Reunion

Mary and I have known each other since we were both seven, which makes us "old friends" - old as in long-standing and not in age - I have actually started to go backwards in age, although Mary has taken great delight in refusing to go along with it!  

Mary and Nigel moved to Dubai eighteen years ago, I think it was - I'm rubbish at dates.   And in that time, Mary and I have seen each other twice - the last time was in 2005 in Dubai and the time before that was in 2000 in the UK when Mary was pregnant with Charlie and Harry and had flown home while she still could. We cannot be accused of living in each other's pockets!

So, when I found out that Mary was coming back to the UK to see Joe and Mary, her parents (my surrogate parents also when I was growing up), at exactly the same time I was staying with Andy at Heathrow, there was only one thing to do.  Abandon Finn and Andy one evening and wend my way over to Waddon, via Wallington, the town I grew up in, to have a reunion.

Oh my gosh, we didn't shut up for the whole time I was there!  It was so lovely to see her - and Mum and Dad, and the boys.   It was a lovely, funny evening - we shrieked with laughter, there were tears, there was lots of sending each other up.   It was like we had never been apart.  The boys, very sweetly, came to sit out in the garden with us - with tea and cake, how civilised! - but, after five minutes of us laughing hysterically at sod all, they soon gave up and went back in to watch TV.  Bless 'em!  

Such a fab evening - I love that we can catch up right back where we did the last time and that we don't have to explain things - we just know each other.  It's perfect.   I'm just hoping we don't wait so long the next time - according to the law of averages, we should be meeting up next in 2020!