Thank Crunchie it's Friday

It is Friday again and I cannot believe how quickly the time goes.  It is also Armistice Day and this year I seem to have managed to get to today without losing my poppy and having to replace it several times which is what normally happens.  This is possibly down to the fact that I have not been out and about as much and so the poppy on my coat has taken less of a battering and had less chance to fall out, but also because last year a very lovely old lady in the Whitgift Centre where I was buying a replacement poppy showed me how to pin it on so it is secure.  In a way she might have done her charity a disservice as now I only need one, but actually this is not the case as I was more generous in the first place thanks to her kind and helpful advice.  This is the sort of skill they should be teaching if not in schools then certainly in Brownies and Cubs and youth centres across the country.

My week has passed in a blur of  similar days panning out in similar ways, but one highlight was when I spent about an hour on Skype to the wonderful Jimbo of the Jet Set fame.  Jimbo is the boy who made my home life a misery for about two weeks when I was about 14 by dropping one of those old fashioned stools you used to get in science lab classrooms onto my Mum's big toe.  (She was his teacher, it wasn't a completely random act of violence) I am lead to believe it was an accident, at least no criminal charges were brought about, but lets just say it was lucky (for him at least) that Jimbo was one of Mum's favourite students.  Not so lucky for us at home however, as where Mum was very professional and did not let her pain, anger and true feelings show in the classroom, she was less discreet at home and complained a lot about her toe and the pain generated by her rapidly decaying blue and purple toenail.  I think the most annoying thing of all was that whilst the words she used were cross ones about the incident, the words she used about the culprit was ones of true adoration.  Jimbo was definitely the teachers pet.  Two years later I finally met this boy who despite causing actual physical injury, could do no wrong in my mother's eyes, and after a shaky start in the languages room at Collyers VI Form college we became firm friends and have been ever since. We may not catch up in person as often as we should but it is one of those easy friendships where it doesn't matter how long it is since we have seen each other or even spoken on the phone, it is like picking up from where we left off as if it were yesterday. 

So, as this week is drawing to a close I reflect on all of the friends who I do not catch up with as often as I would like.  When we do get our respective acts together it is like we are transported back in time to when we were physically located closer to one another, and in some respects nothing else has changed. Goegraphical distance is the key reason that friends drift apart in my opinion, but in a shrinking world thanks to technology this can be overcome so much more easily than ever before. So to those individuals, and you know who you are, just thinking about you makes me smile as I imagine the next time we do catch up what it will be like, and I am looking forward to it already. I hope you are too.