all five horizons

I have been wanting to write something about the power of girl friendships for a while and just lately, the subject has come up within my own group of friends so I guess now is as good a time as any. Despite always having a big groups of friends at various points in my life, I have found that as life has taken be to different parts of this Fair Isle, I have successfully managed to keep in touch with only my closest friends (for which I am very grateful to Facebook and email!). And whilst I love these women (and men), they all tend to be at least an hour away which means I get to see them at best, once a month and then with husband in tow. I would not want to lose these get-togethers because I am lucky that my friends and my husband all get along so well and we have such a blast but every now and then, it is nice to have some quality girl time.

I often complain to my husband that I have no local friends and recently, while at a friend’s BBQ, I heard a familiar complaint from some of the girls there. Despite the fact that I have been with my husband for 6 years and despite the fact that I consider the friends I have made through him to be dear friends, we have never really done the ‘girls night out’ thing. In fact, it took one of them to get married for us to have a hen night to remember which started the thought ‘we really should do this more often’.

Realising that a lot of us felt the same way – we had no-one we could confide in or go to chick-flicks with or go dancing to crap cheesy music with – we finally started doing something about it. Thanks to the powers of Facebook, we had our inaugural girlie event. Low-key and certainly not ‘girls go wild’, we met for Sunday brunch / coffee and spent two hours gassing. It was a blast. Plans quickly followed to see Mamma Mia (something we knew our respective other-halves would sooner put out their eyes than do). Wednesday night, a few of us managed to get together (despite technical faults at the cinema of choice) and see this ridiculous, cheesy but immensely entertaining flick (I plan on writing more about the film here soon). I have not laughed like that in a cinema ever and the bonding experience (that phrase makes me feel queasy but it’s exactly what it was) was just what I needed.

I am determined that our girlie outings continue (we are taking it a step further next time by introducing alcohol and possible dancing – oh lordy!). What we give to each other and what we take from the time together is essential - whether it is a collective bitching session to salve some hurt feelings, sharing a problem that is secretly making you crazy or just finding common ground when, love him as you do, your bloke just doesn’t get it. Now, I just need to think of a name for our new gang…