Want to really gross out your adult kids? Tell them how much fun you’re having

Three post-menopausal women walk into a wine bar… Well, it’s not beyond the realm of imagination, is it? Women my age are having fun. But it sure is annoying our offspring.

So many of my girlfriends are leading secret lives so as not to upset their kids. Younger lovers, tattoos, overseas trips, late onset lesbianism, expensive hobbies… Even what they spend on clothes, facials, food shopping or home help are being kept under wraps so as not to displease a judgmental brood.

Sanctimonious progeny are behaving so much like killjoy social workers they should be listening exclusively to Enya and only eating lentils. “A new carpet? Surely this one will see you out,” a friend’s daughter told her recently. My friend is 77. “A memoir! How mortifying! Over my dead body!” another daughter shuddered when told of her mother’s literary ambitions. “Yes, your legs are still good, but a miniskirt just doesn’t go with your face,” a third friend’s daughter admonished. “A nose piercing? Pathetic!” a pal’s son declared.

When I showed my own son the dolphin tattoo I’ve been contemplating, he took on the facial expression of a headmaster – a headmaster trained by the SAS. “It’s a bit desperate, Mum.”

Highest on the progeny Ick List though, are new lovers. A wealthy divorced girlfriend of mine met a humble librarian on a dating app six months ago and they’re now busily ticking items off her bucket list. Her children are horrified. “You can’t go gallivanting around the globe with a man you’ve only just met!” her son scolded her. “I’ve got condiments in my pantry that have been around longer than he has.”

When my girlfriend announced at her 60th birthday party that she and her beau were off on a celebratory safari, her daughter adopted the demeanour of a North Korean checkpoint guard suspecting espionage and spent the whole night glowering at the poor fella as though he were packing a few hand grenades.

As soon as he’d sloped off, downhearted, the daughter erupted: “We’re extremely worried about our inheritance. You know, that big amount of money, destined as a legacy to your beloved children.” Even when my girlfriend reminded her kids that she’d downsized to buy their flats, the sulking continued. She is now pretending to be caravanning with me down the coast while secretly hot-air ballooning with him over the Serengeti.

The children of a widowed girlfriend were equally horrified to discover that their mother’s lover is 20 years her junior. “Your hairstyle is older than he is,” tut-tutted her son. Her appalled daughter insisted she date a man more “age appropriate”.

I shu