Pushing the Boat Out

Sue, Sally, and Brian the Baker (a trimmer, friendlier lookalike than another baker what I know about....)

“Little-While Friends”
When Emily and Harriet were young they had a picture book that featured a story about “little-while friends.” It was (I remember) a charming story that made sense of the phenomenon we all know – people you meet (whatever your age) who are excellent friends but only for a short time, probably because of geography or circumstances or because of something that happens that catapults you apart forever.

Little-while friends - and the bromance I imagined (for 1 day) between me and Physics Phil!

Physics Phil
I remember spending the whole of my first day at university with Physics student Phil who I met randomly in a queue at registration. For the rest of the day we walked about the campus, ate, drank, chatted, drank more; we stuck together through the evening and got drunk and drunker, swore undying friendship, swapped numbers, talked about going on holiday together – and went our separate ways without making a specific arrangement. I saw him only one more time. Three years later. One Winter night. In the crowded student union bar. We recognised each other immediately. He exclaimed “Tony.” I exclaimed “Phil.” And we went back to the friends we’d come in with. We gave each other a look that recognised that we were Friends For One Day Only, desparate not to be alone on our first day away from home. Whatever happened to good old Phil? The ultimate “little while friend.”

Blood Ties with a preview of.... a DNA-inspired Nick-Shelton-designed symbol from Rhenium Tales

Blood Ties
Family, of course, we never choose. They’re blood. They’re forever. They’re part of you whoever you are, wherever you go and whatever you do. The DNA of your family connect you to a group of other humans, alive, dead and even those yet to be born…. and they’re permanently part of you. There’s a theory that we’re all connected genetically to our first parents – our prehistoric ancestors – or possibly to an original Mummy Eve and Daddy Adam….

Breaking bread with Adam and Eve, pushing the boat out for Labour....

Horses for courses
Unlike family, you find yourself choosing friends, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, for example:

• sitting or playing next to you in the classroom or playground
• living next door, on your street, in your town
• bumping into you in a pub, club or party
• meeting you through friends or the friendship of your children
• studying the same course as you
• working with you in your workplace
• helping you through a crisis
• sharing a hobby, sport or interest

And sometimes the friends you meet are for a “little while,” a short time, a longer time, or a lifetime. The main pictures in this blog are from a recent visit with Sue and Brian. They’re lifetime friends. Sally and Sue were born within days of each other and grew up friends on the same street in Bradford.

Sue and Brian, a lovely meal in York, pushing the boat out in more ways than one....

Pushing the Boat Out
This old phrase is one of my favourites – literally it started in nautical circles meaning to help sailors launch a boat as an act of community and friendship – metaphorically it originally meant to buy a round of drinks – or, more typically now, it means to spend more generously than you usually do:

Do you want sausages?

No, let’s push the boat out, let’s have steak!

Sue and Brian push the boat out whenever we meet them. Not in terms of giving us steak, but in terms of generously giving themselves and expecting the best of us. Chatting with them is like chatting with The Meaning Of Life. (Or The Meaning Of Life as I know it…. by that I mean that our chats veer between the silly and the profound. One minute we might be discussing the beauty or the horror of scrambled eggs and the next minute we might be discussing the value or confusion of religion. Moving from one to the other feels natural with lifetime friends.)

Pushing out the boat on the taste buds....

Showing your ugly
If someone has been in your life for a long time, inevitably you’ll know a good number of each other’s joys and sorrows, triumphs and disasters, and many giggles and hiccups in between. I suppose the sign of a good friend is that you can show them your ugly…. reveal your worst side…. admit your shames…. knowing that they’ll take the bad with the good, knowing that they’ll not judge, knowing that between you, when all else fails, you can push the boat out together. Here’s to pushing the boat out….

And in more news I was Slimmer of the Month (and Week) at the end of January....! Time to push the boat out....