Time

 Five years - I began the last entry in this blog with a comment about the last five years. Well, guess what! It's actually seven. You see that is exactly what happens with age: time just travels more quickly (or at least appears to). 

A few years ago (please don't ask how many) I made a donation to Wikipedia. I must have been feeling flush and generous, but having sold that I do genuinely admire an organisation which provides (mostly) useful information and is not plagued by advertisements. To this day I get reminders of how grateful they were - and please could I make a further donation? 

Anyway, seven years ago (on 17/11/2017) I attended the funeral of a former nurse at St Bartholomew's hospital, Caroline Jackson, who had died of cancer at the age of approximately 63. I met her and a couple of her closest friends, Helen and Fiona, in 1973 at a nightclub in Stamford, Lincs., called 'The Riverside'. (Yes, it was indeed located by the river in Stamford.) All three were nursing at 'Barts', I was working at a bank in central London but staying at the 'YMCA' Barbican, just a stone's throw from St Bartholomew's Hospital. I was 'clubbing' in Stamford as I had gone home to stay with my parents, who lived close to Stamford, that particular weekend.

Of course we became good friends, frequented a local pub (now demolished), eventually drifted apart but, with the advent of the internet, found a way to re-unite.