When friends and family merge…

Introducing the Frienimly*

I’m lucky enough to have a very fabulous family.

And then I also have my frienimly. This is a new breed of people where the line between friends and family merge. Where some have been in my life longer than a jail sentence and others who are relatively recent reprobates.

There’s those friends who have just turned up in the darkest of times, the most challenging of hours and just been here.

The friends who have arrived on the doorstep in their pyjamas because they’ve heard my voice wobble on the phone.

There’s the friends who you call when your small things need picking up from school and you’re blinking miles away and the small things need someone they love and trust to get to them quickly. And ya mum’s just that bit too far away.

There’s the friends who you share your deepest darkest fears and who don’t laugh. Well actually they mainly do. They mainly call me a knobhead and to crack on. But then call and check. In fact they have been know to diarize the need to call and check on me.

The friends that search for prom dresses for the daughter. Just cos they’re that lovely.

The friends that you sit round their table on a Sunday afternoon and debate life, love and the halcyon days of the 80s while drinking White Russians.

There’s the friend who turned up with cold hard cash when the ex’s business went bump in the night and the bank closed all our accounts and so with two young children there was no access to money, not a penny. And the money your mum had already given you had been swallowed by the bank.

The friends that held and supported me when I was single and then celebrated when the man became a constant fixture.

And, of course, then there’s the friend that spent many a year telling me that the now constant fixture was the perfect man for me (not that I listened).

The neighbours that have become friends. That have put my bin out every week for every year that I have been a single mum. The neighbours that have bobbed round just to check. The neighbours that gave the boy £20 cos he came home from school early, wanted his hair cut and I wasn’t back yet. The neighbours that have become frienimly.

In this life where the news often makes us question humanity I can only look around me and realize what a lucky duck I am. Yes I said duck.

On my doorstep and across the miles every day  I see real examples of people that care, that put themselves out for others because they care and because they can.

Not only do I benefit from an amazing family but a fantastic extended frienimly.

Schmaltz post over.

Everyone crack on.

*this is a really stupid word. I’m not sure it’s gonna catch on.