A bombshell!
Aside

It was meant to be a pleasant get together of us four friends, after one had had an angioplasty which will help her poorly leg and her mobility; just coffee and a few simple treats which MTL had bought specially. J had brought some twenties flapper clothes which she was handing over to a museum. I tried to put them on my model to photograph them but they were too tiny so we had to – rather unsuccessfully - pin them against the model.

We looked at photos of our family – now happily settled in Australia, with a new puppy for J and a horse for F, and remembered this would be the first Christmas for years MTL and I haven’t spent with them. Then M said she had something to tell us which we wouldn’t like: she and her husband had decided that the garden was too much for them and they had decided to sell up and move to another county to be within reach of two of their children. M was the glue which had bonded the four of us together, twenty odd years ago and has been a rock to us all.

By this time M was in bits and had difficulty in speaking whilst we just stared at her in disbelief. It sounds a perfectly reasonable thing to do but we had talked about this many times and all agreed we would stay put if at all possible, for many reasons; but then we never know what fate has in store and how that affects our ability to cope in our surroundings.

The way things, are nothing is going to happen quickly but meanwhile our local Italian has a special lunch time deal so, there a then, I booked a lunch date for the four of us whilst we are all still together.

‘They are not long – the days of wine and roses.’