Nurturing Friendships

Today I had lunch with a former colleague who left teaching 3 years ago when the government offered $50000 re-training allowances if people would leave. The time frame for departure was 2 weeks. I was interested but baulked at that timeframe. J didn't! She secretly filled out the forms, lodged them and was successful, so off she went! She has, in the time since, worked on and off  as an insurance assessor in New Zealand and worked on contracts in a number of private schools. The insurance job is taking all her time for most of this year as, sadly. NZ has had a number of disasters, especially the earthquakes and J said that there are 160 000 claims that have to be processed!

School holidays have always been busy for me in the 'lunching' scene. Every school I 've taught at, I've naturally made friends so as the years go by there are more friends that I'm trying to stay in touch with. The PE teacher at S. Heights has taught with me at a number of schools and she once said that she noticed how I 'nurtured' my friendships and how she thought it was lovely how I stayed in touch with people including some people she also knew. But she wasn't prepared to put in the effort needed to stay in touch. I've never really thought it a great effort to ring or text people occasionally to see how they are. Or send cards for significant birthdays. FaceBook makes it quite easy to do those sorts of things. But it's a 2 way street. Those old friendships are worth nurturing and there is nothing better than to reminicence with old friends or to 'bathe' in the warmth of their friendship when things go wrong in my life.

We lunched at Zarraffa's at Arana Hills today

I plan to have more of the 'catch ups' here at my place as I love to cook. In fact originally we did go to each others houses but gradually by the early 90s we always met in coffee shops and cafes. Maybe it's time to turn back the clock!
I'll finish this post with something completely random...my friend who has some relatives in the US went to post the usual homecooked Plum Pudding to her aunt in California. Australia Post now has imposed a $9 surcharge on all parcels going to the US. That's ridiculous! I like to send little surprises to my friend in Oregon, that $9 will make postage/shipping prohibitive! Bah humbug! I was also planning to get involved with swaps through certain forums and blogs; I guess I'll have to stick with Aussie swap partners!