I am lucky to have some amazing friends.  Many live in foreign climes (which I am hoping is a coincidence, and not that I am driving people to emigrate?) and I am sure that all will have the (dubious?) honour of being blogged about in the coming months.

One of my very good friends I met 19 years ago when we started working for the same accountancy firm in Birmingham in August 1995.  Since then we’ve been through A LOT together, including:

• 3 marriages (the extra one was mine)
• 6 kids (again, I’m up on a 2:1 ratio!)
• Weightwatchers (I suspect that I’m up on a 2:1 ratio on current weight?!)
• Moving from drinking pints of lager, to the far more sophisticated (and less calorific) spritzers, through ‘a nice Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc’ (it was a joke that we didn’t know any other wines and so had to order one of those!!) to now, when it’s pretty much fizz or gin based!!
• Trips abroad (once we shared a double bed at my flat whilst I was on secondment in Sydney and relegated her boyfriend (now husband) to the floor with a spare towel as his blanket!!)
• Soft play hell (the downside of the 2:1 kids ratio being I still have to endure it)
• Many family occasions – christenings, birthday parties, 40th celebrations
• And a LOT of cups of tea (mostly decaf!)

All of our children get on really well (evidenced by the fact that we hardly saw them on Sunday afternoon as they played nicely together and we adults could sit in the sunshine eating BBQ food, drinking wine / beer / tea / coffee and chatting!!)  But what is lovely is seeing how close our eldest 2 daughters are.  They’re only a few months apart in age, however go to different schools, but already see themselves as BFFs.  They are (worryingly!) like us in so many ways (ex colleagues are now doing a sharp intake of breath at that prospect!!) and growing up into such lovely girls – I’m so proud of them both.

Although their Dads are already planning to accompany them when they ask to go to Ibiza in a few years time………..