Catching up with friends

I've had a tour around the countryside this afternoon, visiting.  It's been good.  I started off close to home with my sister and another very good friend in the local town, and then went a little further afield and went to the FHS's flat, where I gave him some veg and eggs, and pickles and potatoes [like Harvest festival!] and he gave me the casket he has made for the FH's ashes.  It is made of cherry veneer and will eventually darken in to a beautiful rich red wood, and I am told I need to polish it properly with wax polish....have to get some!  We had a chat whilst he had his lunch and then he went back to work and I went on my way.  I eventually got to my friend, B's house at about 3.20pm, much later than I had intended, but she didn't mind.

We have been friends for so long, and used to see each other and talk all the time but then our paths diversified and she has become a HLTA in a secondary school, working with SEN children and low ability English groups - she is fantastic and even has her own classroom come September!  The school really appreciate her, and she is just lovely.  Even though we keep in touch, it had been some years since I had seen her in the flesh, so to speak, until she came to the funeral last week, so we determined to meet up this week, and I think we will do so again before school relaunches.  She knows me so well that she said that she had imagined me watching a DVD of Monarch of the Glen, and enjoying the peace and quiet - she was so right as I watched three or four episodes Sunday afternoon whilst trimming beans.  We both had a bit of a thing for Lloyd Owen back then when MOTG was on TV every Sunday night!

(image from en.wikipedia.org)

A good friend is to be cherished, and I have been doing just that this week - I have written several letters to people and enjoyed the therapeutic nature of putting pen to paper and writing my thoughts down.  I'm not sure what the recipients will think, but the thought is there.  Friends and family have been our lifelines in the past weeks, and I am sure that they will continue to be - we just have to be careful not to overload any particular friends, I think.  I am pretty sure that I made a new friend tonight as well - a lovely lady, E, is looking after my sister's farm on FB, and I started chatting away, knowing that my sister is away camping at Carfest this weekend but thinking that she was using her mobile to connect to FB.  It was actually a kind soul in the USA who met my sister through the farming game about 5 years ago, she was telling me, and they have chatted near on daily ever since......the wonders of the internet, eh?!  Anyway, I had a good chat with E tonight - she's near Goshen, I think.

I'm away to my bed now with my heap of library books......I'll let you know about that knitting book when I have had a good look through it, Vee.  Night, all xx