So last night I got to go enjoy a birthday bbq.... and today, it was Christmas again :o) Complete with tree, presents and almost Christmas dinner ..... well posh Sunday roast, in my case just lots of veg!.... oh and me making cakes at 6.30 am....
And the reason for this? Well, you know the six degrees of separation game? There's a version you can play which involves meeting people when travelling across the globe that come from the city I live in... and this story starts with my sister, newly graduated with a degree in politics and a job working for a large international aid relief charity... for which she was posted to the Dominican Republic (she worked for them for about 8 years in various locations around the globe - including Columbia, Haiti, Bangladesh & Bangkok... and for this reason she hates going through airports in the USA as the customs people take one look at her passport and haul her off to search her... sorry I digress)... anyway, she was set up with a flat share with someone she'd never met before (we shall call her Mary) and was working for a similar type of charity... and this person turned out to be from Sheffield too.... they got on like a house on fire and shared the house for about 3 years before floating off to different parts of the world (they have some very interesting tales of their time, some of which kind of make your hair stand on end but I guess that's just the conditions they were working in)
Some years later they both returned home, my sister first, and then Mary... both lodged with my mother till they bought their own houses and found jobs doing slightly less life and limb endangering work. Last year Mary got wanderlust again and applied for a job taking her overseas again.... and in August she flew out to the Solomon Islands to head up a project for a children's charity... she's contracted for 2 years and can only get back every six months... unfortunately she spent Christmas in hospital on her own in Australia having contracted malaria, so when she said she was back for a fortnight in Feb we decided to make it special.... oh and back to the six degrees of separation.. the husband and wife doctor team on the Solomon Islands that treated her, well they are from close by, but their son lives in my sister's street...
Now, I have to admit Mary and I haven't always got on... she came to Sheffield, stayed with mum, spent loads of time with my sister (and mum for that matter) whilst I was over in the wastelands on the other side of the country being carefully kept away from my family and any external friends ... When I returned I found it very difficult as it appeared that she was the elder daughter of the family and I was the interloping friend....... this may just have been my state of mind at the time and things have gradually improved as we've got to know one another.... but until she got the job overseas I was never really very comfortable with her... the distance has helped put a lot of things into perspective and we now e-mail each other frequently so it was really nice to see her today and catch up
I feel I have had a very busy and full weekend, which should have had a nice peaceful conclusion...... only I had an extra special klutz moment when caught my knicker elastic on the end of the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs and stumbled the last three steps before landing on my backside ....... I swear I need a minder at times!
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