Friends and Redundancy

This is where we sit, often with a hot drink or a cold drink or even a warmish drink, and ponder things. I found myself sitting here this morning thinking about friends.

Let me paint a little picture of my morning, or at least up until the time I took the picture. First my new morning routine (treadmill, breakfast, shower. Sometimes treadmill shower breakfast. But always treadmill first) then contact my manager at Eden to arrange, if possible, an earlier redundancy meeting. He's phoning back. Drive the MH to the garage to try to get power to the water heater. Tricia is collecting me. Phone call from Eden. Can I come into Eden at 8.30 instead of 12. Yes of course except Tricia is driving me home from the garage. A quick change about and I'm at Eden in 15. I get my redundancy details, I thought I had 5 years eligible service. It appears I only had 4. But never mind as a salve I notice in my letter I have kindly been given "life membership" (I don't think they read the memo).

While at Eden I got some advice from their chief electrical guru and caught up with some of my old colleagues some of whom are still awaiting their fate. Armed with my electrical advice I got home, fixed the garden power supply, topped up and set the controls of the hot tub.

I made myself a coffee and sat gazing at the garden thinking about friends.

In my life, I've managed to collect a fantastic network of friends. I'm pretty sure I started my collection at 10 and, like stamps, I've been collecting them ever since. Indeed you, dear reader, are one of them. Some of my friends are priceless gems and some I have yet to meet. Over the years I misplaced some, only to find them again recently. Some have arrived en masse like a collection of new addidion stamps. Some disappear for a while only to return like they've never left my collection. I have some new ones and some old ones, some foreign ones and some far away ones. Some I like to see frequently and some I take comfort in knowing they're there. Sadly some of them I've lost to another great collection but in many ways they haven't left my collection either.

Like stamps in a collection I know how each one arrived. I know every single one is important and I wouldn't be without any.

In case you're wondering if I still see the friend I made when I was 10. Of course I do. I see her every single day.