Distractions

Summer School
Theresa and John had first met way back in the nineties when they were doing their degrees with the Open University. They were both doing the foundation course of a Humanities BA, and were at the summer school being run on the Reading campus. They actually met in the bar after the first day, but, unbeknownst to them, their paths had crossed the day before on their arrival. They had both arrived on the same train into Paddington, disembarking at Reading, and probably walked out of the station to find a taxi within yards, if not feet, of one another. It was one of those crazy accidental meetings, John had stepped on Theresa’s foot when he went to the bar, and offered to buy her drink by way of an apology. She accepted his apology and they chatted for a while. Over the course of the week that the summer school ran they became firm friends, and only friends. Unlike so many of the other participants they didn’t end up shagging each other. They shared a taxi back to Reading station after all was finished, and discovered that they were going to be on the same train. They found two seats together that hadn’t been booked and sat together. This was the point at which they decided to keep in touch exchanging addresses and phone numbers.

They did keep in touch, and discussed which course they were going to do next each year. After a couple of years they became something of a mutual support group all of their own. They didn’t actually manage to get to another summer school together for several years due to many work issues intervening. It was only when doing their final course, Philosophy of Art, that they finally got together again at the summer school, held on the Queen Mary campus at Mile End. Again they spent as much time as possible together, both during the day and in the bar in the evenings. To say that this caused some speculation among the other students would be an understatement, as it was generally accepted that Theresa and John were ‘an item’. This of course was just so much rubbish, they had become good, and firm, friends over the years, but no more than that. They both came away with a third, but didn’t go to a graduation ceremony. Instead they got together in Exeter, abut halfway between them, with their respective spouses to celebrate their, as they saw it, mutual failure.

They continued to keep regular contact but over the years it became more sporadic, less frequent. That is until both had decided to do a second OU degree. They had both, unbeknown to the other, decided to give an OU degree another try. The first they knew that the other had also embarked upon the process was when they found each other in the same Tutor group forum. Not only that but living in the same city - Edinburgh. When they had first met he was in Cornwall, and she in Taunton. Somehow life, or maybe the gods, had conspired to move them north. It wasn't a conscious decision on either part just a bunch of circumstances. She getting a new job, and he getting bored with life and looking for something different. Whilst she had made the immediate move, he had ended up in Edinburgh via York and Leeds. He had noticed something on the forum that struck him as familiar, then he spotted the name. They were both doing a second level course - Creative Writing. He left a response on the piece she had written. Ten minutes later he had an email "So that you?" He had to smile, she just knew. But then they had that sort of connection. Maybe they should arrange to meet.

*To be developed*