Wednesday 10 June 2009

Work in progress

I was given a day off work today and so I have, so far, spent it doing some chores this morning; shopping, obtaining boxes for packing, instructing my (very expensive) solicitor to take my ex-husband to court to finally finalise monetary matters and, best of all, seeing my old mate and, as her hubby used to call her, my partner in crime. As the crow flies she lives about a third of a mile from my house, and yet I hadn’t seen her for two months. Such is my life that I haven’t been able to spare an hour to see one of my oldest, bestest, pregnant and blooming friend and I now want to get down in black and white exactly how shit that feels. I want to note that whilst my constant, relentless, dizzy running around after me and mine goes on, so does other people’s lives. G is now 26 weeks pregnant with her third child and looks beautiful. We have been friends forever and were pregnant together and enjoyed our youngsters at the same time. We’ve spent hundreds of hours together over the years, eating dinners, drinking wine, playing music, and chatting, mainly about children, cooking and gardening and, although we don’t see each other much anymore, we immediately lapsed easily into our ritual of coffee, cookies and chat. We are godparents to each other’s children and we feel like family but seeing her today really hit home at how crap I’ve been at being a friend, her belly literally measures the time that passes. And so I took her up to our new house for her to see where I’m going to be living, planting and cooking. We were lucky enough to get the keys and have a proper nosey round and we both pictured the dinners and the Christmases to come. And I desperately want her to be a part of those.

She gave me fresh mint out of her garden and I’ve just made a salad with it. I bought her peonies to put in a vase. We ate cookies and we stared, in silence, at our new wonderful view across farmland. I never want to forget today, as it really hit home just how cool the basic stuff is. I’m not the best friend in the world but I am trying to get the balance right - I even bought two books today on parenting to try and get the best out of the time I have left, for everyone.

Salute, G, and mums everywhere xxx


Our new home, where our new memories will live with our old ones