Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 November 2006 00:34:21
This evening I met up with an old school friend. We've been planning to do this for about 10 years, and all without the help of any sort of reunion website.
Way back in the dark ages we were very good friends at school. After leaving school, we stayed in touch for about 2 or 3 years, during which time we shared a police cell together. (I'm not going into that one now. If anyone reading this knew me at the time, or heard the Best Man's speech at my wedding will already know all about the incident involving the garden gate and the minibus from the Pentecostal Church). Well, we started growing up. I was into Hospital Radio, he formed a band. I was very actively involved at church, he became absorbed into his father's piano building business and we'd both discovered the opposite sex. Meeting for a beer once a week gradually turned to once a month and slowly became so infrequent that by the time we were 21 we'd pretty much lost touch with each other.
About 10 years ago, I happened to run into somebody else who I'd been at school with and who I hadn't seen for years. While reminiscing, I asked if he had any idea what had happened to R. “Oh yeah, he's got his own shop in...” and he gave me the full address.
R had branched out on his own, but still under the old family business name, and opened his own piano shop. One Saturday morning, I turned up at the shop with the intention of pretending to be a shoplifter and try to sneak a piano out under my coat. Unfortunately, this joke fell flat before I had a chance to try it out, because he recognised me the moment I walked into the shop, which quite impressed me, as we hadn't seen each other in over 10 years.
Anyway, we stood in the shop and had a chat about old times. As I left we both agreed it would be a great idea to meet for a pint sometime.
Well, we spoke on the phone a couple of time but we never did get to meet up for a pint.
Years passed. R's father retired and R took over running the family business. I went to America, came back again, fell in love, fell out of love, went to America again, came back from America, bought a car, wrecked the car, got made redundant, got another job, got given a company car which drowned after going through too deep a puddle, went to Peterborough, came back from Peterborough and finally got somewhere close to settling down by getting married.
About a year and a half into the marriage (Just over two years ago) we moved house. We had a Piano that needed moving, so I looked up R's company in the Yellow Pages and found they were still trading. Yes, he had a bloke who specialised in moving pianos. Yes, wouldn't it be brilliant to meet for a pint sometime.
Great idea but it didn't happen (but his bloke did move our piano for us)
A few months ago, having recently changed jobs I found myself working in the area where R's shop was. When I went to investigate, I found it locked up. The bloke who owns the sewing machine shop next door told me that R had ceased trading in order to look after his dad who is very ill, but if I were to phone the number on the shop sign, he was still picking up messages. I phoned and left a message and about an hour later. R phoned me back. We had a long chat and agreed it would be a great idea to go for a pint sometime.
Not much happened after that until we found we had to move again (see my last blog entry). Well, I knew that R wasn't working, but reckoned he'd still have the number of the bloke who'd moved the piano for us the previous time we'd moved. I phoned him, and he did. We both said how brilliant it would be to meet for a pint.
Well, some 10 years after we first mentioned it, it happened this evening. A very pleasant evening it was too. This blog entry has gone on far too long, so I'll write about it in my next entry.