Hello there beautiful and magnificent friends,

Welcome to my half-century blog.

Over the last couple of months, as everything has been opening up a bit more, I have been lucky to spend superb quality time with a number of my amazing girlfriends.

Now, I will be honest at this point, oh no Hayles, this whole honesty business can be a bit overrated, and it has got you into trouble before, more than a few times. No, this time I think I can, and hopefully, it will not upset anyone given the context in which I am doing it.  From the moment we returned from our trip to India until Muz’s passing I was perfectly content to be totally immersed in the precious time I was having with my boys. I didn’t really miss my girlfriends very much at all. The Boy Time was exceptional. We were all together, and our self-isolation following our trip then became lockdown, resulted in it being time spent solely together. I revelled in the boy talk, the shared meal preparation, the G and T’s by the pool, and just generally some of the best family time ever. I did not partake in the whisky tastings or the odd beer pong game, but our Thirty Second challenges and the other games that became a bit of a ritual for a short time were sublime.

I did not enjoy, for the most part, the Zoom calls with girlfriends, or any groups for that matter, but I have spoken of this before, so enough said. My Mum and I were in constant contact, as this was understandably really important for her. Muz and I spoke often on the landline, and our conversations were long, detailed, and fed both our souls. When I speak on the landline or audio on my cellphone, I always walk up and down or round and round. I just always have. As a direct result of this, these conversations with Muz clocked up thousands of those really critical steps. There were also calls with a few of my close friends but that was it and it was good, and I was happy.

Then Muz died and everything changed. My boys were all still amazing, but I needed more and swiftly I started speaking to more of my girlfriends more often and very regularly.  This was followed by our Covid illness and then I was receiving and sending messages and calls constantly. This was comforting but in retrospect, it was not enough.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. It really is only over the last month or two that I have realized the huge importance of my stunning, diverse, and beautiful girlfriends. However, for me, it is vital and of paramount importance for my sense of self and wellbeing, to connect in the flesh and to be able to chat and hug and share and be. At the moment I am blessed in that I have antibodies for Covid, so although I am still ultra-vigilant when it comes to my patients, I feel that I can hug my friends and sit close and chat and laugh and cry and listen. I have had some amazing get-togethers with some of my very special people recently, and wow, have they lifted my spirits and made me feel like A Million, and perhaps even Two Million dollars!! It has been the most glorious time. We can be silly, and childish, we can talk about clothes, hot flushes, kaftans, underwear, wrinkles, cellulite, losses, and silly worries and issues. We can even sing and dance together and I just love this!   I also have a few new friends too and that is really exciting and fun.

I realize even more now that different friends satisfy different needs in you. That is also such a wonderful thing. I appreciate them for whichever hats they wear best. Some will wear many whereas others will adorn my life in just one specific way. They all just make up the kaleidoscope that is my emotional and social life. There are still some ladies that I need to reconnect with, but that will happen in good time.

I decided to explore this story of the importance of girlfriends for girls. I absolutely adore my boys and I so enjoy spending time with my guy friends, but there definitely are some rather large differences between boys and girls.

So, having collated my thoughts, below are some of the reasons that I believe that, as girls, we all need our girlfriends.

Friends, I must warn you, this is a wee bit tongue-in-cheek and perhaps a tad flippant, but here goes.

1. Girlfriends will notice, admire, and comment on the gorgeous colour of your toenails the moment you have had that much-needed Pedi. Boys rarely notice this.
2. Girls will tell you if you have lipstick on your teeth or when your mascara has run, and will never let you have really important once a year family photo taken with these ruinous issues. Boys may or may not notice but will probably remain silent, even when you ask: “Do I look okay?”
3. Girls will also always tell you about the spinach that is stuck in your teeth. The odd chap may point this out to you, but often they do not. Perhaps they are embarrassed or think it may not be appropriate to mention it to you.
4. Girls will hug you as soon as they see the tears welling up in your eyes, well before it turns into a full-blown blubber. Lads are a little more reticent. I do believe that by holding back they are praying that the tears do not turn into that alluded-to crying session. Perhaps we should give these poor fellows the benefit of the doubt here.
5. Girls will assess the situation before they ask about the pulsating mass on your forehead. They will wait to see whether you bring up said very sensitive subject. Boys will zone in, look deeply, and voice their thoughts, and this being the very time you really would prefer them not to.
6. Girls will let you tell your long story and will revel in the embroidering and embellishing of it, with the addition of the clothing you wore that day, what the weather was like and who you saw on the way. Boys will intermittently interject, roll their eyes, sigh and say, “Can we please just keep to the story?”
7. Girls seem to be able to empathize better than boys, celebrating the joys and commiserating the sadness. As much as we love the boys, they do not like to express sympathy for long periods of time and are always on hand to offer a practical pro-active quick solution to the problem, that needs to be implemented forthwith. They also seem to struggle a tad with the happy tears that accompany the celebrating of joyous news.
8. Girls will compliment you at the drop of a hat and will go out of their way to make you feel fabulous about yourself. Boys often think about complimenting you, I have been told, but seem to struggle with follow-through. In his defence, my favourite is good about this.
9. Girls just seem to know what to say when things are tough or the day has been lousy, whereas boys often inadvertently put their large size twelves into it and often appear a little ill at ease with your distress. Not always, I might add, but every now and again.
10. Research has shown that when girls are stressed, as well as the fight and flight drive, oxytocin is also released. This compels women to “tend and befriend”, so to protect their children and to connect with other women. They reach out which then elevates their oxytocin further, which results in a warm calming feeling. All girls involved benefit. Boys do not have the same release, and they can not be held accountable for this.
11. When girls feel safe and secure in a group of other girls, they open up completely, and this encourages complete honesty and connection, and true bonding. They help each other and everyone feels great. Boys feel a little uncomfortable with this and tend to form a Laager, not a circle of wagons in this instance, but a circle of boys. They then chat about deep stuff like rugby tours, whiskey, and beers. A little cheeky of me perhaps! It’s possibly a good thing that not too many chaps read my blog, I hope!!!
12. I laugh a lot with my boys and my guy friends, and I just love that. However, I just seem to be able to be so much more silly, frivolous, and often more inappropriate with my girlfriends, and this just makes me feel so good.
13. Girlfriends are happy to converse about so many varied things and on so many different platforms. A spectrum from wrinkles and Botox, to the state of the nation, to seasonal must-haves, to the environmental disaster of plastic. Also, girls just seem to manage to get you when you change from one subject to another, even within one sentence – which is my specialty. Boys get confused, even when you change the subject, only once, in a sentence, I mean really!!! However, we must be kind to them about this.
14. Girls know immediately when you have had a trim or a tint and will seldom comment on the increasing shades of grey on your magnificent mane. Boys will definitely notice and remark on the grey, Big Time.

As I said before, these are just a few fun and frivolous thoughts of mine. You may have different, ideas, and beliefs on this subject and that is just the berries! We are all unique and this is what makes this world of ours so spectacular.

Wishing you all a sensational weekend with your girl and boyfriends!