What women need

Losing my hairdresser has made me think about things – not very deep things, all of them, mind you, but important things. Necessary things. Things, in fact, that women need in order to get on in the world of today. What women want, I'd say to Freud, is like the sea: constantly changing; and it isn't that we're never satisfied, but that the goalposts keeping shifting. What women need, on the other hand, is more constant. A good hairdresser, for starters – and preferably one that doesn't leave you high and dry without saying a word. But also

1. a good bookstore
2. a secret bolthole
3. three really good recipes (one starter, one main course, one dessert)
4. a couple of off-the-beaten-trail places to shop, whether for clothes or shoes or furnishings, that you don't tell anyone else about
   
5. some good friends (obviously)
   
6. kids are optional though, as are dogs and cats
   
7. and men, although having a good one around is pretty wonderful
8. notwithstanding number 7, a bicycle.
   

By the way, that's the order in which they came to me – it doesn't signify order of importance. Maybe today I'd put the bicycle first. Tomorrow, maybe the bolthole. Have I left anything really obvious out? I do that sometimes. Let me know, will you?