A nice surprise this week – an email from a friend in Germany, who found the blog in passing, and tracked me down to my work email address. What I like about this is that we met back in 1993, and despite not meeting up much since, emails and letters, off and on, have helped us keep up with each other.
Sometimes the world goes rattling ahead and we expect that nothing will stay the same. But he’s still a teacher, I’m still working with teachers (and aspiring ones), and all of a sudden you realise that quite a few things can stay the same. And it’s rather a nice feeling.
I also heard from a friend working abroad – who is taking the trouble to put up lots of nice pics on his blog of life in Asia. Having another friend living in the same country, it’s great to get more of a sense of what life is like there, with both of them in mind. Sometimes speed of change is good – how much easier is it to keep up with people, even after a gap, when it’s so quick and easy to find out how they are getting on, via emails, blogs and so on?
Today, it was time for a game of ‘oh, you know…X too’? A friend at work was showing pictures of his wedding, and we recognised that their photographer was probably related to someone I know from a completely different context. Admittedly, the longer you stay in Edinburgh, the easier it is to play this game, but it’s still nice when it happens, particularly when you’re also saying goodbyes to other people heading away from Edinburgh.
What also interests me here is that all these connections this week came through men – when it’s still probably assumed that women have the monopoly on keeping address books, remembering birthdays, and generally keeping communication flowing. Maybe these chaps are all in the New (Communicative) Man category.
But still, three cheers for continuity. Britain may be a bit hard pressed at the moment, what with difficult financial circumstances at so many different levels. It’s not the ‘Blitz spirit’. But it’s still welcome.