I vividly remember the first time I met J. I was still working and on the notice board was a message about a book club if anyone wanted to join. I had been in a wonderful book-club at our local library in Oldham before we moved south, so I thought it might be a fine idea to get together with other bookish people. I didn’t know, but knew of the person who posted the message, a very elegant and stylish woman. I rang the given number and had a friendly conversation with someone who also worked in college. It sounded fun, the book was ‘On Chesil Beach’ by Ian McEwan; it was published in 2007 which dates when I first went to the book-club.
It was indeed a friendly group of people, the elegant person from college, the other college person who I vaguely remembered when I met her, and then several other women and one man. I sat on a settee, and another woman sat down and glanced at me with a friendly look. I smiled back and we said hello and she had such a twinkle in her eye that I just knew we would be friends. She reminded me of friends from when I was at school, a mischievous, funny, clever, interesting person. And do you know, I was right!
We have become great chums in the years since we met on Chesil Beach, our husbands both have names beginning with B and get on well with each other, mine is extremely tall, hers is somewhat shorter so they make a comical pair wandering along together, chuntering on to each other. Whenever we’re together we talk about all sorts of things and always end up laughing at some ridiculous thing or other. I went round for coffee today, and we sat, and chatted, and gossiped, and I took my featured image from her back doorstep.
Lois Elsden 