Friday night meant the traditional Nonnatus Monopoly game, armed with chocolate, sweets and a bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage that between them they could get their hands on.

They could gossip and giggle; share stories and tales without fear of interruption or scolding for the laughter that tended to pervade the bedroom corridor.

"Jenny? Where are you?!" Trixie almost shouted as she rapped on the door, a bottle of Crème de Menthe in her other hand. It had been her week to hide the particular bottle in her wardrobe; a scheme devised to avoid detection of the purchaser of alcohol.

"Behind you!" Jenny replied, appearing at her side making Trixie jump in fright as her friends face appeared over her shoulder. From behind her back Jenny produced a box of biscuits and the two set off to the next room.

Trixie drummed on the door.

"Cynthia! Are you respectable? It's your room's turn to be hostess!"

"I am" she replied, opening the door wide to cushions carefully positioned on the floor and the monopoly board laid out in between them. As Jenny and Trixie crossed the threshold, still bearing their spoils, they heard feet almost running up the corridor to them.

"Chummy! Where have you been?" Trixie exclaimed.

"Sorry!" Their friend said as she blustered towards them, looking decidedly out of breath and somewhat harried. "Dr Turner needed a hand with the leaflets for the vaccinations next week. I'll get changed and be with you in two ticks".

Chummy paused before she passed them both. "Golly, those biscuits look divine. Do you remember where we hid the sweets?"

"Yes and I have already looked" Jenny replied, appearing from behind Trixie again. "It seems a little mouse has had them!"

"Never mind! Mice willing I think I can resolve that small issue" Chummy said, half running again down the corridor to her room.

Between them Trixie, Cynthia and Jenny settled down on the floor, pouring drinks and selecting their particular figures – the top hat for Chummy; the only one suitable for her as a good-hearted nod to her background, the rocking horse for Jenny as it reminded her of the toy her grandfather had made her when she was 6; the purse for Trixie who was always a follower of fashion and for Cynthia the thimble – a piece suggested by Chummy for the needlework lessons she was currently giving her friend.

Chummy slipped back into the room, hurriedly changed and bearing her prize.

"There we go! Chocolates instead!" Camilla said, passing Jenny a blue box.

"Roses?!" Jenny exclaimed. "Where did you get them?"

"Peter's ma" she said, settling down on the floor leaning on Cynthia's bed. "I've just not had the chance to break into them yet!"

"Peter's mother is giving you chocolates?" Trixie teased but it went straight over Chummy's head.

"She had two boxes from the lady she chars for. She thought I might like one of them". It had not really hit her that in 3 weeks she would be Mrs Noakes' daughter in law but she had been very touched that she had thought of her.

"Right who's turn is it to be bank?" Trixie said.

"Me", Cynthia replied, passing each of her colleagues a bundle of notes and the dice to Jenny.

An hour later, the bottle of Crème De Menthe was approaching its middle and the chocolates were severely depleted too. Each and every one of them enjoyed these times for entirely different reasons – although each one felt the shared joyful acceptance of friends.

"So did he?" Trixie's question was directed to Chummy.

"Did he what and who is he?" She replied, to a round of giggles from Jenny and Cynthia. With alcohol in her system the question came out rather haughtily.

With the presence of Jimmy and Peter in their lives, though, Jenny and Chummy were usually the targets of gossip mongering that tended to take place during these Friday nights.

"Peter. Try."

"Try what?" Chummy decided to be obtuse, even though she knew that ever since her blue and grey wedding suit had been hanging in her bedroom conclusions had been drawn.

"Camilla Browne you know full well what I mean!" Trixie replied, taking up the dice.

"Oh!" Chummy replied, pretending to suddenly realise. "No he didn't. He's always been a gentleman to me."

"I don't believe you. Your face says differently" Trixie said as she counted 5 around the board. "Oh! Go to jail. Why do I always end up in jail?"

Each girl bit their tongues against the responses that they were bursting to make.

"What did your mother say when you told her about the wedding?" Cynthia asked.

"Not a lot to be honest," she replied. "She would parade me in front of that many eligibles of her choice years ago that I think me making my own choice surprised her after all this time". Surprise was perhaps an understatement but talking about her mother would only make her unhappy and this was not a time to be that way.

"So there was not one that you might have even liked?" Jenny asked.

"No", Chummy replied, taking a sip of her drink. "Not one". She really did not want to talk about her mother and the wedding in that particular combination; not even knowing whether her mother would accept her invitation to go.

"So you had never been on a date before Peter?" Trixie asked.

Chummy shook her head, receiving a debt to her hand from Cynthia who had landed on Park Lane where Chummy had a developing property empire. There was no way in the world she was going to share a particular piece of news with the girls that might have been significant gossip to anyone else. In a devilsome moment she had told her mother but she knew that if she told the girls the truth she would be subject to more than a deathly silence on the end of the telephone. Chummy and Cynthia looked, even with a drop of Crème de Menthe and felt extremely uncomfortable and Jenny tried to move along their game, ensuring that Chummy had the dice pushed into her hand quickly.

"You've probably taken up Chummy's share!" Jenny said, seeing how uncomfortable the room was becoming in the hope that it would turn the conversation away from men and onto other subjects. Trixie just pulled a face.

"Surely some of them must have been interesting, though?" Cynthia asked.

"They were all positively boring. All the same. Too much money and too little sense" she said as she set the dice across the board.

"5 again!" she announced, moving the top hat 5 places glad it was her turn to avoid any further explanation.

"Bow Street! How appropriate" Cynthia said. "Would you like to buy?"

"Certainly! One hotel please"

Jenny took the dice as she watched the transaction take place over the top of the board knowing that now Chummy had dismissed any questions regarding Peter, it might be her turn shortly.

"Three" she said, moving the rocking horse to land on "Chance". She took a card.

"Ooh! Get out of Jail. I'll keep that thank you!" she smiled over at Trixie who was lounging in said jail with a disgruntled look on her face.

Cynthia took up the dice.

"12!" she exclaimed making her way around the board until she landed on 'Strand'.

"Oh, the Savoy. How I would love to go there again" Jenny said, clearly reminiscing.

"You've been to the Savoy?" Cynthia asked, feeling just that slight degree of jealousy.

"Just once for my 21st"

"It gives me the shivers to even think of putting one foot in there again" Chummy offered.

"I would love to be taken to the Savoy. It just looks so glamorous!" Cynthia said. "Surely, its not that bad Chummy?"

"No, forgive me. It's not a horrid place. One just has far too many memories of being dressed and forced to go. Ignore me!" she said with good heart.

"So what about Jimmy then Jen?"

She shook her head at Trixie trying to dismiss the question.

"You have known each other forever. Don't tell me he has never tried to kiss you?" she pressed.

Jenny shook her heard. She knew Jimmy. Probably too well after all this time and the obstacle that separated him was still looming too large in her mind.

"How? You've known each other for what?" Trixie asked.

"18 years".

"He does like you Jen" Cynthia observed.

"Well if he does I can't say I can do much to help that". She knew it came across terse but her mind was too preoccupied with other things, other people, to think of him.

"You two are useless!" Trixie responded, the game having come to somewhat of a halt. "Cynthia – you then!"

"What about me?" she asked innocently.

"Who you love?" Trixie responded.

Cynthia thought for a second, all too aware of the slightly awkward atmosphere that was building.

"I love everyone in this room" she announced, nonchalently taking another sip of her drink.

All three girls laughed at what could not have been a more perfect response as she picked up the dice again, launching them with a triumphant shake across the board. There was no more talk of love or Peter or Jimmy or disasterous encounters just the company of friends, treats and laughter.