I wish I didn't have to do the housework.....where is that cleaning fairy? We are having the most perfect autumn day, there's not a cloud in the sky, the sun is shining, no wind and the temperature is around 25 Celsius. I might get to sit outside in the sun later this afternoon.
I realised that today is my best friend, Jans' birthday. Unfortunately she is no longer with us, having passed away in January 2004. We had been best friends for 28 years.
I have been sitting here recollecting the fun times we had. Jan, I and another friend Jacqui, (who is also no longer with us) had so many memorable times together. We were known as the "The Three J's" and where one was, another one was not too far away.
We loved our bingo nights, the casino, and having bar-b-ques with our families. Our sons played soccer at the same soccer club, we were on committees together and we could always rely on each other if we needed a babysitter. The many times we popped into each others houses just for coffee and a chat, how I miss those times.
Jan would ring me most days and when we finished talking she always ended the call with a joke. She had a knack of telling jokes and stories of her life in England where she grew up. She always had us in fits of laughter.
As she got older she developed diabetes and it took a heavy toll on her eyesight until in the end she lost both of her eyes. She wouldn't let me go out with her as I'd forget that she was blind and I would walk off and leave her standing there.
I'd suddenly realise that I left her behind when I'd be talking to her and she wouldn't answer. Or, if she was holding onto me I would walk through a doorway and she would smack her face on the glass door or the framework as the doorway wasn't big enough for the two of us. We would just double up with laughter.
I laugh about the time she fell over on the footpath and as we were both laughing so much she couldn't get up and I couldn't help her. An older couple came walking by and said.....'drunk again". Little did they know that neither of us drank. In the end her husband Ken and Tony had to come and lift her up. They were ahead of us talking and wondered where we were until they turned around and saw Jan on the ground.
Or the time when we had been to the Casino and coming home in the early hours of the morning I was stopped to do a breath test. It was my first time. I had to blow into the tube and ended up getting the giggles. That set Jan off.
Everytime the police officer asked me to blow into the tube I would start laughing as I could hear her giggling. He got pretty annoyed with me and so another officer had to come and get me to do it. I knew that I had to do the test or else they would hold me and take me to hospital for a blood test.
I am sure they thought they had a drunk driver. In the end I did the test and the result was 0.00. The officer looked at his machine and we are sure he thought that it must have been faulty. We laughed all the way home.
Another time was when we had all been to the Casino and had dinner there. On the menu was quail and so Jan took two of them home to trick her kids. They had two budgies as pets and when we dropped them off she asked us to take the budgies home. She put these two quail on a plate in the fridge and the next morning she was going to tell her kids that they were their pet birds and she had cooked them. Naturally, her kids were horrified when they saw them.
I could go on and on with stories about her. She was a great friend and I miss her. Jan, you will never be forgotten.
From the Lens............a perfect autumn day
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