There had been plans to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee on the green outside our housegathering friends and neighbours for a communal picnic in much the same manner as spontaneously happened when William and Katherine got married. The steady stream of rain yesterday morning pretty much ended that idea, and continued to end it throughout the day.
A flurry of text messages throughout the morning resulted in W walking from the kitchen mid morning to inform me that a few of our close friends would be coming to our house instead. We had food, drink, and all manner of flags after W had gone a bit mad in the weeks leading up to the Jubilee, so it seemed a shame not to use them.
The result? Best day in a very, very long time. A reminder that spending time with good friends is invaluable. After a week where I’ve not been well, and am still not well, yesterday erased aches and pains and found me smiling, laughing, listening, and basically just “being”in the company of great, great people.
I’m not the best person in the world at making friends, but seem to have done so with the most wonderful couple who live across the green. He is possessed with the most fantastic sense of humour, and an outlook on life that is both refreshingly open, and disarmingly candid. She reminds me of myself. There was a moment when one of the children told everybody they wanted to learn the French Horn. I started giggling, and mentioned something along the lines of “there’s got to be a joke somewhere about ‘The Horn’”, and she pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at meI’m not good at making friends, but I love spending time with those I have. I’m still grinning now, thinking back over the various moments of mayhem yesterday.
I got up an hour or so before everybody else this morning, let the chickens out, cleared the remainder of the washing up, heaved furniture back into it’s normal place, and finally crashed out on the sofa.
I could get used to weekends like this.