My oldest friend

Sorry I haven't been around for a while, I don't know where the time has snuck off to.  Sneaky sneaky time sneaking off like that.

I had a lovely day on Thursday because my oldest friend came to visit with her two boys.  We were at the beach all day, chatting and walking.  She's just got an amazing camper van so after our picnic we were able to have a cuppa in a proper china mug, luxury.

I wanted to blog about lovely Angela because I feel so lucky to have a friend like her.  We have known each other since we were about 5 years old.  I can remember going to her 5th birthday party, clutching her present which was some kind of story tape.

We went though all sorts of things together and became really close in our teens, mainly due to a shared love of illicit smoking and trying to ingratiate ourselves with the cool kids.  I remember us having a perfectly serious conversation about how we would give up smoking when we were sixteen.  Yes you did read that correctly.  Ange even had a little smoking kit comprising ciggies, hairbands, mints and Impulse to spray the fingers with.  How we thought our parents couldn't smell it I will never know but we thought we were very clever at the time.  And cool.  "People say smoking doesn't make you cool but look at the cool people we hang around with now" - these words actually passed my lips.  Oh dear.  We've both stopped since by the way but sadly we were both considerably older than sixteen when we gave up.

My darling girl had some pretty tough times growing up and was exposed to things and people she shouldn't have been.  I really admire the way she made a success of her life in spite of all of this and is determined that the same won't happen to her boys.

Very importantly if it wasn't for Angela I would never have met Mr D (I wouldn't have met the boyfriend I had before him either but we are trying to be positive here!).  Angela's sister was going out with Mark who is Mr D's best friend.  Very lucky.

Here we are at Angela's 21st.  The skanky pub this was taken in has since been converted to swanky apartments with executive houses in the beer garden.

We almost lost touch at one point, when I went away to uni and it was difficult to keep up from further away.  Happily an invitation to her hen night brought us back together and we went to each other's weddings.  The first time we met up before the hen night, it was as if we had never been apart and we were rabbiting on and on and on and on....

 Here we are at various wedding-related events in the last few years:

At my hen night

 

I promise I did look better than this on my wedding day, I'm just not very photogenic and I was a bit hot!

With Angela's sister at my wedding

Bit worse for wear at her sister's hen party in Bath

At her sister's wedding

To bring you up to date here are some from Thursday.  Her big boy Seb is a little sweetie - he was "flying" his car around on the beach.  I said, "Wow, Seb, a flying car, that's amazing, how does it do that?"  to which he replied, "You hold it up in the air, like this".  That told me - ask a silly question and all that...  He looks so much like Angela and her brother and sister.  The new baby, Reuben, is gorgeous, so well-behaved.

Sorry I hid your face Reuben

It is wonderful to make new friends and it's such fun to find out about people, but there's nothing like spending time with someone with whom you have a long shared history.  It's lovely to remember old times together and laugh at the funny people we used to know.  You can't pretend with someone you've known that long. 

When we got home we had a diary meeting and organised two get-togethers in the next couple of months - yay!  It was a really lovely day and really reminded me about what's important; simple pleasures and appreciating the good things in your life. If you can spend a relaxed day at the beach with a friend, why would you want to do anything else?

I'll try to be a better blogger in the next few weeks....