friends

twenty-five years ago four extremely youthful girls met as they began their year itogether in a student house in Hull. 

Last Saturday we all got back together again and spent a day catching up. We have remained in contact over those twenty five years but it was 9 years ago that all four of us were last together.

We spent a fabulous day in Oxford. This city was chosen as it was a central meeting point - we are not learned enough to have met there as students.

We enjoyed lunch at Jamie's and went for an absorbing historical wander before heading for the Ashmolean. At the museum we appreciated the modern art halls before heading to the rooftop restaurant for afternoon tea.

Since that October day in Hull our life journey's have taken us along very different paths. Some of us are now citzens of another country, some have children, some are married, some work full-time, some part-time and one of us is taking the adventrous step of self-employment.

Yet when we met the years fell away and we were laughing as we had always done, enjoying a glass of something bubbly as we had always done and exclaiming at the youthful antics around us. We are still the same people with many of the same habits, beliefs and most importantly still friends.

a week ago ...

the four follies had prepared early for Father's Day whilst Mr Folly was away in China.  In fact so early that they forgot it was this last weekend until I reminded them on Saturday. There were then hastily made plans as to getting up early to prepare breakfast in bed, what to have for breakfast and trying to find the rather well hidden presents.

Sunday morning dawned and I couldn't hear any stirrings so after giving strict instructions to Mr Folly not to get out of bed, I decided to go and see what was happening. Three follies fast asleep and one downstairs watching tv having eaten her own breakfast.

Folly 3 gave me instructions to keep Mr Folly talking but after another half an hour there was still no-one about so Mr Folly started his day. He made his own breakfast and left the house for a dogwalk before anyone else stirred ... so present giving eventually occured late in the morning.

we seemed to have ended up with a Bear Grylls themed day and the family spent the afternoon watching dvd's of 'worst case scenarios' though thankfully without wearing the Bear Grylls baseball cap.

jubilee

homemade bunting

with all the diamond jubilee festivities occuring around us I struggled to think what we did for the golden jubilee.  Then I realised that would have occured just 2 months after Folly 4 arrived in our family and I was juggling family life of 4 children aged 6, 4, 3 and 2 months - no wonder there are no jubilee memories there! I do recall mustering up some union jack headscarves (no quite sure why this fashion item) and the Follies each painting their own red, white and blue t-shirt.

This time around we managed something a little more. The village jubilee committee had planned a whole 4 day schedule of events including bbq, tug of war, the annual village cricket match, silver band concert, village walks and to top it all off a mug for all the village primary school aged children.

Mr Folly in true patriotic style left the country on one of his work related jaunts although not without first buying us a union jack flag and did apparently keep up-to-date with national events via the internet.






At yewtreefollies we did a little house decoration and held a small family party.  Grandparents were staying over the whole weekend so we invited over our cousins and went with an afternoon tea theme.

  

The table was groaning with homemade cakes.  Folly 3 placed herself in charge of drink making and the nojitos (alcohol free mojitos) went down well.  The time just flew by and because we back on to the playing fields where all the village events were occuring the follies could pop in and out of those as well.

 


I'm sure all our memories of the diamond jubilee will stand out more than those of the golden despite having no headscarves!