Friendship Friday

Today it is Jane's turn to inspire us for the blogging challenge. Her challenge is this...
Today I'd like you to tell us about your oldest friend (not the oldest in years but the friend you have had the longest !!). Do you still have friends from school that you keep in touch with regularly? neighbourhood children you played with in your street? - have you lost touch with all your childhood friends over the years or are they still a part of your life?

With this in mind I went searching for photos as that always adds to these entries. I was thinking that unlike Jane I don't have any friends from my primary/elementary school days nor from High School and  then I remembered our get together of the neighbourhood "kids".

In August last year when I was back in Australia Maggie and Sandra and Michele organized a get together of the street of our childhood's kids. At a previous get together  Cheryl drew and we all added to a map of where the kids lived in our corner of the universe- four or five short streets that interconnected and met ....  from our perspective. Alan got it reproduced for us and here is our napkin map complete with dogs and special places.

The lunch at Maggie'st was a great day and both Michele and I blogged about it at the time. 

Cheryl lived next door and she is 6 months younger than me and was my friend and Sandra her sister was my sister Michele's friend. I have no idea when we started playing together but it must have been in the cradle as both our families built the houses next door at around the same time. When I say built I mean that our fathers did the building- my dad was a teacher and her dad was a ??? definitely not builders but that is our  houses were built in the early 1950's in suburban Melbourne.

From left to right- Maggie (serving) Alan (partial view!) Cheryl, Michele and Sandra

Cheryl and I would play together and visit each other's houses. So much so that Cheryls dad built a ladder on the fence so we could climb over more easily and not have to go "the long way round" via the front gates.

We didn't go to school together- she went to the local  primary school and I went to a school in Mentone, a bus ride away. The she went to a secondary school a bus ride away and I went to the local high school. Weekends were when we were together often. But grew apart when we took on training and work. It is only in recent times that we have seen each other again and talked about the great play times we had as kids.

It is interesting that friendship was the theme for today because I used the friends I have today to help me cope with some frustrations- they were there when I needed to dump my frustrations- merely an email away. Ain't technology grand! Perhaps I should write about how technology has become my greatest friend or perhaps merely the conduit through which friendships are developed and maintained.

Friday night also have a friendship focus when the gang meets up for a debrief of the week in a bar or restaurant. (A fine Australian teacher tradition!) This week it was margaritas at Grand Central and our friend Umberto the bar tender had our mix of margaritas in our hands even before we had the time 

to take off our coats.