OK – a fairly (oh alright then - totally) crappy photo……

My student friends are wonderful – I was so worried about not being able to fit in with them all given my (great) age but after a few false starts, I found myself a lovely crowd of peeps who are all very happy to share time with me.

I found myself in the depths of despair when Archie died and my student friends rallied round me, dispensing kind words, hugs and general kind support. I leaned on them all heavily, both in the couple of days leading up to his death (after we’d made the decision it was time for him to go) and in the days afterwards when grief mingled with relief and guilt in my heart. I’d arrive at Uni with a strained look on my face and at the first sign of needing to hold a conversation, my face would crumple and I’d end up in floods of tears. No-one avoided me, no-one looked as though they wished I’d take my tears elsewhere……. they came out in full support and helped me through it all.

I tried to repay their kindness by giving tutorials to struggling students to help them through their stats exam – it’s (stats) something that I know well and they were struggling so in between lectures we’d go off and find a quiet room where I’d help them to get their heads round means, medians and probabilities.

Today though, the sorrows are for a burning love that died before its time. One of my friends had a face like a wet weekend when I went in today. The misery was the result of a broken love affair that, it appears, has no hope of recovery. So, in the time-honoured tradition, we retreated to the Students Union bar and helped our friend to drown sorrows.

It’s weird how the ups and downs of life mean that we’re rarely all down at once or all up at once. (Except when we’re going into exams – then we’re all terrified at once.) It’s nice that we are all able to support one another when we fall foul of life’s trials and tribulations.