A WONDERFUL START TO THE DAY

It really was a wonderful beginning to my day.  I was feeling a wee bit grotty as I'd had my annual 'flu injection yesterday and I always get a bit of a fluey feeling for several hours and a very sore arm.  Had gone back to half a dose a few years back but doctor and I decided a full dose was really the way to go so that is what I now have.  I have a pink egg-shaped lump on my arm (injection site) but that and all else was forgotten when MOH answered the phone and said it was for me.

It's quite a long story but will try to cut it short.   My lovely physiotherapist (Jenny) and I were chatting a few weeks back when she was treating some part of my body which was more painful that the rest and the conversation turned to families.  She mentioned that her mother's maiden name had been Moore and for some reason I said that I had gone to school back in 1944/45 with a Hilary Moore.  "Oh" said Jenny "my mum has a cousin Hilary".  Turned out her mum's cousin and the girl I went to school were one and the same person.

I had a small snap of my friend Hilary taken when she was about 14 which I gave to Jenny to show her mum.  She immediately confirmed it was a photograph of her cousin (she actually at first glance had thought it was a photo of herself so a family likeness there).

What should I now do?  Jenny provided me with Hilary's address (she is now living in a retirement village) and telephone number.  Wasn't sure about ringing as it would be something so "out of the blue" that it might not work out so I wrote (typed) a letter explaining who I am, where we went to school and other friends I remembered from that school.  I also explained how I had discovered where she lived etc. I posted the letter on 8th March and not having heard anything by 27th March I thought perhaps Hilary didn't wish to make contact with me and had more or less given up hope of hearing from her.

Today when she rang she explained she had to pluck up courage to make her call as she wasn't sure if she should ring or not but I was so delighted she did.  I explained that I had written instead of ringing her for that very same reason and hoped to hear back from her.  We talked for over 20 minutes and strangest of all we both discovered that neither of us had liked that particular school, actually really hated it and couldn't wait to leave.  I left a year before she did but that is another story about commercial college etc.

We discovered we had so much in common (we even both have type 2 diabetes) that we could have talked for hours.  Had even both gone to the same place for our honeymoons 'cos we didn't have a lot of money (my first honeymoon of course). Hilary is now a widow which is sad but she seems quite happy where she is living and has a loving family (she had 6 children....I just had 2) who, although busy, are very good to her which is great.

I am so hoping that we can keep in touch and enjoy more lovely chats about our lives over the intervening since years since we were at school together.  Who knows, perhaps we will actually get together before too long.  I am looking forward to that happening over the next few months.

It may sound silly but I'm still sort of walking on air.  Those of you who may have been reading my blogs about my childhood memories will have realised I'd never had the opportunity to gather friends along the way because of constantly moving around the suburbs and not living near the schools I attended, so to catch up with a long lost friend has been fantastic.