'After about three months though, the novelty of this endless self-indulgence started to wear a bit thin, the old brain felt like it was slowly grinding to a halt, and I was left facing the same dilemma many spouses in Hong Kong experience - I knew I just had to find something more creative and inspiring to do, but what?

'So I started doing voluntary work with various associations and groups, but found that even this was not providing me with either the stimulation or the challenges I needed to make me feel like a productive human being.'

Never one to sit still or accept the apparently inevitable, which she herself now describes as 'boredom followed by monotony followed by repetition of the aforementioned', Ms Murrihy started organising lunches for other like-minded women.

'The numbers attending these lunches kept increasing and the momentum kept growing, so about five years ago I registered Women's Forum as a business, and we now have a membership of some 2,000 women and an average attendance of around 150-200 women at our various regular functions.

'Many women who have lived in Hong Kong for a long time had tried attending various groups, found that what they offered didn't really suit them, so also presumed that Women's Forum was just another whingeing group, until they attended one of our functions.

'We attract creative, inspired and motivated women from myriad professions here in Hong Kong, who network, encourage each other, exchange ideas and also make themselves available to each other on a professional basis - sort of a female version of the old boy's network,' she laughs.