As I sit here sipping on a sauv blanc on a sultry Sunday evening, I find myself still high on the weekend’s shenanigans. I feel like a bride who spent months planning her wedding, to wondering where the day went and how fast it passed – can we do it all over again?

After spending an hour in a taxi to get to Flemington, I arrived hankering for a champagne to commence the day’s proceedings. My first champers quickly delivered its pleasure and took the edge off my bumper to bumper journey. I located the Impact Digital crew, including Stacey, or should I say Coco, who looked a vision of Chanel. Tiff was looking just as fabulous, not 5 weeks after giving birth to Coby (eat your heart out Victoria Beckham) in a black dress with the fascinator she wore to her wedding (yes instead of a veil, she wore a fascinator – what a woman). I met Rebecca in a fabulous purple Dianne Von Furstenberg number and reacquainted myself with some girls from last year.

It felt as though we were all still there from the same day last year, and I had a moment where I thought f**k, a whole year has passed, followed by lamenting just how fabulous a year it has been. The champage was free flowing and Coco urged us to “drink up, get pissed, it’s great”, to which we added “daaaarling”, and then Coco decided great just wasn’t cutting it and should indeed be replaced with fabulous, and ladies and gentlemen, fabulous we were.

Having spent $500 to roll myself out in a Carrie Bradshaw inspired pink dress with tulle complete with new shoes, well actually new everything, I was definitely going to circle the room. I enlisted Michael as my partner in crime – with the state of play being, I would approach the females to make an inroad for him, and vice versa. Alas, the pickings were grim. So grim, we started to play the “if you had to choose someone, who would you choose?” (reminiscent of Ricky Gervais in Extras), with Dipper Domenico being the best thing in the section of the room I had to choose from. As I said, grim.

I contemplated doing a walk from one end of Flemington to the other to share the love, but the lounge was far too comfortable, and my new peep toes weren’t up to the challenge (definitely not all day shoes). All too soon, we were again at the last race of the day and ready to move to the next destination. This year, we were heading to the Fringe Bar in Flemington, hence why we were walking in our heels up the long (did I say long?) path to the exit. At the 5 minute mark, Coco and I were in a world of pain. Our heels may have been fabulous, but they were cutting off the supply of blood to our feet and at any moment our knees were going to buckle from the pain. In desperation we flagged a taxi that was in a queue to the entrance. In a highly illegal move, the taxi driver motioned for us to come over, and Coco bargained with him like an 18 year old doing a dodgy drug deal on a corner street – “I’ll give you $50 to take us around the corner”. How much was I loving her!! We hopped in the taxi and immediately sighed in relief as we slipped off our heels. Our dignity may have cost $50, but taking off our shoes was never an option.

Upon arriving at the Fringe bar we were stamped “postage paid Australia” which enabled us entry into the VIP section and ensured the continuity of free flowing champers. Michael and I discussed the way forward for his new flame (a keeper if I ever did see one), and I secured a lighter for a friend in need (am happy to report I did not partake – am officially a born again non smoker). It was here, I met Dave. Unbeknownst to me, he was the guy I would find myself talking to later in the evening. It was also at this point, I was to employ my tactic of “see the man, not the suit” – one I had shared with the single ladies earlier that day. Many a woman has been duped by a bogan in a suit at the races, and I felt it my duty to protect them from the morning after buyer’s remorse, that comes from discovering that Armani Man is in fact a knuckle dragger.

After bantering for some time with “Dave the Dapper Electrician” (my synopsis post his suggestion he turn up to work in his good shoes and suit), I established that he is a self confessed workaholic (warning, warning Will Robinson – my Freudian relationship pattern is to attract unavailable men) and has never seen the insides of a theatre, but would be happy for me to write in the study on a Friday night whilst he watched the Bulldogs fight it out on TV. I hit the dance floor, safe in the knowledge that he was my entertainment for the evening, but not a contender for a LTR (long term relationship). Harsh, you might say, but I will also add he was equally distressed (and more than likely charmed in equal measures) that I don’t do offroad, don’t camp, don’t cook and don’t drive in utes – how on earth would I get into one in my heels?

It wasn’t before long, Dapper Dave and I were hailing a taxi and I found myself surrounded in the “ambience” of a room in the Elizabeth Towers. Think ye olde worlde charm – red carpets and orange curtains. I am sure if I went to the restaurant, I would have been greeted by King Arthur and his merry men eating huge legs of turkey at a round table. It was the kind of establishment that men would take women for affairs in their lunch break. It did however have a certain charm, which Dave and I discussed into the early hours of the morning.

You know you’ve had a great night (no, lets call it fabulous), when you find yourself returning home the day after in the dress from the day before, regretting that you didn’t bring your sunglasses with you to abate the cold hard light of day and wishing you could do the day all over again from the start.

Flemington 2010, Flemington 2010 … and yes Coco, I’m in for a double act next year – Emirates Stakes and Melbourne Cup here we come!