LINKING UP WITH OLD UNI FRIENDS LEFT US SMILING

This week’s forecast? Warm, sunny with high probabilities of a breakdown. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I am a woman of simple pleasures who does very little. Enjoys jammies by 9.30pm and nights IN as opposed to nights out. But these two weeks have decided that no, enough is enough, time for me to shake off hermit mode and be sociable.

OK, M-J, brace yourself. Thursday night sees a dinner to catch up with lovely friends. Our chosen venue

was valiantly attempting to host every single teacher celebrating the end of term (well done again, lads, hats off to you all) AND every single graduation party.

Alongside losing our booking, and having so few staff, I was almost tempted to get up and help the lassies myself. It wasn’t the most relaxing of situations. Before kids, I didn’t understand the expression ‘I can’t hear myself think’ – after kids and that meal, I get it now.

Friday brought the arrival of my brother and his crew for their annual nearby jolly.

Time for my anxiety to ramp up and overthink THEM enjoying THEIR holiday. It’s not like they haven’t been before OR know where everything is. This is THEIR holiday, not ours, but the need for me to overthink still shines through. Plans made and bookings completed. Paddle-boarding, axe-throwing (because who DOESN’T want to give a bamfest of teenagers sharp objects), big dog walks, meals

out, meals in, barbecues, etc etc the list goes on. As long as it avoided the hell that is currently St Andrews, we were doing it. All while the mister and I both continue to work, because it’s not OUR annual leave after all.

While the kids attend activities I’ve booked for them, my sister-in-law and I obsessively look at

expensive East Neuk houses on Rightmove, our adult

equivalent of circling all the things we wished we could buy in the Argos catalogue.

Sunday night and we rewound the clock almost 30 years. Himself and I went

for dinner with friends from university who, while adored all along, have shamefully been seen sporadically.

We can’t even blame lockdown for this lapse, though we CAN blame Covid

for the absence of two who, on the morning they were due to arrive, were duly grounded by their teenager testing positive. Plans and promises were made to rearrange with them soon but we forged on with the other guests and I’m so pleased we did.

Himself and I were fortunate to have brilliant people around us throughout our prime drinking, ahem, university years, so why have we not spent time with them for so long?

Your best friends are your entire universe in your early 20s. Where life revolves round boozy nights, “in jokes”

and deep and meaning-filled conversations until dawn, only ending with a snack from the all-night bakery.

Years filled with road trips, flat shares and making memories you swear you’ll never forget. You tell these pals everything and cannot imagine a world without them. They’re the loves of

your life and also the people who can break your heart the hardest. But life happens, hurling past in a blur. As did our night. We remind ourselves the hangovers were temporary, regardless of how bad, but the drunk stories were forever.

Photos were shared because no social media existed. We admitted today’s self-restraint from dumb choices, now we’re older, was less due to being wiser and more to do with being tired.

We had hysterics over futures imagined in our twenties, are you even friends if you haven’t planned a business idea together?

Promises were made as we parted, not to let another 20+years slip past. We’re all aware adult life is constantly saying to your friends ‘let’s do something soon’ and suddenly realising six years has gone by.

As I sit trying to choose a photo for this column, I realise I’m a middle-aged clown in joggers.

But I am a happy clown, joyful and humbled because when I look at who we get to spend time with, I’m beyond grateful these smart, caring people chose us back. I’m

feeling loved and supported by some of the greatest people in the world.

It leaves me wondering, how did I get so blessed?

It’s been a hectic week for M-J as she gets out and about.