Saturday night's alright for farting

I apologise for the title of this post but, really, it's the only one that could do justice to it. For farting is what we had last night, not "blowing off", "trumping" or - as my mum used to call it "fluffing". Of course, the two farters were the pregnant ones - Lydia, who can now only eat cous cous and Janey who has "had wind since I found out I was expecting but, my God, it's getting worse as the weeks wear on!" I shall be avoiding her for the last two months if last night is anything to go by.

Somehow between Friday night and Saturday mid afternoon our sedate girls night in had turned into a sleepover. The plan was to all pile into the living room and stay there overnight, regardless of pregnant bumps, bad backs and an aversion to lying on anything other than an airsprung mattress. This plan also necessitated the purchase of the following items: marshmallows, popcorn, Pringles, jelly babies, chocolate and peanuts - the latter were provided by Saskia who had raided the in-flight catering cupboard. Charlie bought along several fleeces and her duvet and half a dozen bottle of non alcoholic fizzy stuff. Bea provided the pink champagne and her well worn Henry VIII DVD. Lydia had raided her loft to bring four lilos of varying hues and shapes and Janey arrived with her back support cushion and Dirty Dancing and Grease on DVD.

The girls arrived within an hour of each other - I'd packed David and Mac off to Lydia's who was the first to arrive on a cloud of, well, odour. "Sorry, that's me" she pointed out rather unnecessarily, fanning her rear end. Junior Dog shot me a look lest I blame him.

Presents and dinner were over and done with by the time Strictly Come Dancing had started - Charlie was overwhelmed by her presents and was flattered beyond belief by all of us all night as Bea's present was a voucher for two for a spa break. I don't think I did myself any harm by revealing the majestic cake I'd slaved over for two days (and also telling her she was so pretty) but I'm going to have to wait for her to make her mind up who to take. I tried to ignore her comment of, that when viewed from above, her cake looked like a breast.

We oohed and aahed over SCD, turned over for X Factor (Charlie and Lydia are agog every week) and I recorded Casualty because: it makes Bea shudder (she's with BUPA), Lydia and Janey can't do "anything icky or hospital-fied", Saskia hates "that bloke, the one that looks like he's constipated the whole time" and Charlie who "works in a sodding hospital, I see enough of it during the week". Instead we watched Dirty Dancing and ate popcorn. In our jim jams naturally.

"Who is your ideal man?" Janey asked dreamily, delicately lifting her bottom from the lilo she was perched upon and letting rip. Cue many complaints and a request from Bea that I get the Airwick out. Patrick Swayze was doing his thang on the dancefloor and we all gawped for a few seconds. "Stephen" Bea said eventually. "Noooooo! I mean, if you could have any man that you wanted, who would you have?"

"Ray Winstone" Bea and I claimed simultaneously. "Really?" Saskia said, reaching for the Minstrels. "For me it's that bloke, you know, whasisface who reads the news" she went on. Several minutes later we deduced that she meant Dermot Murnaghan. Charlie admitted to finding Johnny Wilkinson quite attractive but voiced a concern that he was too short for her. "Get him some lifts" Janey suggested before claiming she wouldn't chuck Tiger Woods "out of bed". Lydia appeared to be thinking deeply but no, she wasn't. She was trying to "hold it in" but couldn't. While we all gasped for air and opened the windows she admitted to having a thing for Gordon Ramsay "even when he's swearing and shouting at people".

By half past eleven only Janey and I were awake. "My God, her farts are worse when she's asleep, wake her up!" Janey (hello pot, my name's kettle) said, shoving a fleece over her mouth and edging away from her lilo mate Lydia. Bea was fast asleep on the sofa, clutching a full glass of wine to her silk pyjamed stomach. Charlie had curled up on the other sofa with Junior Dog who was having a dream. Saskia was face down on a lilo with popcorn in her hair. "Put Grease on, we'll sing them awake" Janey suggested, doing what she obviously thought was a discreet passing of wind. "The drains Stephen, it's the drains" Bea muttered in her sleep before waking up with a snorty snore. Our resulting laughter woke the others up for a midnight showing of possibly one of the best films ever made.

And then it's all a blank until half past seven this morning when the most awful smell woke me up. It seemed that somehow, overnight, Lydia and Janey had synchronised their bottom burps (I just couldn't use the word "fart" again - whoops!) and were intent on gassing us out of our slumbers. Bea was still on the sofa (clutching a glass and a bottle of wine and wrapped in a lime green fleece), Charlie was half on, half off the other sofa and Saskia was somehow feet away from us with no lilo or cover of any kind. She claims she was "blown away" by the force of Pregnant Wind.

I've had the windows open all day.