Cheered by friends old and new
THERE is something really rather splendid about old friends. When you have known someone for decades, something magical happens as you age together, side by side. If that wasn’t enough, turns out, it all gets even better when one of you is able to bring extra friends along with them. To join the journey through the years. To turn a new friend into another old friend. Lovely. Got thinking about all this last week when a dear old friend popped into the country for a flying visit with his new wife.
They arrived at Cullimore Cottage a few days ago, my mate and I immediately got talking the way old friends do. Along the way, he mentioned that we had first met over forty years ago. Light years away. Back then, we were at college, meeting up when we both
joined a band playing trad jazz numbers. He was the trumpeter and I was the guitarist. The band used to get regular bookings to play weddings, parties, and marque gigs. Great fun, great adventures and quite well paid too. Which is always useful when you are a down at heel student, which we both were. Things got a bit more complicated all those years ago when my new mate suggested we should head off to France for a spot of busking in the holidays. Naturally, being a fan of adventures, then and now, I readily agreed.
Within a couple of days, we had taken a ferry across the channel, hitchhiked our way to Paris and earnt enough money from busking to take a cheap coach south. This involved an overnight journey squashed on the back bench of an ancient bus, which we shared with an extended Spanish family who didn’t speak a word of English. Instead of talking, they loaded us up with blankets and small children for us to rock to sleep in our arms. The parents then spent the rest of the night handing out home cooked Spanish food whenever possible.
At the end of which excitement, my mate and I found ourselves all the way down in the deep south of France, near the delightful seaside town of Cap D’Agde. We had a superb summer down there, playing gigs for British holidaymakers and busking to the locals on street corners, often in sight of the sun kissed Mediterranean, glittering away merrily.
You get the idea. It was a completely marvellous adventure, set the tone on our friendship. Over the years we have managed to get up to similar mischief in various far flung corners of the world. Along the way, I got married to my dear wife. Since it all happened quite quickly, she didn’t get to meet this mate of mine until after the deed was done. Which meant I had to go through the nail biting moment of introducing them to each other. Desperately hoping they would get on. Thankfully, they did. Which is always nice. In my humble experience, makes the world a lot easier for you, if the people you care about get on together.
Which is why I was a bit nervous about meeting my mate’s new wife. Thanks to him being in Africa, followed by the pandemic nonsense of the last couple of years, he and she had tied the knot before I got the chance to meet her. Which made me very happy for him. For them both. This mate and I exchange emails regularly and it was obvious right from the beginning that the two of them had fallen for each other in a big way. Which is always nice.
However, it also introduced a potential hiccup into the smooth running of our old friendship. What would we do if she didn’t like me? Or I wasn’t keen on her? Yikes.
All of which brings me neatly back to last week. After my friend and I had spent a few moments getting excited at seeing each other for the first time in ages, he introduced his new wife. Expect you are way ahead of me here, dear reader, because, naturally, she was a complete delight. A wonderful soul. They make such a well matched and sweet couple it is ridiculous. Made Mrs Cullimore and I quite giddy with joy to see their happiness together.
By a strange turn, this happy couple now live in France. Just up the road from the very place where my mate and I used to busk. So now Mrs Cullimore and I have a lovely new friend to welcome into our lives, and also, an excuse to pop down to France. To revisit old haunts. Can’t get better than that. Hope you and yours are well. Until next time, all the best