Well, once again I find myself at the keyboard and I'd like to say thank you to my readers that have demanded I return.... all two of them, thanks Sue and Mr Crabb!
Should I call them readers or should I call them friends? This is where I have found that as I get older I seem to have a mini dilemma. With the age of the internet and super information highway, I have found myself thrust back into the lives of people that were just a fond memory, well, in most cases. I think that Mr Crabb and Ms Womble are probably very good examples for me to use. I can't tell you exactly when Crabby and I first became friends, but I can tell you it involved ice hockey, my one time passion. I was an avid fan of the Peterborough Pirates Ice Hockey team, along with the two younger of my brothers. We went to every home match and stood proudly under Spot the flag and when money would allow also went on the away trips too, to such exotic places like Durham and Whitley Bay, oh what fun we had.... if you need to confirm how much fun, check out Crabby and Cheryl's pics!!!
So, at some point I did the dirty deed and found Mr Grumpy.... and reader I married him... oh no, that belongs to someone else... but I did, and my ice hockey days ended. So along with it disappeared all of those people I had called friends, we'd drunk and got drunk together. We'd abused hockey players in more ways than one, thanks Sandy McDonald, shouted at referees and had the most amusing coach trips in history. But, if it wasn't for such inventions as the internet and Facebook would I be in touch with them now? Sadly I think not. Especially as good ol' Mr Crabb lives in Florida and by all accounts is living it up with a lovely lady that helps him nurse his gout.
Now for Ms Womble.... here is another case in which many people would say she's not a friend, just the partner of Mr Grumpy's colleague, and maybe at one time I would have agreed, for about ten seconds. As soon as we socialised together we knew that this was it, stuck with each other forever, sorry, I know she tries to lose me when we're out running but I stick to her like a bad smell. We've been through some crap times and shared the lovely ones, like last year when after a very loud, drunken BBQ where we sang Carpenters songs til the small hours in her back garden, earning a round of applause from the neighbours... I think it was applause, not sure why they threw buckets of water.... it was that night that her lovely Welsh Ram proposed, ah the wonders of brandy. I feel proud that I was a part of that, it was me that kept topping up the Ram's glass you know!
The point I'm trying to make and probably very badly, is that we do call people friends but maybe they're just acquaintances, we have people from our past we called friends but lost touch with. We also have family, that we wonder should we call friends as we haven't chosen them. I don't know if it's right when the saying says "People from your past didn't make it into your future for a reason" Maybe without the internet they wouldn't have, and I didn't lose touch with them because I wanted to, it was because I was crap at staying in touch and moved around. So, call them friends or call them colleagues, acquaintances or family, I am in touch with the people I want to be and hope it stays that way.
Oh and if you're wondering, I don't actually have many real friends, yeah yeah, thanks for the jokes, I have only mentioned two here but have a few others that allow me to moan, cry, laugh and drink with them, you know who you are and yes, some of them are family.
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