BACK AGAIN
Hmm, only two posts this year. Not good. But then, I'm not the type to post when things aren't all that good. That kind of explains the tag at the top of the Blog. First half of this year wound up being good. I got out of the awful situation at work, and lucky enough to do it without resigning or anythng drastic, just lucky enough to wrangle a secondment to a part of the business that suited me right down to the ground.
That finished, as all good things do. But it finished well, and I returned to the home office and a new department - much the same job, but a different manager, different approach, different expectations. Three motnhs there, and I'm not sure now how apt that little quote up the top of the page is any more. But it's going to stay there for a bit yet. As a reminder.

I've just had one of the best weekends in a long long time. My first two day weekend in about a month, and until Thursday it looked like being quiet and uneventful.
Well things change.
Finished work at 8.00 Friday, and a short walk across the junction to M & D's. They get married in three weeks, so a lot of the evening was about that, mostly trying to find a song for the happy couple to walk down the non-existent aisle to. It's a symbolic moment, and one of those times that it really does have to be exactly the right choice of music. Fun going through D's music, throwing totally inapropriate selections at M in the other room, as much for the joke as to get any response that might indicate the direction to take. Looks like the song is chosen. I'm not sure its the version I would go for, but hey, it ain't my wedding. Nice to be part of the process though, really nice, flattering, and reassuring. Funny how even in a friendship where you have no cause to doubt it's solidity - where you don't even consider there is cause to doubt - being included in something like that just makes you feel even better about it all. Kinda warm and fuzzy.
Then it was time to go, and M. said "you gotta read this, you'll love it" and pressed a book in my hand. I have to say it didn't look promising. I started reading it on the train today heading down to visit the oldest and dearest friend. I was moist eyed after the first two paragraphs. Told him to read the first two paragraphs. Instant moist eyes, and I wasn't sure for a moment I was ver going to get the book back. Twenty minutes reading on the train, and I kid you not, I was salivating. Now it is a food book, but British home-cooking in the fifties by a mum who sounds like a bad cook. The salivating was no so much what was being described, but the memories it evoked. My mum was not a bad cook - I have yet to taste a sponge cake that approaches her's - and a lot of the brands-names are obviously different, but it's so close to what I grew up with. It's a strange coincidence, but the sort I've come to almost expect where M. is concerned. She has no idea, but it was Mum's birthday last week, a day that gets to me far more than the anniversary of her death, and the book set me off on a whole lot of memories, good ones. The sort that tie in with what that book says in the opening paragraph about how you can't help but love a person who makes you toast in the morning.
By the way, the book is Nigel Slater's "Toast."
Other good things on the weekend - went to DFO, the outlet mall in the city, walked right around it, popped into every men's wear. Had a very clear idea of the trousers I wanted. No luck. Got back to where I started, for some reason decided to go back into the first store I'd checked out. A tiny section I hadn't noticed, and one pair only, my size, exacty what I 've been looking for the last couple of months. Then four blocks across town to the cinema, and Hairspray" possibly the best feel-good film in a long long time. Great fun, toe-tapping music, walked out floating. That just doesn't happen often enough.
Today, down to the Oldest and Dearest, as mentioned above. As always, great time. We talk non-stop, everything from politics, through musicals, film, TV, sex (or our lack of it), families, travel, you name it we go there, fearlessly. I think maybe 35 years of knowing each other, plus a bottle or two of wine helps.
Now its Sunday night, I'm pleasantly slightly under the influence, feeling good about the world - real good, more than I have for a while and I like that, and I'm grateful. And most of it is thanks to friends. I'm blessed there, for sure.