Friendships

I spent some time walking on the South Bank looking at the city, a sight which could have been a backdrop from a Mary Poppins movie.
I think it is my favourite place in London.
I wandered around the vast spaces of the Tate, enjoying the building much more than any of the art on show, then back towards the British Film Institute with it's labyrinth of  highly painted corridors and it's bookshop filled with exciting pieces just about the art of filmaking.

I caught up with Alex, a writer, who has been a blog friend for over ten years but one I had never met  and later with Kim who had been a close friend over a decade but with whom I had lost touch with for thirteen years.
It was an igniting and rekindling of friendships.

I think in my 50s I now do the friendship thing fairly well.
Having said that, I think I have always been fairly good in the role.
Ok I still play, as we all do, that game of wearing different hats with different friends and I am just as fickle sometimes when I chose to be with a certain friend because I need to , but I am way too old to be in that group that has friends they don't particularly care about.
Friendship is about a bond not about filling a hole in loneliness .

At one point Alex said something like "You are exactly how you portray yourself to be" or something to that effect when we are chatting about something silly I had observed , and it was a comment which surprised and pleased me...….. three hours later whilst chatting over a drink in the St Pancras Hotel Bar Kim flicked a hand over my trendy hoodie top front  with a laugh
"Grease stain" she commented in an unsurprised tone

Par For the Course I thought......