Thursday, July 28, 2005

Friends like these

In the gym on Monday morning (another story) my iPod maintained its Kokomo and Clash fixation before finally choosing to play Snooks by Elbow;

Stuff was started
Things had ends
Stuff regarding all my friends
Some were married
All were fine
These are good friends these are mine

As I sprayed those around me with sweat and snot (why am I the only one?) I mused my fleeting weekend. The first time in two years everyone had been in the same place at the same time; from the moment Jo and Brian landed from Sydney on Friday afternoon until Katie and James departed for Melbourne on Sunday evening.

Willy and Leo’s wedding was a gently stylish affair. Sometimes with weddings you get to a point at the end of the evening when you’re too drunk, tired, exhausted or bored to keep going, but not this time. The ceilidh was frenetic, swinging the bride’s mother at 120rpm desperately trying not to fling her into the fiddle player with a beard the size of a nuclear winter. This was balanced against the serene surrounds of Ashfold School, sitting wearing balloon sculpture hats talking about Girl Guides and Hogwarts, the band apologising to the DJs (us) about the music they were about to play ‘oh yeah we don’t normally play this kind of stuff, it’s just a one off for the wedding’ and vice versa . I’m sure you can get bored of a cheese and crackers buffet, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. I could have lived there forever, cocooned from a world increasingly becoming a straight to DVD spin-off of 24.

Stuff is started, things had ends… conversations babble and blend about nothing and everything, about forthcoming children and existing mortgages, how to give a urine sample in three equal parts and how to make money from throwing people in the sea.

Blob, gloop, blob… a fluid interaction without edges or seams … Despite the time lags, everyone just gels back together as though continuing conversations held yesterday. …these are good friends, these are mine.

As suddenly as it began, it ended and the world and its woes returned. “…Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego baby why don't we go…”

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