A Word of Advice for New Members

I promise to observe the following:

NEVER call the Club ‘The Hurlingham’ – always ‘The Hurlingham Club’, ‘the Club’, or simply ‘Hurlingham’.

When walking round the Club’s grounds, it is customary to go in a clockwise direction. Those choosing to walk anti-clockwise are frowned upon.

Wild swimming in the Lake or fountains is prohibited, but you are welcome to dive into the river from our wooden pier.

Desist from writing complaints too soon in the earlier stages of your membership, to avoid being labelled a whinger.

Ducks should NOT be taken home for Sunday Roast Lunch/Chinese New Year.

Lady members are asked to refrain from walking on the croquet lawn in stilettos.

Failure to observe these rules could mean a return to the Waiting List to sweat it out for a few more years.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Book Group

Reading about Hurlingham book groups in the last issue caused me to reflect on a dilemma concerning my current non-Hurlingham group, with the fervent hope that no one in it ever reads this. Ah me, I remember the heady days when I first met and fell in love with my current book group. We were young, we were carefree, we had the whole world (of books) at our feet. We would meet every two months at each other’s houses, thrilled to be out clandestinely without our husbands, and discuss the chosen books in depth with lively conversation and debate. After each meeting, we could hardly wait to see one another again.

Inevitably, as time went by the initial excitement matured into a comfortable routine of familiar faces and after a while, I couldn’t help but notice that most people hadn’t quite got around to reading the books. Conversation became a little more lacklustre with animated discussion of literature making way for the more mundane concerns of mice and menopause. Book selections narrowed somewhat as various members confessed gradually that they did not enjoy ‘sci-fi’ (weird), ‘thrillers’ (scary), ‘anything at all with time travel’ (confusing) until, for the most part, we only read books set during World War II, with a female protagonist, who enjoyed embroidery, or at least I read them and everyone else pretended to.

I’ve tried to spice things up by theming the menu to the book but that ended badly when we read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. As we passed our twenty-year anniversary, my thoughts began to stray. It’s not them, it’s me. No, it’s not, it’s them. I knew I had to break it off but how to leave after so many years? Can I slip away claiming I’m just popping out for a paperback or should I make a clean break and not look back. Can’t we just be friends? I’ve even toyed with moving out of London or pretending to. I suspect others have done the same. One woman I know has decided she prefers being single (not in a book group) but for me, another book group has caught my eye, one where they actually read the books and, dare I say it, some of those books are sci-fi.

KATE FAZAKERLEY