Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. A chance to celebrate the women in your life.

It’s a day to celebrate all of the achievements women have made – achievements that impact us personally, historically, economically, scientifically, politically and culturally.

It’s a day to look with pride at the women around us, holding up the world, to look at how far we have come and how far we have to go.

I am lucky to have a life filled with beautiful women. Women who have taught me, women who have nurtured me, women who have held my hand and held my hair back.

The love and care from my women friends nourishes me in a way that other relationships just don’t. With your women friends, you can be yourself. Your women friends have seen you at your worst, snot running down your face, crying after some boy or girl that broke your heart. Your women friends take you to the hospital when the test results come back, they remind you that you’ve been through worse than this, that they always knew he was a dickhead and they lend you their lippy and tell you you’re beautiful even when you feel like shit.

Your women friends tell you how it is, sometimes gently, sometimes all guns blazing but they hold you up and make you strong and show you the way to be.

I am blessed with a beautiful daughter and daughter-in-law, so young when I met her she feels like one of my girls. We don’t always agree and don’t see each other enough but I am in awe of their courage and place in the world, at how brightly their stars shine, how magnificent they are in a world that has changed so much, even in my lifetime.

I am lucky to have friends of all ages, the oldest, my very funny 90-year-old friend who worries about the things women must endure now. A pioneer in her own lifetime, zooming about in the 1950s as a 19-year-old girl on a motorbike, uncompromising, doing jobs girls were not meant to do, she thinks life for women is tougher now – so many demands, so much pressure and not feeling as safe.

‘You could trust a policeman then,’ she shakes her head ‘ but the bank wouldn’t give you an account without a man.’

I have been privileged to learn from women – from writing mentors and women bosses who have shown me how to be in the world. How to respect and be respected in the workplace. How to be strong and assertive and confident and kind.

Everything I know I know from women. Everything I am is because of the women in my life.

I know we have so far to go. I know for many women the world is not a safe space, and that globally we will suffer more from poverty, injustice and climate change. I know there are battles to come and we will need to be strong.

But as women together we are unbeatable. As women together we can hold each other up. As women together we can be free.

So, this is my love song, my grateful thanks, my chef’s kiss to all the beautiful women in my world. All of you magnificent, beautiful, fabulous, creatures who make me laugh till I cry and let’s be honest, wee myself a little bit.

Without you all I am nothing.

Thank you for sharing your magic with me.

A big, wet, slightly love-struck kiss to you all xxxx