Thank you all again for your kind words. It's good to know I can come onto GN and share a little of my issues. The friends whom I would normally have a good chat with are part of the current problem, dd1 makes comforting noises, dd2 is of the brusque 'man up' variety and ds is up to the eyes with work and small children. DIL is very kind but in same position as ds-apart from which there's only so much you want to share with family. I shall adopt that mantra-it's so true, nothing stays the same forever but I think I need to be proactive in sorting some things out.
The situation with my friends is bothering me, possibly if this was the only issue I had to deal with it might not figure so large, but at the moment it does. There are three of us who go back a very long way, have children of similar ages who were at school together and a shared interest in theatre. We used to meet fortnightly in a local hotel for dinner but that became difficult for various reasons so we changed to a weekly lunch. This has been going on for around 4 years, we don't necessarily stick rigidly to every week, life does get in the way sometimes. In the last 4 months, however, one or other of the other two has cancelled or rearranged almost every other week. They'll arrange to meet someone else later or have something delivered, so shoot in for an hour, throw a sandwich down and then off again. I, on the other hand, make no other arrangements for that day-I keep it free for them then I'm left sitting like a lemon. Sometimes they only tell me they're only there for a quick coffee when they get there (one is also usually late) We've not fallen out, no arguments, no nothing, but I'm starting to feel that I've slipped down their particular ladder and that they consider their time to be more important than mine. I have suggested that we cut down the frequency of our lunches but neither of them want to do that either. It's making me frustrated and unhappy and I don't want this to colour our longstanding friendships.
On a more cheerful note the play was absolutely fantastic! My friend and I were crying with laughter and left with sore faces! It really was a tonic. If you're interested have a look on YouTube, there's an 8 minute video of The Play That Goes Wrong at the Royal Variety performance. What made it even funnier was that we've both been involved in amdram for years and have had some similar experiences to those on the stage-just not all at once fortunately!
