I’m having another go at Abi’s clever idea.
The last time* I had short hair. Mistaken for a boy twice in one day. It’s been long ever since.
*Meeting the wonderful Una Stubbs, as Aunt Sally, in the summer of ‘81. Loving that the photo has rounded corners.
Here we are again, on the first Sunday of the month. Which means it must be time to join Sian From High in the Sky with a little something we treasure.
I pulled out this pencil sketch a couple of months ago, to show my daughter, who was drawing portraits for her Art homework. I was reminded of it again when I stayed with my best friend from Uni last weekend. We drank red wine and reminisced and the years just melted away. Friends like that are the most precious kind.
The paper is wrinkled and a little discoloured now, but the lines remain strong. It was drawn around this time of year, when we had not long moved into a house together, along with three other girls. We had all lived in halls prior to that and it was fun settling into our first proper house and making it home.
Five was the perfect number and we each took a week night to cook for everyone. Three of us were vegetarians and The Cranks Recipe Book became my new best friend. I learnt a lot about cooking on a budget in those first months and it was lovely to sit together around the table, after a day of lectures, sharing a meal.
On Saturdays, when it was my turn, I would cycle down Withycombe Village Road and come back with a basket full of paper wrapped chips. There’d be thick slices of white bread, generously buttered and plenty of tomato ketchup, waiting to be made into big fat chip butties. Happy days.
Three of us are still in touch, twenty five years after we first met and I couldn’t have wished for better friends to share those first years away from home.
