Good Friends

From left to right: Mr C, Miss L, Mr L, Mr R and Miss E.
Today we went to Stowe for a last walk before Mrs C moves to Bath next week.
We've been so many times before and today was no different - ice creams before we set off because it was so ridiculously hot, moaning about walking down, getting the buggy to the gates instead, arguing about which way to go, climbing on - and into - the old tree stump, wandering slowly to the Secret Garden, whinging because big brothers and sisters wouldn't let them play, whinging because little brothers and sisters are annoying, disappearing and scaring their Mummies, pushing the "secret button" in the temple which takes them into another land, Miss E and Mr L taking themselves off into their own imaginary world with a focus and intensity that has been with them since they were tiny. They've never not known each other.
I'd worried it might be a bit sad knowing that it would soon be time to say goodbye to Mrs C but it wasn't, it was just like all the times we've spent together - chatting, moaning, interrupting each other, saying the same thing at the same time, making plans and laughing
We've been doing it for eight and a half years.
It was only at the moment of saying goodbye; having to actually say goodbye that it hit me. Such a constant in my life will be gone. 
And driving home - with tears pouring down my face - I realised just how much it has meant to me and how much I will miss it.
Obviously it's only Bath and not Outer Mongolia (Or Sydney.....) and we will visit and get together in the holidays and hopefully go on holidays together again, but it still makes me so sad. 
I'm rubbish at endings.