old friends

I nearly always just popped around the corner to Mr. Shah’s shop if I needed a small amount of something basic such as milk or eggs. This time when I got inside and after greeting Mr. Shah, I picked up a small packet of plain flour. “What is the flour for?” asked Mr.Shah. “I am baking a coconut and raisin cake this morning.”I replied. She looked vaguely familiar and I saw an unfamiliar woman standing next to me holding the local newspaper after a bit I recognised her face from school, so I said to her “Would you be by any chance Sally Davies from Bicester High School?”

She replied “Sure I am and you must be the same Adam Jones, the captain of the football team and top of the school year most years, are you not?”

“Yes I am.You have hardly changed at all apart from the 10 years which have treated you very well since we Bicester High School that have transformed you into a real woman and a very pretty one at that.”

“You are now a grown up man and still a charmer, despite making your own cakes or maybe because of it. Did you get into university and do you still see any of the guys from school?”

“Yes I did get into university and was forced to go to all the way to Newcastle for my sins. Chris, Martin and I are the mainstay of Bicester cricket team. I am the captain, Martin is a our most destructive fast bowler. How about you and your old friends who probably not quite so young any more?”

Tina, Paula and I meet up from time to time for a cuppa and a chinwag.”

“Surprise, surprise. Why don’t we all meet for a chat about times long past?”

“Sounds good to me. Where and when?”

“I hear that the Lions Head has gone all gastro with a real chef who knows a bit better than fish and chips and how to reheat yesterday’s pie and calling it today’s chef’s special, so let’s say Saturday at eight o’clock and I will make the booking for seven thirty under my name.”

“brilliant. See you and the others there.”

“Mine’s a G&T

“Winter Ale for me.”

So it was that after having told my friends about what was happening we all met up in the Lions Head at the bar. I was there and therefore ordered a round of Winter Ales in anticipation of the lads getting there before the ladies which in my experience was normal.The beers came quite quickly. First of the ladies was an older version of a girl that I knew at school as Paula walked in and Chris said to her

“You must be Paula. What would you like to drink?”

Ofcourse I am and you are Chris. “I will have a glass of white wine please.”

It was not long before the rather small glass of wine arrived.

Next was Tina and Martin recognised her and bought her the requested half of cider shandy.

Eventually Sally walked in to make up the group and we found our table in the booked by me in the restaurant part of the pub. Chatting for a bit it turned out that none of us changed that much. The girls had all gone to the local FE college and completed either secretarial or nursing qualifications and all ending up in Bicester Royal Hospital where Paula was head of nursing in the A&E Department and Sally usually worked the nightshift wherever most needed. The boys were all in straightforward manual jobs from Martin a permanent builder by trade but now running his own business which was apparently doing quite well as everyone wanted to upgrade their houses with prices going through the roof and so take advantage of the sky rocketing housing market , through to me at my beloved job managing a team, including Tim, running the local narrow gauge railway all of eleven miles long through to the coast eventually scenic all the way along which was famed for its friendliness which when mentioned by me was confirmed by all the ladies each of whom had travelled on it from one end to the other and Tina had even tweeted about her experience and the others had shared her tweet to every other branch of social media.

After we had finished eating and were relaxing with post dinner drinks in the pub part of the building, Paula said

“That was loads of fun, especially the boys or should I say means you have mostly grown up a bit by now?. Let’s try and do it again unless any of us has another half who should not be hearing about old friends. It turned out that none of us were married or attached to a long term partner.” So we agreed that once a month at the same time in the Kings Head Restaurant was a very good idea. I decided that I would not mention an affair that I had shortly after leaving university. Louisa was a rotund blonde from South Africa who insisted that I came over to South Africa and meet her parents as well as doing a safari in Kruger National Park and enjoying the sights of Cape Town as well as the tastes of the Stellenbosch wine area not far away from where her parents lived. They appeared to accept me as a potential suitor for their daughter but I never popped the question and that was fifteen years previously,therefore not relevant for the old friends.

Sally and I met each other more frequently and it wasn’t too much longer before we recognised that the chance meeting at Mr. Shah’s was a meeting sent from heaven or somewhere else on high.

By the end of the following year Paula and Chris were married, Tina and Martin were engaged and at the last dinner of the year Sally and I decided that we would tell the others that we would be living together, mostly at her house, although that might change from to time depending on how much she liked my homemade cake, but we would be avoiding Mr. Shah’s or at least looking in carefully before entering.