A friend of mine is currently in Sydney, enjoying her second gap year'. She's the only backpacker I know to have hung up her body-board and Quicksilver flip-flops and found her holiday work as a PR assistant at Price Waterhouse Coopers. High heels were not, until recently, something she had an opinion on. This, at the same time as one of the nation's top consumer fads is reported to be a Basic Manicure'.

British women are now regarding grooming and sophistication as a part of normal life, not something you have to wait to get a voucher or go on holiday for.

Is all this part of the legacy of the Sex and the City girls? We recently saw the end of their sixth and final season. Girls' nights in used to be more influenced by The Pink Ladies than anything else, but the SATC girls dragged us out of the boudoir and pyjamas and in to the cocktail bar.

They are certainly to blame for my expensive tastes in drinks and shoes, and perhaps it is SJP's character, Carrie, who is to blame for the fact that Mr Brown says our spending is out of control. Young women are under heavy fire for excess spending and drinking. Still, thanks to SATC and growing interest in icons such as Audrey Hepburn we are, at least, blissfully content to be feminine and sexy.

Has this new culture begun to change life in the South Lakes? In Kendal, Ulverston, Kirkby Lonsdale and Lancaster, after work, you can now find working women in smart, stylish bars, sharing secrets over happy hour' drinks. Maybe this classy new city living' (with bars like Sphere and Mint in Kendal, and Sant in Lancaster) will reduce binge drinking amongst women. The whole area is going through a millennium make-over and style is spreading. Perhaps this new culture will leave us with a more attractive hangover.

It seems that even cafe society (no cafe that takes itself seriously will now fail to offer at least one squashy leather sofa), nail bars and hair salons in this area have all become more glam as a result of the women who are departing our screens. Look around and you will see the full effect of Carrie culture' in our own cobbled streets. It may not be so easy to balance on your Blahniks (or even buy a pair north of Manchester), but what we are left with is a much better chance of encountering a bit of style, femininity and a window on to NY living than ever before.

Even Cumbria's businesswoman of the year, Alison Tordoff, is turning out furniture and interior design that certainly wouldn't look at all out of place in Manhattan. Thumbs (manicured of course) up then for the new way that South Lakes women are enjoying their new lifestyle.

by Amy...