You know how you plan something to the nth degree and they still go wrong – Should you scream or should you laugh?
I’ve had my two day break planned for the last 3 months, right down to the finer details and for it to crumble in front of my very eyes and have no option but to just let it happen. As far as I could see it, there were only two options, one cry over the spilt milk or two, just let it run its course? Had this happened to me 3 weeks ago or more – a very large black cloud of doom and gloom would have taken over my world and predicted the end of life as we once knew it. Thankfully things have improved a lot since then and I can rationalise things so much easier.
So the fact that I wasn’t going to London after all to visit family, celebrate my grandmothers 89th birthday and then to meet up with a friend and spend a couple of hours taking photos of London by night (an activity that is sitting on my “Now List”), – or have the luxury of having a posh hotel room to myself before making my merry way to “Bluewater” the following day to have a new shopping experience and lunch with my best friend.
It didn’t knock me off course, just opened doors for other things to happen instead.
So instead I managed to have coffee with a friend at her wonderful shop, which gave me a chance to make a bracelet for my daughter’s Christmas stocking and to get my hands on some rather fantastic wool. Cook the Christmas cake, bottle the mincemeat, finish off some decopatch decorations and still manage to have a lovely fish and chip supper with my husband. Even though Friday didn’t bring me “Bluewater” it did bring me Guildford (a place I haven’t visited since the very early days of dating my husband) so almost a new place to me, and the best friend and I did stop for coffee and cake and a little later lunch, we did manage to purchase some very different Christmas presents for the family, that had we not visited Guildford we would not have been able to (which has to be a major plus in my book). Our evening was a great success of wonderful food, great company and a good laugh, before heading our way to bed, in ready anticipation for the coming day.
Saturday brought us a return visit to London, where myself and the three best school friends meet on a very regular basis, to drink good wine, enjoy delicious food, swap stories from the previous month, rake up the good old times when we were young and the world seemed to be a much better place. Even this Saturday was to be different, we four managed to step outside the confines of Victoria Station and Garfunkel’s, to venture across the road (well we wouldn’t want to go too far from the norm) to Prezzo a lovely two storey Italian restaurant where the food and wine so surpassed that of Garfunkel’s, but thankfully the company and the day was as brilliant as usual.
As I get older, each day I thank god for my wonderful friends that are always there for me (no matter the distance in miles) – Just a phone call away and I know would be by my side should the need every arise, without a 2nd thought. These friends I have made many years ago when we were small and the world seemed such an adventure and we were all too eager to explore them – now we sit reminiscing of the things we once tried, and many a time laugh at the outcome. We have seen boyfriends come and go (and a few husbands), stood proudly by each other’s sides as we said our words of love to the men in our lives. Exclaimed with much joy as our children arrived into the world, (and even became God parents to a few), and now middle age is upon us, and we listen to friends tell how they have lost, close friends and loved ones and we thank god that we 4 are still as close today as we ever where.
