No spelling mistake, all puns intended, I meant that. I am GREATful. I’m doing great and I am grateful.
It is likely down to having had a bit of a rough start to 2014; a bit of a rough start being a loose way of describing the cataclysmic, cosmic slap in the face I was dealt last year. At almost this exact time in 2013, I was winging my way to Sydney with no job, no real prospects of a new one and having just been informed that I’d be moving out of my mouldy, rotting French flat. Unemployed and homeless; how’s that for an ego-crushingly spectacular way to start a new year.
They say that you have to grit your teeth and bear the angst and the anger of the bile-rising downs to recognise the sparkling joy and unicorn giggles of the ups. On the 30th December 2013, when I boarded a plane in Sydney bound for Paris and total uncertainty, I’m not sure I would have agreed with them. Almost 12 months later, safely on the other side of the Temple of Doom, I will grudgingly accept that they are right. #bridgetadmitsdefeat
I’m having a blast kids! I’ve got a flat on the river, I’ve got an accountant and I’ve got a corn on my right pinkie-toe from stomping the city; traversing the town from the brick facades of the East to the white columns in the West.
This will likely be my last one for 2014; it will certainly be the last one in England. So this is the one where I tot up the events, remember the nights before and the mornings after. This is the one where I say Thank you.
Behind every Great woman there is an even Greater army of professionals who keep her in order, safe from bad hair days, fluffy eyebrows and the grisly eye-socket halos of last night’s Pinot Grigio. Thank you to the man that whips the curls into a coiff, who transformed the brash and brassy blonde into a brasher, bolshier brunette. Thank you David of Blenheim. Karolina, the only human to attend to my netherest of regions, thanks to you. Karolina who can convert even the most traumatically embarrassing, eye-wateringly painful and just plain legs in the air while she looks up there depilatory act into a laugh a minute storytelling sojourn on her plastic bed of hair and hilarity. Thank you to all the girls at Groom for not asking why my nails are painted two different colours. Thank you girls for screaming with me like a gaggle of tweens high on coke, when we ogled Louis Tomlinson puffing as we were buffing.
Thank you to my new very adult accountant Michael, who is working out how to get my money out of France without handing over one half to Hollande and the other half to Cameron. Thank you Alexandra who bleaches my bathtub and thank you to Waitrose for home-delivering my wine. #notsurethatsagoodthing Most especially thank you James at the door. James, a tall burly, blonde hulk of a man who checks me in and out of the Material Mansion, always asking after my health and wellbeing, is sort of like a husband, sort of like a big brother, sort of reassuring in a gigantic metropolis that someone knows I’m gone and expects me home each evening.
I have a Great job. I work with Great people and do Great work. It is satisfying to contribute positively to the advancement of humanity even if I’m not a heart surgeon. I help get people jobs and apparently I make the whole nervy process a bit of a laugh. So well known for my ‘candidate care’ I’ve been nicknamed The Fluffer. I get them nice and ready before they go on camera, attending to their every need. I have been back and forth to the US and am fully stocked up on Advil PM. I’ve been to Dublin more times than I can remember, the memory suffering a bit after all that black beer. Most importantly for me, I’m learning again, my brain is wired and inspired. I meet people all day long and learn more about us every day. I am genuinely Greatful for the nutters that sit by my side. I’m most especially Greatful to The Duchess of Hertfordshire, my Girl Friday who hugs me when I cry, who understands (and acts upon) my unique blend of posh-sweary-strine and who is a golden delight to be near… every single day.
I’m thankful to England for welcoming home her second-generation daughter. I’m thankful for the BBC; they should just buy the television for the whole world and rid of us all that tripe and shite. I’m thankful for mouth-itchingly-tangy cheddar cheese and The Borough Market. I’m thankful for Strictly, for Graham Norton, for Olly Murs and I’m on my knees in gratitude to the five beautiful boys of One Direction. Especially that Harry, my mind wanders…I’m thankful for the big red buses and the overstuffed tube but I am more Greatful for my long walks along the Thames in the sunshine. Watching that salty, grey water flush its way up and down the muddy banks has calmed my frayed nerves and softened my hard edges. #watermakeseverythingbetter
I’m overjoyed to have new kids to play with!
The Ausholes and I have made a little circle of laughter and light in the dark. We see each other every couple of weeks, drink our weights in wine and compete for the crassest crack, the most perverse pun and the best devilishly deviant double-entendre. Sunshine’s giggles, his Raphaelite Romeo’s blue eyes and The Mangineer’s naughty-sexy eye-sparkling smirk fill my world with smut and I love them for it. #itsthenextbestthing
A special shout for The Critique, my partner in plays, my sister in Shakespeare, my girlfriend at the gala. We met Benedict, ogled Armitage and flicked Freeman’s sweat of our shoulders. And we went to the Theatre too! She’s brought me back weeping, laughing and on one memorable occasion snoring (jetlag), to a world I love; a world chock-full of words, of intermission whispers and of whistling at her new puppy.
I’m Greatful to the expatriés who followed me through the Tunnel to the Tower. New Girl moved in the summer and made friends with Tartan Tom. The Body will be here soon and we’re all working hard on getting Braveheart to upgrade and move across the ditch so he can wear his kilt in public un-ironically. Those that haven’t made the move permanently have still been over to visit, Louis tried and failed to colonise Great Britain and The Fashionista screamed louder than Queen. To my Tequila Sister and Apollo, we’ve had a rough year, but I came through and you will too. #fruitshouldbegoodforyou
But a girl wants only one thing, and that is to be loved. #bridgetsbigbeatingheart
I’m so needy, so weepy and so hormonally charged with hysteria that I need two families to fill me with the requisite love to keep on holding my battered brolly strong against the shitstorm. My beloved Belloncles, Papa, Maman and Q, who filled my nostrils with lavender in Provence, stuffed my belly with fish in Marseille and smacked my eyes with sparkles in San Sebastien, filling the frightening dead-space between The Fruit Company and The Social Network with adventures in the rain and jamming my summer weekends with sunlight and Sancerre.
It’s hard to describe just how much I love these people; indeed most of my friends (and likely theirs) just don’t get it. I haven’t got my dad anymore, so the stern glances from Papa when I spark up, his paternal concern for my sozzled brain and even the time he took my phone off me for 4 days keep me on the straight and narrow. The concerned emails from Maman when she hasn’t heard from me for a few weeks remind me that there are people this side of Sydney who’d miss me if I was gone and even the incessant piss-taking I endure from my French brother Q, who, like the Australian one, never misses an opportunity to put me in my place, are magnificent understudies for the real deal far, far away.
The real deal.
In a week, the only 3 humans who love me despite the rage, the rouge and the tearful deluge will envelope me with sarcasm and I’ll know I’m home. The Smartarse, The Art-sist-olger and my Motherbear will fling their arms around my tired, sloping shoulders, I will mewl like an infant and after a day or two of reclaiming my spot as the butt of the big-forehead jokes, I’ll wish I was back at my Great-home.
The power of their love will push me forward, passionately, purposefully and Pinot-grigio-ly into 2015 and for that I say thank you.
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