Friends Like These.

"I'll be honest," I told her as I slurped from a cuppa. "I was a bit of a shit to him."

She looked me right and the eye and without missing a beat replied, "Yes. But then," she wagged a finger at me, "often, you can be."

There are some people in this life who revitalise your very soul, the core of your being. They understand you, accept you, and aren't afraid to call you out on your crap. They will look you right in the eye and with confidence tell you that yes. When you don't like a boy that much you are mean, and that meanness it isn't a becoming trait. "Actually," she decided eventually, "You are quite like a man when it comes to sex." Urm, thanks?

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Olivia.

Olivia is pint-sized, never pays full-price for ANYTHING, and forever tells you that if you are having a bit a problem it's probably because Mercury is in retrograde. Again. She is part PR, part director and part Tarot-card reader. She believes in past lives and tea served properly from a pot. We bonded during a school P.E. lesson ten years ago over Nina Simone and humour that involves talking in a Lankashire accent.



Another thing.



Olivia is incredibly well-bred.





I remember sitting in her kitchen when I was a teenager and her mum reading out a letter somebody had written in to the Times. It was from the second princess-in-waiting to Bulgaria OR SOMETHING. And her Mama-Doo casually mentions that there is a letter in THIS NATIONALLY-PUBLISHED BROADSHEET from ACTUAL ROYALTY and SHE KNOWS HER. "Yes, we did boarding school together," she told us both as I sat wide-mouthed collecting dust and sunshine. "She was one of four sisters, and I remember the day her mother gave birth to a boy and Bulgaria (WHEREVER) finally had an heir to the throne. We were all allowed pistachio ice-cream at supper to celebrate. It was such fun!"And then her mama went right on reading the paper again. Like nothing out of the ordinary had been mentioned at all.



I know, right? Like. I'm sorry. WHAT? It was sort of like the time my own mother told me that she had bumped into an incredibly well-known and popular politician in our local farm shop and she was all, "David? David Blunkett? It's me, Jane- we used to work together in Nottingham!" and DAVID BLUNKETT was all, "Oh yes, how wonderful to hear your voice again!" Nice one, Mama. You could SO have hooked me up with David Miliband's phone number if I had've known. Geez.



Oh! Hold on! You'll have to pardon me. The Queen just DM'd me on Twitter asking if I want to join her for a quick half with The Smurfs and the gay one from EastEnders in twenty minutes.



You know. As you do.