Twenty six years
Just had the most splendiferous weekend with some friends we haven’t seen for, yes not hard to work out given the headline, twenty six years! The last time we were in touch they had one son about a year old and we had our two who were teenagers already (child bride, second marriage for me). We mourned that we had lost touch seemingly so easily, the reality of which is life just gets in the way. People move away, them to another city and eventually us to another country! Mostly it is circumstance, our boys were pretty grown up as I was an older mum with a younger partner and our friendship group were embarking on the whole getting married having babies thing. We certainly went to a lot of weddings those last few years before we all dispersed into alternate realities.
I have lived in various places over the years, a Manchester girl at heart with my stomping ground South Manchester and Stockport way, then North Wales in Beaumaris on the sunny island of Anglesey, over to leafy and windy Leeds where we met and spent a good old chunk of time moving three times around the area before we upped sticks to come out here to Girona. We all met thanks to Darren getting his first paid gig after Uni at Coopers & Lybrand, as it was back then, in Leeds. We loaded up our removal van and within four weeks we had swopped the seaside for the city and thanks to an annual intake of students had this ready made circle of friends. To make it even more interesting the company paid the tab behind the bar at a pub called the Pack Horse in Leeds city centre early doors on a Friday night to foster team spirit. Those of us who were partners, after a couple of swifties with our own colleagues in different city companies joined them. Most Fridays we would drink the place dry and end up in a dodgy club in Chapeltown called Cosmos and dance til our legs fell of to the likes of Happy Mondays and B52. It was a special few years totally social and am surprised we remembered half of it!
I’m a gregarious person, some might say loud (and bossy, don’t forget bossy) I always seem to be lucky enough to find friends who share my quirks wherever I live but there are always one or three special people who despite the years that go by without being together, or even exchanging a Christmas card, when you touch base it is like no time has passed. That is how we found it this weekend like time had skipped and I had walked out of one door and immediately walked through another twenty six years later, like one of those sci fi moves where there is always a paradox. In my head I was back there and yet here at the same time.
Of course, it is easier now with social media but you would be surprised how quickly this whole being in constant communication has evolved. Back in the day we didn’t have mobile phones and if you did they were like a brick and usually owned by your office and just for work use and you shared them. The internet was My Space and Friends Reunited and that second one was responsible for more affairs and divorces than anything since! When you are juggling a job, childcare, feeding your brood and have to use the landline as your main means of getting in touch it is easy to lose touch. Not like now when you are visible 24/7.
Already I am in the old friends WhatsApp group which goes by the moniker of F*** Fifty! which means I am an interloper given that I am sixty six and claiming my old age pension. SSSHHHH don’t tell them!
So, the weekend. We couldn’t have packed more in if we tried, and we tried, in spite of the soaring heat late 30s early 40s we did get out into our adopted city of Girona, once for a few drinks and dinner and second when Darren took them on a city walk, I gave that one miss and I think they might have wished they had too, ha ha. Eased them in gently on day one with a lazy day at the house and in the pool followed by my usual big paella. We did a day at the coast, ate tapas on the beach and went for dinner in one of our favourite places, Peretallada, a perfectly preserved medieval village just up the road from my beach chalet. We drove out through the countryside, the villages and the apple groves to the beat of the local radio whose playlist doesn’t exceed 1995 appropriately.
All to soon it was time for them to fly back but we have absolutely promised each other that we will keep in touch, their children have almost all flown the nest, ours have long since gone so we may have more time to be in the near future. Although they still have their youngest at home who came with them and its a testament to them that he was as personable and funny as their younger selves, so good to be with a teenager who joins in, he was very tolerant of all our misbehaviour and bad language and great company he can come back anytime too.
If the nasty Covid stays on the down low am hoping to get a trip in December to see my family and do a bit of shopping and catch up all over again. For now I shall make do with newly discovered group on t’internet. Hasta luego compadres!
Hotel and Restaurant El Pati, Peretallada
