It’s been a long wait for lunch but well worth it - Fiona Duff

Tomorrow I am going to a ladies' lunch at the Sheraton Hotel. It has been a while and I am rather looking forward to it - just have to make sure I don't get too excited.

Grant Stott and guests from 2019 at the Ladies Love Lunch charity event

I know to some these lunches are a bit of a joke. A lot of middle aged women drinking prosecco, trying to outbid each other at the silent auction and heckling Grant Stott. However, they do actually raise quite a bit of money for charities. Tomorrow's funds will be going to Maggie's. I have never used the centre but I know plenty of people who have and sing the praises of the people who work there and the services provided for cancer patients. So mock ye not readers of the Evening News.

There's usually so many people at the Maggie's lunch that I only see once a year. So on Friday it will be three years since we have clapped eyes on each other. I tend to wonder what they get up to for the other 364 days of the year. To be honest it is likely that they spend their time trying to avoid me. Then again perhaps I just don't go to right places, or indeed don't recognise them when they aren't in full make up and fancy frock. I mean, for most days I wander around in scruffy jeans and one of my husband's cast off jumpers with hardly a slip of slap on my physog.

Years ago I was at another event wearing a long dress, lots of lippy and had been to the hairdresser.

A woman who I only ever saw in my usual attire spotted me, dropped her jaw and said "my goodness, you scrub up well". I took that as a compliment, although not sure if it was meant as one.

So if you are walking down Lothian Road on Friday afternoon look over to the Sheraton for a bit of entertainment. You'll see gaggles of women tottering about clutching a glass whilst trying to remember where they left their handbags.

But don't bother looking for me - I shall be inside finishing off the prosecco.