Forty Years of Friendship

 There are some key moments in your life that make you feel your age.

Discovering your first grey hair.

When your oldest child heads off to university.

When your youngest child graduates from university.

When you meet up with friends you have known for 40 years, and that’s not the friends you first met age 5 when you started school but the friends you made at sixth form, when you were 16. (I’ll let you do the maths with that one and work out our age now)

This weekend I was privileged to host such a social gathering.

Between the six of us that met, two of us have experienced cancer, two have been divorced and remarried, one of us – OK me – has suffered the loss of a spouse, only one still has both parents around - sadly not me. Between us we have 13 children and all of them are older than we were when we first met!

That’s quite mind-blowing. I suppose in many ways it’s amazing we are still all here and that we are still friends.

We don’t all get to meet up very often, one friend joined us remotely from Exeter later in the evening. Although most us live in the area we grew up in, four of us moved away but two of us came back.

floating head in the top righthand corner for our live link to Exeter

I realise there are a lot of numbers in this – 4 of us started A level maths together, 2 dropped out, one failed and one passed – but it’s only a grade D. (again this is me! 😊)

But of course, we are much more than incredible numbers. The lives we’ve lived and how they have intertwined over the years would make a cracking novel – I’d change the names. I don’t think any of us have had any major fallings out in that time either, maybe for a better read I’d have to add some tension!

Although honestly, I don’t need to write it down, we did all that back in the day. When we finished sixth form, we each had an exercise book to stick photos in and share our memories.

Looking back at these books evoked such crazy memories. The clothes we wore were hilarious, although many of the photos were of parties where we had dressed up. We wrote silly stories with song titles, memories from the geography field trip and English lessons. We wrote in code and used “in jokes” that make little sense to anyone but us.

The afternoon ran into the evening and we never ran out of things to say. Seemingly no topic was off limit, but let’s just say it was the “boys” who started the HRT/menopause conversation, talking about their wives. How refreshing to have such a bond.

When will we meet up again – we always say we need to do it more, realistically I suppose a couple of years may go by before we get our act together, although I hope it’s sooner than that.

 

And the crazy conversation carries on…

 

Coffee with milk, tea with milk, tea with just a splash

I make a list to get it right, I’m a hostess with panache

 

And in my notebook also goes, the silly things we say

Phrases to create a poem, I take the words and play

 

They just need sufficient stirring, perhaps I’ll make a roux

Blending with precision seems the proper thing to do

 

We discuss the years when we were born, for most that’s ‘68

Other notable births of that time; Kylie and Catherine Tate

 

“I could have had Kylie’s body, if I hadn’t given birth”

Instead, a fine pair of knees show tremendous worth

 

“I have a sexy elbow! It’s written in the book”

I roll up my sleeve seductively, so everyone can look.

 

Body parts and HRT, is any topic taboo?

Reaching that age when we have to know, "where’s the nearest loo?"

 

We discuss emergency sponge fingers, tiramisu, random Italians

While wondering if Charlotte “would like to sell my stallion?”

 

So now I’ve lifted-up the curtain, exposing our chaotic rambling

Have we matured over the years? I doubt it, but we’re still standing!