I have heard people describe their friends as ‘The Net’. Basically ‘The Net’ is the group of friends who celebrate the happy times with you but are also there to catch you when you fall, when you are sad and when you feel pain. So last weekend we met up with some of our ‘Net’. Jez will write about the weekend’s activities and all the fun that happened over the weekend, but I am going to simply write about ‘The Net’ – my group of friends.
Like most thirtysomething year olds I am fortunate enough to be part of a variety of ‘Nets’. I have got different groups of friends – friends that I have made through work, through having children of similar age, through clubs, through church, through university, through family. Some of these friends that make up my ‘Net’ are new friends, some are old friends, some of my ‘Net’ I see every day, some of my ‘Net’ I rarely see but know that they will always be there, some of the friendships have strengthened over time and some friendships within my ‘Net’ are transient.
In November last year when Archie was born I needed my ‘Net’ more than I had ever needed it before and it was all that I could have hoped for. When Archie was born I simply felt shaken and I questioned everything. My ‘Net’ supported me through the first few weeks of coming to terms with Archie’s diagnosis. Support came through text messages when I just couldn’t speak, through hospital visits, cards, help with my boys, meals hidden under the trailer on our drive, tidying our house, doing the washing and ironing. All these small things combined to make the net strong and soft and comforting as I became ready to step out on this (at times painful, but enlightening) new journey. Today my ‘Net’ continues to be there, not in the in-your-face way that it was in November, but in a quiet way and I know it is there.
I know that at some point in our lives we will all need our ‘Net’ to catch us and help us to bounce back up again and to know that if the net is needed it will be ready. I have had the privilege of being caught by my strong, capable ‘Net’ and to feel its support and I hope that in the future if and when one of my ‘Net’ needs to be caught I will be there – be it visits to hospital, funerals, parties, weddings, christenings, through phonecalls, text messages or hugs. I want to make sure that I am there for all of my friends to celebrate the happy, successful times and to provide help, love and support during the sad, challenging and painful times.
So on Friday afternoon I got together with some of my oldest friends from my ‘net’ – Leah, Kink and Jo all arrived having travelled from their respective homes to Christchurch. I lived with these girls (or ladies as I suppose we now are) whilst at university; in a wonderful little terraced house in Exeter, 82 Park Road in 1998. We had so much fun in this house – parties, drunk nights in, drunk nights out, dressing up in ridiculous costumes – superheroes, christmas trees to name a few, tank top tours, 21st birthday parties and I have many fond memories of our time spent there whilst we went about gaining our professional teaching qualification!
In reality it was a pokey, cold little house with mould in the upstairs bedroom and we spent lots of time contemplating whether or not our house was cursed as for the first four months of living in it none of us even got a kiss on a night out! But we did love our time there and I remember it very clearly as it was the place I first properly introduced Jez to my friends. In true Jez fashion he broke the light-pull in the bathroom, poured orange juice on my bed, nearly fell down the stairs and spent far too long harassing Kink to find out if she thought I liked him! So, 82 Park Road provided the back drop for many happy memories and was the place where I properly made my friendship with Leah, Kink and Jo. The only person missing from this weekend was lovely Emma G who now lives in Australia with her lovely husband Paul and their two equally lovely children.
How things have changed – thirteen years on we are all married and all have children – in fact twelve children between us – and we all live our own individual lives in different parts of the country, we no longer know every detail about each other’s lives, we no longer sit around on Saturday mornings till way after lunchtime discussing, giggling and analysing the events of Friday night’s Bop, we drink less and eat much healthier food, our clothes are less crazy and our make up less bright. Essentially, we are very different from then, but also share a common history and so when we get together it is FAB!
thirteen years later!
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So, much laughter and fun was enjoyed at our night out to ‘The Boathouse’ in Christchurch followed by drinks at the ‘Captain’s Club’. It all seems a long way (and probably quite rightly so) from the days of dancing and quite often falling over at nights out at Boxes, Roccoco, Time Piece and at The Lemmy; downing bottles of hooch which made your teeth hurt the next day due to the excessive amounts of sugar, drunken walks home where we shared a loaf of bread from the baker at 3am (goodness knows what he thought when we used to knock on the door and he was met by us dressed in all our fancy dress finery) and our trips home with Mr TD where we would spend the entire journey asking the taxi driver if he knew what Mr TD stood for (Mr Taxi Driver in case you are wondering!). Things have changed hugely – we talked about babies, birth stories, breast feeding, husbands, children, work and lots of other grown up things but as always this was balanced and combined with laughter, silliness, positive energy, support, honesty and a level of comfiness which comes when you are with real, true, old friends. And I am sure, when the time is right we will also have one of our more crazy, wine filled nights out, when we spend hours giggling about ridiculous things and it will be equally as much fun.
And for the record on Saturday morning it was Leah and I who were up first, doing the kid’s breakfast!
So this blog post is simple – it is here to remind me and anyone who reads it to be grateful, to celebrate and be proud of your ‘Net’ of friends. I feel so privileged to have my ‘Net’. It consists of many different but strong, humorous, inspirational people who bring so much to my life and my family’s life and I am very grateful.
Have fun with your ‘Net’! I have just read a quote in Elle Decoration (one of my favourite magazines mainly because I like the pictures in it) by Dr Elaine Duncan, senior psychology lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University. She says that ‘Writing about things you’re grateful for is likely to encourage positive emotion’ so I am now going to ride on this positive emotion and go tackle the weeds that have sprouted in our front garden even though the sky is grey and it looks like rain is threatening.
The boys however will be ok as they have created a brilliant shelter with space for them and just a few of their toys which have been forced out into the cold.
