If there's one piece of invaluable advice for women and girls of all ages, it is that there is nothing more important than creating and maintaining strong, positive and happy friendships with other women.

In a culture that largely pits women against each other, I want to celebrate female friendships... all strings attached!If my 1998 diary is anything to go by, female friendships are incredibly complex and emotional but they're the mini love stories that make us who we are. For many women, friends are our partners in crime through life; they are the ones who move us into new homes, out of bad relationships, through births and illnesses.

In The F Word I've set out to explore and celebrate the essence of female friendship at different life stages and in its many wild and wonderful forms.