I am lucky to have a number of amazing friends.  One group of which have been planning and hosting a monthly meal together.  It is a simple plan – one hosts and provides a main course, one brings dessert, one brings flowers for the host, two bring the drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic).  The remainder pitch up ready to enjoy the evening in the knowledge that it will become their turn in due course.  Twelve months and twelve nights out with friends who are all linked in someway through their children but who have become closer as mothers and women as they get the chance to talk and discuss without the distractions that usually arise when women who have children gather.

I have the pleasure of being their virtual guest!  I attend via video link – a tablet propped against a bowl or a bottle or sitting on a shelf or stack of cook books and I get the opportunity to look into the eyes of these lovely women and connect.

At times the technology doesn’t quite go to plan and there are moments of frustration as it becomes difficult to hear or the picture goes fuzzy or freezes completely; but in the main it is quite successful.  Their supper time – they have the wine.  My lunch time – I have a brew and the school run to complete.

I enjoy being the fly on the wall, listening into the latest news.  Of course with social media being what it is and newspapers publishing online, I can even throw in bits of information to the pot from all the way across the pond.  The speed information travels now is amazing and at times quite amusing as to who is more in the know!

It is such a privilege to be invited and included.  I have a few minutes of being passed around the table and then I sit back and take it all in.  It has provided for them a regular time to be together and for me a connection back to the town we came from and to which we will return.  These are the mothers of the children that are my son’s peers, the mothers who I went through the early stages of being a mum with – they have been and continue to be part of my support network, despite the distance.

Last summer while we were visiting friends and family in the UK, Supper Club hit the pub and I got to be a real live person around the table.  It was a fun evening and the conversation went well beyond the time at the pub and into the night.  I’m looking forward to seeing this beautiful bunch of women on our visit to the UK this summer and then to eventually being able to host them around our table.

I’m a strong believer that women need other women –  it’s somehow part of the way it needs to be.  We are stronger together and there is something very special about community, food and the bond that grows as we share our lives together.