When I told people I was embarking on a three-day hen weekend near Leeds, they were shocked.
My friends looked genuinely scared for me.
They know I like nothing more than being in my PJs by 8pm. The odd night out has me recovering for days. How was I supposed to survive three in a row?
There were raised eyebrows among some of the older generation of Dundonians too.
In their day, women were lucky to get a drink down the clubby before they got married, while the men enjoyed a wild night out with pals.
How times have changed.
Today it felt perfectly acceptable for us 21 women to be served by two Butlers in the Buff (with bare bottoms on show and aprons to cover the essentials) in our rented house.
Even if I did feel more like the fresh-faced butlers’ mum.
Laughter: secret ingredient of a successful hen weekend
The bride-to-be Zoe is the shining light of any party and has collected pals from her time in London, as well as Scotland.
Four of us were friends from school in Dundee. And while I’ve come home feeling somewhat rusty – entirely understandable considering the late nights and free-flowing Prosecco – I don’t feel as bad as I’d feared.
And I can’t help but think it’s because I didn’t stop laughing.
As one hen said on our WhatsApp chat afterwards: “I’ve been boring anyone who’ll listen about how amazing all that female company was and how cathartic it is to get to chat solidly for three whole days. Chatting to four year olds doesn’t count.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
We’re all in this together
I read one of those studies about longevity recently, in which the experts suggested sociability was a crucial factor.
The places in the world where people live the longest are all small communities, where residents chat to friends and family all the time and have neighbours popping in every day.
Our sociability at the weekend somehow brought fresh perspective to the things in life that most of us are guiltily internalising.
Turns out I’m not the only one who can be hanging out the washing while gulping down a knot of anxiety over the emails I still have to write, and the kitchen I still have to clean (when I could be listening to the birds tweet and watching the flowers bloom).
Now I can picture the mum-of-two in Essex fretting over her to do list, or the Cardiff ladies juggling work and family life, and know I’m not alone.
It’s nice to know it’s never too late to make new friends.
And it doesn’t matter where in the world we are – Londoners, Scots, my old Dundee pals…. We’re all of us in it together as we try to figure out this funny old game called life.
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