Just the other night, before I fell asleep I was thinking that next year, it will have been a complete decade since I left school. Strange how time files and certain dates/years are significant in your life. I can remember my school days but those four years of secondary school feel like a universe away from where I am now and where I am heading. If I am honest, I am a completely different person from that child. While on placement, one of the secretaries commented to me that she has forgotten all about her time at school. There were no memories there left to recall. I hope when I grow up that I still will have a fondness for my secondary school (high school) days. (The best days of your life remember?) So you can imagine my surprise and joy at how events unfolded, quite unexpected this evening.

I was online, as I am most evenings. It was 6pm, I had been home for just over half an hour and I was chatting to some friends via MSN. They were winding down for the weekend and we were discussing each other’s plans for the next two days. My N73 was on the side but had been rung at least twice and I had a text message. You might not know (I am sure I have mentioned it on several occasions on this blog) but I keep all my phones on silent) I checked the missed calls around 6.45pm, they were local. The text message made me smile. It was a old school friend. Someone whom I had not spoken to or seen in nearly six years. In fact the last time I saw her, was at her wedding day. Can you believe it? Who is this mystery woman? It is Jennie Medford (nee Small). She was in my form back in Sir William Ramsay and we Form Captains in Year 9 (95-96). She had been trying to track me down for a long time and only now had got my number and got in touch. So much has happened in that time, Jennie has a toddler son, Aaron aged 2 and a half years! God, I feel old! Jennie came onto MSN and actually told me she still remembers the last conversation I had with her. “The last thing you said to me was you look really lovely Jen and look after yourself. You also told El (hubby) to look after me. That was on our wedding day and that’s was the last i heard or saw you.”

This heart warming episode got me thinking, am I really that difficult to track down? I have a blog (two in fact). I have numerous web sites. I have a profile on MySpace, FaceBook and Hi5 and even FriendsReunited. Enter either my full name or nickname into Google. I would even consider that I am one of the easiest (non celebrity) people to find if you were looking for me with just a few scraps of information. My mobile number has never changed in nearly ten years. I still live at the same address. I still work in the area although I suppose as I spent so little time in the town centre in the evening and at weekends, I am not known to many other people that have stuck around.

Nothing planned this weekend but that can sometimes be a blessing. One of the reasons is of course all the excitement of next weekend. I know it is far too early to even be contemplating the next working week but I am just looking forward to 5.15pm on Thursday 28th. I think once again, I will have to do some major preparation, but the main thing is MightyMouse has come in and confirmed his willingness to cash in a favour. I need to burn a CD of music for the trip and I am hoping I can make the round trip without listening to the same track twice. A feat once, which would only be possible in Hussein’s Fabia (and on board Empeg). You just do not know how hard it will be for me to keep the discipline to not hit the next track button on my Alpine stereo.