Friday night was girls’ night over at Miriam’s house, which is something we don’t do often enough for a variety of reasons – children, life, work, the ton of stuff that just sort of happens when you’re a grown up person with responsibilities. Dinner getting out of hand, the fact that you’re in your pyjamas and your bra is off and you really don’t want to put it back on again, you’re tired after a week at work and you don’t have the headspace to people any more that day. This one has been in the offing for a while, and Jill forgot that she was at Cub camp all weekend, a couple of others were doing family things and so on. See what I mean?
Anyway, six of us made it, plus M’s two daughters, and the plan was simple: pizzas, prosecco and inappropriate board games. Board games are always involved somewhere in the planning if not in the actual execution… S brought an excellent chocolate cake, there were savoury snacks and dips, and a variety of drinks. Conversation ranged from Mr Handsome the geography teacher; a person most of us knew separately for an interesting range of reasons; weird celebrity crushes; why eyelash curlers are a bad idea after the age of 50; kids; the menopause (the 26 year old has all this to look forward to… sorry Edith) and all its associated joys; pole dancing and more. All this before 11pm! M’s husband is an honorary woman and takes everything in his stride, bless him, but their lodger made a hasty escape when they came back at 10.
It was exactly what I needed, as it turned out – as I have mentioned a few times, life is challenging at the moment for many reasons and I left feeling a whole lot better about everything.
I’ve been very lucky with my girlfriends over the years – the family of choice when you become an adult and have to manage a lot of the time without the blood ones (who are always there when you need them but some of them sometimes need a bit more notice due to living plane rides away).
I had a hard core of friends at school, most of whom I am still in touch with although we’re quite scattered these days. On my first day in Preston I met Amanda and we’ve been friends ever since – early morning coffees whenever we can, the odd dinner and evening out, and a lot of cemeteries, museums, exhibitions and life moments have been explored together.
In Bethnal Green there was Kersti and Nicky, who I was able to catch up with over the last couple of weeks in London. When the relationship that brought me to Epping went down in flames, I was adopted by an amazing bunch of women (the Pink Ladies, but not the racist ones – just because of the sheer quantity of pink wine we were able to down in those days. Yes, even me, though I am a cheap date these days.) Spa weekends, nights when the staff at the Peking Garden (RIP) gathered round the table dropping hints that we should all go home – we refined our menu to the hors d’oeuvres, duck and pudding as we never managed to eat all the main courses, Christmas visits to the theatre. Without them I would not have made it through 2003.
When I moved to North Weald, the kids had made friends with the twins two doors away and as it turned out the mum and I had a mutual friend. I got roped into the local mums’s group raising money for a new play-park round the corner. We used to hold meetings (with an agenda!) in the pub and quite often we’d even manage to make decisions. We organised events in village halls and on the Common – Easter egg hunts, Halloween and Christmas parties where Jill got to indulge her am-dram panto ambitions, and memorably a carols and mince pies evening in a marquee pitched in what was essentially a swamp in the pouring rain. The play-park is well loved and as a result I have a gang of friends with whom I hurl myself in freezing water, fail to play games, go for lots of walks with dogs and each other, have annual traditions and between us we have a bunch of kids who we’ve watched grow up into excellent young adults.
I’m also very lucky to be part of a hard core gang of girl cousins, to have gig buddies like Jen (who I get to see unexpectedly next month!) and museum friends too like Cath and Rhiannon. All bases are covered..
I wouldn’t be without a single one of them – there’s nothing like a girlfriend for cheering you up when you’re down, for promising to provide an alibi and a spade if it all gets too much, for cracking open the prosecco/cider/Baileys at the slightest excuse, and for generally being the folded beer mats under the table leg of life. I love them all.
Things making me happy this week
- A helpful chat on Thursday afternoon which went a long way to sorting out my brain
- Baby Cow season!
- Coffee last Sunday with Miriam and Edith
- Seeing Nicky and Alan again before they headed back to NZ (don’t leave it 20 years again!)
- A walk in the sunshine on Saturday morning, following squirrels through the forest and making friends with lots of bouncy dogs as I had a coffee at Julie’s Cafe in Stonards.
- The very beautiful rainbow on Monday even if it meant I had to shelter in a stable for half an hour to get out of the torrential downpour
- Unexpected time with the twins on Saturday, and they have developed excellent baby giggles
- Simple sewing projects in the shape of some strappy dresses that came together very quickly
- Working to the sound of 6 Music on Friday
- Sharing playlists on Spotify
That’s it from me – looking forward to a swim in the morning with Rachel and to the tumble dryer repairer actually turning up….
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Common Murder Val McDermid
The Bone Hacker Kathy Reichs
What Kirsty did next 