Ladies who do lunch

What have I learned today?
That there are few things as great as the simple pleasure of spending time with people that you really like and who have been in your life for years!

Today, we converged on Dani's house on the outskirts of London, for a meeting between four longstanding (not old!) friends. Three of us are blippers - me, Lisa (far right) and Nic(on the far left). Dani's youngest, who you have met before, got in on the photo act.

When Dani picked me up from the station at Blackhorse Road (E17, near Walthamstow Dog track - which is being pulled down apparently), Sam was in the car - he greeted me with "the sheep scared me" and all the way back to Dani's talked about the police coming to arrest the sheep. If you have a look at the link, this will all make sense!

We all went to high school together. Nic and Lisa went to primary together. Me, Dani and Nic stayed on in Sixth form together. As a group, we have not been together in the same room since 1989! However, through the joys of social networking and blipfoto, we have been back in touch for a while now and when we figured out that we were all in the country at the same time, a plan was hatched for us all to meet up. There has been a flurry of texts, emails and suchlike ...possibly with all of us wondering if it would actually happen...and then today it did.

In a really good way, it was like putting a really comfy pair of pyjamas on and settling down for the afternoon. No uncomfortable silences, the 21 years between us being together seeming to melt away in the blink of an eye.

There's been tea, sparkling wine, lovely food, lots of coffee and chat chat chat. It has made me positively joyful. So many commonalities and so many differences in terms of our lives and our experiences. I'm not really a 'girly' girl, and I have never been one for this sort of afternoon, but really, it was utterly perfect. It was hard to come away and know that it will probably be a while until we do the same again.

So, thank you ladies for an afternoon that I will treasure for all of the laughs but some poignant moments too. Thank you Dani for opening up your spectacularly beautiful home to us and for feeding and watering us so generously. To Nic and Lisa - I'm so glad that you both found me and followed me here, and eventually joined the fun.

As Dani said - let's not leave it another 20 years eh?!

(Apologies to Nic for not being on the thumbnail...no offence intended!)