Losing touch...

Have you ever thought about all the people you have met in your life? And then realised there are loads whom you used to know but don’t anymore?

It could be for a host of reasons like leaving school, leaving college, leaving home well, leaving anywhere basically, both you and them.

Then there are the people in your life who you mean to contact but just don’t because you get distracted, too busy with work, too busy with children; just too busy.

Full.

Stop.

Or you just drift apart because they have/have not got children, their children are older/younger or not at the same school, and the things that once drew you together now seem all but invisible.

I remember Rob.

When we left college we all exchanged addresses and stuff and then went our separate ways. It was not as if Rob and I had been best buddies at college but we did share a lot, if for no other reason that he came after me alphabetically and we were lab mates for botany and animal husbandry lectures.

I don’t know how it came about but he came to stay the night in my flat in London a few months after we left college in 1986 and as he was leaving, going down the cold stone-like communal stairs he paused holding the black metal bannister and looked back up at me.

I can see him now, in my mind’s eye as I sit here in my sunlit office .

So long ago.

There he is in his big baggy grey ribbed jumper coming down almost to his thighs, scruffy well-worn old jeans and white trainers. His blonde hair tousled like it always was at college, too long a fringe always getting in the way.  His face brown from working in the sun, freckled. This country boy full of health and vitality is slightly lost in the big bad city. The city I am adapting to with far too much ease. Long gone are my old jeans and boatmen jumpers. I wear wine coloured nipped-in- tailored suits with cream silk shirts, sheer stockings and black court shoes. My hair is practically neat, my make-up demure and discreet. I am a long way from Devon and Seale Hayne Agricultural College.

He pauses on the half landing and looks up at me and says: “Have a nice life.”

And everything coalesces in that moment and I know it is the point between what has gone before and what has yet to come – the rest of my life.

But I dismiss it; possibly not wanting what he didn’t say to be true.

The subtext of his goodbye was that we would never see each other again.

He was right.

But I say it now; I have never forgotten that moment and I will never forget Rob.

I can’t see us meeting again. I don’t know where Rob lives or what he is doing. But for your information Rob, if you are out there, I am having a very nice life indeed.

And I hope with all my heart that you are too.

There’s nothing like a hot dog in your bed….

With the temperature falling outside ( when it should be getting warmer) there’s nothing quite like curling up in bed with a good book and a warm whippet. Much better than a hot water bottle because hot water bottles go cold. The only drawback is that whippets have a tendency to move and sometimes they move in such a way that their feet land up on your back as they try to manoeuvre you out of the bed. For a whippet, when hot, will stretch and it is surprising quite how much room they think they need. It doesn’t matter how big your bed is you will find that you will have only a six inch strip on the side, if you are lucky.

However, when it is cold they curl up delightfully and fit just right.

I blame my mother.

When I was a child we had whippets and Rob was always allowed to sleep upstairs. He had his own basket in my parent’s room. My mother swears blind that if it were not for Rob my sister and I would have had for more siblings. It took me a while to work this out but suffice to say Rob didn’t stay in his basket all night.

Some nights I would be allowed to have Rob in my bedroom and we would make baskets out of my bedding to curl up in, sometimes Rob would stay mostly he would land up with my parents.

It was the 70s, it was cold and oil was costly. Dad was away a lot doing Dad things with the Army, probably in Northern Ireland. And Mum was at home with two little girls and a whippet. I suspect Rob was encouraged to get into bed with Mum, though of course he’s never be one to ask twice, what whippet would pass up such an opportunity? The dog was something to cuddle as she couldn’t cuddle her daughters at night as they would wonder why and get scared. Rob helped.

My whippets help me, though sometimes I do question the EBJ’s usefulness as yet another thing goes missing. So this morning I have been in bed cuddling my elder whippet reading my book and well it was bliss…