27th April Bittersweet

 

Distances and time difference can make maintaining friendships difficult. Especially when the distance and time difference are literally as big as it's possible to get.  My friend Graeme lives in New Zealand, 12,000 miles away and 11, 12 or even sometimes 13 hours time differenec depanding on whether our respective clocks are being put forwards or backwards.

We met on line back during my time in Poynton (2013-18) and we were fortunate to be able to meet up several times when Graeme made trips across to the UK to visit distant family and friends. He is just lovely and despite his visits beign short and sweet we had a great time together.

Since then we kept in regular contact using Skype until its sudden demise on 5th May last year. Graeme switched to WhatsApp, I didn't switch to anything not having the requisite mobile phone at the time. Having resolved that issue just prior to my Camino adventure, we managed to re-establish contact but the past 6 months have been a real struggle to try to coordinate our days resulting in numerous missed calls and video attempts.

Last night we finally connected after a long six months which was both lovely and also bittersweet. Bittersweet mainly on account of Graeme's deteriorating health and mobility which seems to have come out of nowhere. He admitted that it was as much of a shock to him and had limited what he was now able to do. Thankfully he was still walking independently and is still able to drive but the change was noticable 

Given that he is almost 86 it should perhaps not be too much of a surprise but the swiftness of the change was a real mortality check. Thankfully we now seem to have worked out a system whereby I just ring him when I think he will be awake / there and if its conveinient then great, if its not then thats not a problem. Because being inconvenient in better than not being in touch at all