Fleeting Friendships

On Saturday I spent the day with my ex times 2.

It's been 15 years since we were a couple and, although there have been long periods of time when we haven't seen each other at all, we have always had the common bond of our son and our friendship. 

He is someone I always know I can call on.  Someone I know won't judge me. Someone who will always stand up for me even if I'm wrong and someone who only wants the best for me.  In return, I will always be there for him, he's not just an ex, he's family.

A day out on the hills to blow away the cobwebs and give the dog a change of scenery was just what I needed.  A distraction from the children being away and a break from routine.

There was also the added benefit of getting up close and personal with some Exmoor ponies  including a mare with her young foal.

All friendships change and evolve over time.  Some will stay with us forever, some are fleeting and leave us with happy memories and some, we come to realise, were never based on true friendship at all.


In my childhood I used to spend a week or two in the Summer at my Aunt and Uncles, sometimes on my own, sometimes with one of my sisters.

Aunty Peggy and Uncle Bill were really my Great Aunt and Uncle my mother being an only child.  They lived in a small village near the sea in South Devon just a few miles from our little village by the sea, but it meant a whole host of new friends to play with.

I remember, one summer,  a girl called Lucy.  She seemed to me to have everything.  I'm not sure why, maybe it was just that she was different to me. 

She was holidaying with her Father, her Mother having died the year before.  That was the first difference I suppose, Id never known anyone who's mother had died before. 

I grew up without my father and I was fascinated by their relationship. They shared a closeness that in my make believe world I could share with my own father. 

The second thing was that she convinced me that she had made friends with a Starling she called Smarty.  We used to stand in the late afternoon, before teatime watching the great clouds of Starlings wheeling overhead and she would call to Smarty.  Of course he never came but, being a child, I assumed it was because I was there. Had I not been I never doubted he would have swooped down and landed on her hand and they would have talked.  The thing is, I still truly believe that Lucy believed that too.

I don't know what happened to Lucy after that summer, I don't know if she remembers me or Smarty. I don't even remember saying goodbye .........