It occurs to me that December just gone provided one of those rare occasions when a snapshot was taken of my whole group of best friends all together. There’s usually one or the other of us missing from these group photos on our outings as someone has to steer the camera. Unfortunately the camera used to take this was a phone hence the less than great quality. Fortunately the very nice girl who brought our food was quite happy to take temporary ownership of my iPhone.
The picture above was taken when we all went out to a lovely restaurant in Lincoln for a celebratory Christmas dinner on 19th December 2014. Well, I say Christmas dinner – none of us ordered the turkey. I think we could all foresee lots of turkey dinners coming up over the following few days and decided to give the traditional fare a miss and have something else. We all had a great time, but then we always do enjoy each others’ company. Our friendship history goes back a very long way to the days when our children were all little and went to the same kindergarten and primary school together, which is over 25 years ago for most of us. It really doesn’t seem that long.
And things keep on changing. In just the last five years there have been university graduations; careers built; girlfriends and boyfriends gained and lost; several weddings and a good number of grandchildren born between us. There have also been difficulties around our elderly parents, illness and death and care home incarcerations. A lot has happened. Life I think it’s called. So here we all are, pictured at Christmas time 2014. I’m very happy to report that we have retained our sense of humour. Some of us have developed an even dafter sense of midlife humour as we’ve got older.
When I look at pictures of my midlife friends together like this having a good time, I’m always reminded that within every one of us there still beats the heart of the girl we used to be. Here’s to the next time out – February I think it is for a birthday event. Looking forward to it already.
Suzy Barker 