Sitting on the train from London back to Suffolk, I thought about how very strange life can be at times.
When I've visited London with the kids for the day before, we've been to Covent Garden, Notting Hill Carnival, museums, galleries, famous landmarks etc. We've always come home happy and exhausted with aching calf muscles and black snot in our northern noses:-)
When I asked the 10 year old what he wanted to do on our annual trip to London this year, I reeled off a number of sights and attractions that we'd never done before.
He wrinkled his nose up at all of them and said simply - 'I just want to meet Carole.'
'So do I,' I smiled, 'Sod the Tower of London.'
We had never met Carole in 'real life.' She and I 'met' through the Cancer Research Forum last year. She is 'Dizzie,' and I am 'Shents.' We're also bloggers, and follow each others blogs - keeping up to date with each other's news and regularly leaving comments.
Over a short time, she has become a very special friend.
The 10 year old would often peer over my shoulder whilst I tapped on the keyboard and ask - 'How's Carole?' He read her comments and read some of her posts. 'She's nice Carole, isn't she.' he'd say.
So, with a trip to the capital planned, he was particularly curious to meet the lady from London who writes so beautifully and who has a 'cyber' friendship with his mum. The idea of being able to 'touch' this person and 'hear' this person speak was exciting. Like a character from one of his books coming to life. He was also keen to meet her son, who he'd also read about in her posts.
As for me, well I just desperately wanted to meet, in person, one of the online friends whose hands I grasped hold of last year...
We had a lovely day. Carole and her son met us at the station and we spent some time in the sunshine in the Princess Diana Memorial Park. Carole and I yacked, and the 3 rascals played hide and seek and explored the park.
We walked on to find some lunch but struggled to find anywhere to eat! Clearly all the poshies in Knightsbridge just eat MacDonalds, so we had no alternative but to duck in there with half the Spanish student population and tuck in to burger and chips. It was so busy in there that one of the Spaniards tried to sit on Carole's knee. A mad half hour!
With the rain coming down in stair rods, we jumped into a taxi and booled into the National Art Gallery for shelter. As it eased, we had another mad half hour in Trafalgar Square...
After what seemed like 5 minutes since we met up, it was time to go back to the station to catch our train home.
The rascals had enjoyed their day together, and Shents and Dizzie could probably have quite happily continued talking into the small hours of the next day, and the day after that...
...but we had to catch the train, and we arrived at Liverpool St Station with only minutes to spare - no time for long goodbyes. A quick hug, a promise to meet up again soon (this time with Tony, another online friend) and a final wave before boarding the train home....
...and that's when I thought 'how strange life is.'
It brought tears to my eyes.
Friendships. They can arrive from places you would never imagine. They can arrive from places you would rather forget...but however they arrive, some friendships you grab with both hands and you don't let go.
This particular friendship applies to all 3 of the above.
