Friends

In this age of digital technology you can keep in contact with lots of people that you probably wouldn’t have chosen to, and you can follow their lives at a distance without actually having to talk to them. And yet, you still manage to lose touch with people who you’d quite like to talk to.

So it was a pleasant surprise to get a text on Monday from an old friend asking if this was still my number and reminding me that, as ever, I’m now as old as him. There’s one week a year when he’s numerically a year older than me and for some reason it’s always been an issue.

He actually phoned last night and we chatted for a good hour in the knowledge that we’ve not spoken in three years and probably won’t again for another three. But then he does live in the back of beyond (Felixstowe). I went to visit once and got sidetracked by a second hand bookshop. I’m not sure how these things happen, although maybe I should go back if only to find that bookshop now that I’m earning.

At the moment I don’t have any committees or groups that I’m involved in so I’m making the most of the time and catching up with old friends, both by meeting up with them and electronically by actually talking to people. It’s quite fun.

So we’ve arranged to chat again around about our birthdays in 2010, and wished each other a Merry Christmas, a happy Easter, a peaceful Summer and hung up.