issues.

Beautifully, we got on like a house on fire and giggled like the schoolgirls we once were.

A friend once said to me that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to look anything else than the age that they are.

And you know what, I’m beginning to get it.