I am sitting on a wet taxi rank with mild indigestion. It started off as excruciating indigestion, but it has faded now to a sort of background memory, and I am wallowing in the lovely, mildly euphoric feeling that comes with being pain free.
I do not mind any of this in the least, because the day has been dry when we needed it to be, and the indigestion is my own fault for eating spiced beef and drinking red wine in the middle of the day. I have had the loveliest day.
My friend and her husband came to visit us. They live in Australia, but are staying near Manchester with their family. They took a day out of their holiday to drive all the way to the Lakes to see us.
I have not seen her since we were teenagers. She did not have a husband then, so I had not met him at all.
He is in the Australian version of the RAF. I do not know what this is called. He is quiet and clever and thoughtful, and I could see exactly why they had fallen in love with one another. When we were girls my friend was not at all quiet or thoughtful. She was giggly and brave and rascally. Lots of my memories of her are of us being helpless with laughter, the suppressed sort which turns into little snorts and gets you into trouble with teachers.
She is probably rather less rascally now, because of being fifty, although you have got to be fairly brave and adventurous to go and live in Australia. It is a very long way away and contains some troubling wildlife.
I was very excited indeed about seeing them, the sort of excited that makes you fidget and forget things, and then turns into indigestion later on because of being old.
It is the most peculiar thing, to have friends from childhood to come and visit. It is hard to explain. It felt as though at some time during my teenage years I had made a tiny deposit in a savings account, and then years and years later, out of the blue, it turned out to have grown and blossomed all by itself and produced a splendid unexpected dividend.
We talked and talked, and there was not nearly enough talking, because you can’t fit forty years into an afternoon, and there was so much that I would have liked to hear.
We walked up the fell side and looked at the lake from the top. The dogs charged about and tried to eat sheep poo when they thought that nobody was looking, and we looked at the mountains and out towards the sea, and thought how beautiful the world is.
When we came down we did not cook lunch. I had thought that I would, but once they were there and we were all together, I did not in the least want to waste my time with them faffing about in the kitchen. We went to the tapas restaurant behind our house, where we ate garlic bread and drank red wine, and later on I wished that I had not eaten spiced meatballs cooked with tomatoes and onion and other indigestion-inducing delights.
That in itself was a little miracle, because garlic had not been invented when we were at school, if you went out to eat you could probably have gammon and pineapple, with black forest gateau for pudding, which was very sophisticated in those days. It was brilliant to eat exciting modern food, and look at pictures on our astonishing mobile telephones, and feel quietly joyful about the changes in the world.
It was ace, like having a holiday at home in the middle of the week, and I was dreadfully sorry when they went.
We promised that we would go and see them in Australia one day, but I don’t suppose we will be able to afford it for years, if only I had listened at school.
Not that my friend listened at school either.
It all seems to have turned out all right anyway.
Stupidly I forgot to take any pictures. Have a picture of Roger Poopy.
