The other day, I read a quote somewhere online (don’t ask me where because I can’t remember) that said ‘adult friendships are two people saying, “I haven’t seen you in ages – we should hang out more” over and over until one of you dies’.
OK, it’s a bit grim but it made me chuckle because, over the past year I’ve heard from so many people I thought I’d lost touch with – although certainly not forgotten.
For instance, just the other day, my best friends from school, Hodge and Lucinda, suddenly got in touch. It turned out they had both been reading this column.
A few months back, I wrote that I’d been thinking about mortality. Apparently, Alzheimer’s – or The A Word, as I call it – means I have a time limit, although, apart from the various frustrations and confusions that are a fact of life now, I feel fine really.
They didn’t say it outright but they were clearly calling me because they were worried that I might not be around for too much longer, so wanted to meet.
I reassured them that I was well, and hoped to be around for some time yet.
So we made a plan to have lunch together. Hodge came all the way from Edinburgh, and Lucinda now lives on the other side of London, so it felt like a real treat. We couldn’t quite put a date on it but we think the last time we were all together would have been the summer of 1969, when we went to see Bob Dylan play at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Back then, I drove my mum’s lovely blue Triumph Herald (I still can’t believe she let me borrow it) all the way from London to Portsmouth, and then on to the ferry.
Our enormous bell-shaped tent was adorned with a Union Jack that we were certain would make us visible from space.
And there was that slogan on all the posters which we loved: ‘Help Dylan Sink The Isle of Wight’. Bob, I read later, hated it.
I remember it all so vividly, which is ironic considering I now often can’t remember what I said five
