Friendships that always last...

This weekend was all about catching up with old friends and reliving past times. I'm a great believer that meeting new people keeps you on your toes, opens your eyes, keeps you in touch with new ideas and thoughts. However sometimes to see an old face just warms the heart and feeds the soul. Memories of shared experiences come flooding back. They are made even more special when you realise that though time has passed, you are still the same people that can simply pick up from where you left off.

Friday night I drove over to spend the evening with my old boss and dear friend June and her daughter/my god daughter Isabelle. We had a wonderful time eating gorgeous Thai food, drinking copious amounts of red wine and, talking until the early hours of the morning. We reminisced, caught up with all our news, put the world to rights, discussed the arts, politics, new sofas, men, babies and boy did it do me some good. It was only the second time in Matilda's short life that I'd left for a night, this time in her Daddy's capable hands. We all tend to get so caught up in family life and work that occasionally it does us good to let loose and have time with other people.

Today I met up with an old friend from my France days. Twenty years ago I moved to Paris and, spent a romantic year there, living the Bohemian lifestyle to the full, studying at the Sorbonne, teaching English to provide some income which covered all my sitting in Cafe De Flore, drinking wine in the bars of Le Marais, as well as the occasional follie in Saint Germain! I met a wonderful family who took me under their wing, really looked after me and made me one of their own. I hadn't seen Nathalie for nearly 20 years, or even met her daughter with whom she was pregnant with at the time. We met up in Covent Garden and, it was like I'd only seen her yesterday. There was a lot of catching up to do, but we managed to fit it all in with lots of laughter mixed in. I feel so reassured and thankful that friendships last despite lives moving in opposite directions.