Friends

Do you have good friends or as you age prefer your own company?

Not sure if it comes over on line but I like fun most of the time. Life is too short 

So I choose my friends carefully. Humour to me being the most important. 

Some people come into your lives and never leave. My friend Meryl runs a website over in Tenerife  and I thought hey up, I have not heard from here in a week or so, which is unusual, being particularly concerned as her hubby had been ill.

Living on a Spanish Island the link I give is typical of our day to day lives. Hope you enjoy.

She makes me smile and such a lovely lady 

She now has 2,000 emails to reply to in her inbox. Retirement eh 


 On 28th March, we lost our internet and it still wasn´t back the following morning. We gave up, did our shopping, and finally during the afternoon, had to phone Telefonica. Anyone who has done this knows how awful that can be, but we eventually got through and at 7.00pm, they sent an engineer to the house, as they could not find a fault on the line. He looked at our router and everything was flashing the way it should, except the ADSL light. He checked our landline that was working fine. After wandered into the village and checking the central telecoms box he finally returned saying ‘You don´t get your internet through Movistar’. We said we get our calls through UK Telecom but thought our internet came through Movistar/Telefonica. He shook his head and said ‘you have been cut of by your supplier – not us’.
It was now too late to phone anyone, so shortly after 9.00am the following day I phoned UK Telecom to find out why we had been disconnected. The German man who answered the phone spoke perfect English and I told him the problem. He agreed you have your line through us and are in credit but not your internet. I read him a letter from early 2012 offering us ADSL and he confirmed that was correct but we had never taken up the offer. If we had, our monthly bill would have been something in the region of €40 but they only take €25 as and when needed. Therefore, I was not paying them. As Telefonica said I was not paying them either, it would seem that for the past 5 years I have had free internet, and suddenly someone, somewhere realised and snip!
I asked UK Telecom to increase my payments and provide us with internet access, which they were happy to do, but the paperwork necessary to get it could take up to 4 weeks, it used to be 3 weeks but with all the extra fibre-optic work!!
So how do you live without the internet? It makes you realise just how dependent on it we are. No access to phone numbers, (I don´t use a mobile) no email, no newspapers and no telly. The most upsetting thing was being unable to wish my friend Carol, Happy Birthday and meet Alan to share his wife’s book on her experience of cancer.
The upside is all the jobs that were being put off because they were a bit boring are now completed, the ironing doesn’t hang around for more than a couple of hours and we have watched lots of DVDs we haven´t seen for years.
Once online, the first job is making paper copies of all those important phone numbers.

I don't have any regular friends other than relations and some Internet acquaintances and that's the way I like it best.
Friends are just an unnecessary drain on your emotions.

malcolm wrote:

I don't have any regular friends other than relations and some Internet acquaintances and that's the way I like it best.
Friends are just an unnecessary drain on your emotions.

And you wallet at times. 

malcolm wrote:

I don't have any regular friends other than relations and some Internet acquaintances and that's the way I like it best.
Friends are just an unnecessary drain on your emotions.

That's one of the saddest things I've ever heard.

 

he doesn't like friends - we're done for!

I liked your Mrs Brown version.............

I find most good friends are made while in a job, especially if in the same job for a long time and at the same place. My boss at Radio Rentals and some of my engineer colleagues were all my very good friends as well. However, although we might telephone each other from time to time, the closeness has gone.

Some of my neighbours are pretty good friends but will never be as close as the friends I had when working. I'm on pleasant terms with many people but my wife, family (and maybe someone down the pub) are the present day closest friends.

Some of mine come from schooldays.

I have made friends here too I suppose we are a support network as well as we are far away from family.

I have some lovely internet friends too, one I have met up with in Asia, lovely chap and has such a different prospective on life, so often ask advice.

People come into your life others go. 

I  found the most genuine friends are the ones who were so pleased for us when we emigrated and are still friends to this day.

It's up to the individual I think who they want or do not  in their lives.

I was an expat in the middle East and we made friends there. However, some were people you would probably not befriend if you were back home in the UK. Expats tend to congregate because it is easier.

Nah I do not.  I have a mixture of friends Spanish mostly. Couple of ex pats. 

I originally lived in a mostly Spanish area as I wanted to live amongst the  Canarian people. Not a little Britain.  I do have ex pat German and French mates too.

My old next door neighbours were from  Madrid so we congregated towards them as their family were still  in Madrid that is what I meant about support network. :;smile:

I have plenty of amiable friends locally but I have strong connections going back decades, even though I have not seen many of them. When I was travelling in the 60's I had a great mate who now lives in Norfolk although he was born and schooled in NZ. We watched each other's back's for several years but when we went our separate ways we didn't contact each other until the internet saved the day and now we have routine conversations. I have made contact with a few of my secondary school mates but nothing further back as I changed schools so frequently they just 'passed in the night'. Being an only child (also without any cousins) , a dad in the RN we were a very tight family but with lots of passing friends. I'm pretty happy the way things turned out.   :;smile:

In my little fishing village of around 700 souls just about everyone knows everyone.
All friends ? Certainly not. Although I believe that many of us are.

Fact is though, that when the chips are down, a family crisis, storm damage, illness, a fire - whatever ....
everyone pitches in. No questions asked.
Even if I wanted to borrow a tool or some cooking ingredient or even a car or a boat, I could get it in an eyeblink.

Just that renowned Australian 'mateship' I guess.