OLD FRIENDS

Recently I’ve been reminded about the importance and huge benefits of having good friends. As one gets older, they seem to appreciate in worth and significance in very many ways…
For instance, they are people to call up when you feel like a chat, people to give a helpful hand, word or listening ear, correspondents, and most especially, companions to share the ups and down encountered along life’s journey – all crucial to our physical and mental well being.
It’s a while since I added a poem to my Blog, and this is one I wrote a few years ago in France when the relevance and value of ‘old friends’ suddenly struck me afresh.

It’s nice to keep up with old friends along life’s path of twists and bends,
you don’t have to act or even pretend…
they’re just there for you, like comfortable chairs –
ready to absorb, listen or share in both joys and despairs.
Some people make best friends at school, or even before;
for others it’s when you leave the nest and start to explore –
a chance meeting, a strange place, catch and eye and see a face:
mutual smiles and exchanges, the ability to see the funny side,
an instinctive pairing takes place, no credit history or c.v. necessary or supplied.
Can friends be husbands, sisters, brothers?
Aunts or Uncles, fathers, mothers?
Or is this impossible, impractical and inappropriate?
Perhaps friends are something different, unrelated and quite separate…
while others wander on and off the stage of life,
a good friend sticks by you, through happy times and strife..
and when you get the call to some far distant shore –
I’m sure there’ll be an old friend around to break that final fall.

I have it in mind to run a short series on Instagram (pariscelia_author) after Christmas, and here are a few French farmyard friends I shall be featuring:-

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