New Friends. And Foes.



I am one of those people who takes against new folk. I don’t know why, but i am fully comfortable thinking that my friends are great, so why would I need any new ones? ( i do understand that this opens me up to criticism, but is just the way I am. Rather like a grumpy old man). My favourite, bestest one has been in my life since the age of two, and this proves my point that new people are completely unnecessary. There are six of us who will end up as grumpy old ladies, meeting once a week for mugs of steaming hot tea and remarking on who has died, or pondering why the postman insist on walking across the lawn instead of using the perfectly good path. This sounds amusing, but in our twenties, we regularly meet for glasses of wine and remark on who is getting married or is pregnant, so this comment is not just pie in the sky, but the way it will be.

So i am shocked that I have acquired a new one. On day one at my new job, I wasn’t sure of her, and it seems, nor was she of me (which was the first sign that we would be firm friends, as we seem to have the same judgemental affliction) yet we have since discovered we are very similar and have moulded, like a comfy sofa, into allies.

My Geordie is just like me. We have a joint disgust for screechy girls, and are both really ineffective with tears. A colleague was crying the other day, and i turned to her and asked if i should go and see if she was OK, or leave her to it. A sensible question I felt, as I am very un-girly in teary matters, and didn’t have a clue. She looked at me and said “what the hell are you asking me for? Why do you think i would know?” Ta for the help, pet!

The difference is the cultural divide. She is from ‘Oop North’ (distinguished by the fact that not only is she from further North than Greenwich, but Newcastle, which is nearly as north as Norway, in geographical terms) so is basically a little odd. For example, she regularly raves on about pease pudding, described as a mush made of yellow peas, which you have cold and spread on bread as a sandwich filling. Like i said, she’s a special one.

So I have managed to accidentally gain another friend. Oh bother. But this is good news, as I have another person in the world who doesn’t think my opinions are slightly weird, or chastise me for saying the first thing that pops into my head. This was challenged the other day when watching TV, and I turned to her and said “do you think that woman looks like a midget, but full sized?” I immediately regretted this, as it wasn’t the most PC thing I could have said, so was relieved that after pondering it for a few seconds, she replied “yeah, she does actually”. Phew.

And another great thing about gaining a Geordie, is she comes fully accompanied, like Barbie with Ken, with a Dave (or a house elf, as I am not allowed to call him> He prefers man slave). That Dave is a culinary marvel, archiving portions of dinner for our lunches. On my visit last week, we got back to their flat from work, and were met with pots of guacamole, and chips. Hello?! Amazing. I thought it had been a joke when Geordie had asked me for dinner requests the day before, and I had said if he wasn’t fully capable of doing one of those birds in a bird in a bird numbers, dips and chips would suffice. Well, dinner was a Mexican delight, full of spatchcock chicken (which i thought was a brand of chicken rather than a cooking method), yellow rice and fancy bits. MMMmmmmmm!

So as well as gaining a friend, I have also gained a full belly, aching tummy muscles from the laughter and a new knowledge of a different culture (hahaha). Result!!