Twenty two

No, not a birthday. Not a house number, and certainly not the age of anyone in this photo. It is, however, just three weeks over twenty-two years since my I met my friend Marilyn on a Cursillo weekend in the monastery at Kinnoul, outside Perth, where I was a bemused participant and she my seemingly omniscient table-leader. We’ve been friends ever since; we’ve stayed with her and Fraser more times than I can count; we’ve gone on holidays together (of which more tomorrow) - we were staying with them when our first granddaughter was born and Fraser poured the champagne.

This is the first time we’ve stayed with them since before the pandemic; in that time they’ve moved house and we’ve all grown older. But we’ve sat talking (without anyone actually falling asleep) till almost midnight and laughed at the memory from probably twenty-one years ago of how I heard dimly through the fog of post-prandial slumber Fraser’s voice : “Aye - it’s like an old folks’ home here tonight!”

If you stick around for long enough…