The Gallery – Friendship….. English Mum

This weeks theme from Sticky Fingers is friendship …… so I give you one of my oldest, closest friends…

Most of the bloggers out there know English Mum as an icon in the blogosphere. A little bit daft, funny, smart, mother, family girl  and an all round good, decent Egg. I have nothing to add to that… you all know here very well. but …

I know her a little differently, in fact, I would say I know her better than most, and I have certainly known her longer than most. You see.. in the great words of Sister Sledge “We are Family” (we had a very drunken night singing that song all the way back from Kent.. which resulted in me being sick, Pernod n Black, all over a white car.. with my friends Dad, sitting in the car.. sorry Donna x)

We grew up together, shared many Christmases together, summers together, winters sledging together. As we grew, we were very lucky to remain close. We even ended up living for about 2-3 months together… Thats was a little strange, esp as I fell in love with her best mate, (the feeling was never return btw), and she was experiencing the traumas of coming out of a marriage .. but we were close, and we had a lot of laughs. We shared some ‘interesting’ nights on Karaoke, always shared the love of our family, wonderful Grandparents, parents and of course siblings .. Wow.. we are very lucky !

Even with me moving away to the USA, and her adventure into Ireland, we remained close, and bizarrely, her blog bought even closer. We talk a fair amount, not about much, and I am great friends with her Hubby. We were always good friends from our days of playing football together, and generally getting lashed a lot !

Her Children are just fantastic. They don’t see me very often, but they are always ready with a hug, and they seemed to think I am little daft, and that’s cool by me. She always says she is not a great mother… and I do think she says ‘Fuck’ too much, but, to have two boys like she has.. well, she must be doing something right !

So, why have a decided to list EM as my friendship person ?.. Well, I am very lucky, I have a lot of friends, and I think I could easily written this post for about 10 of my great friends that I know will be there for me. I chose EM because she doesn’t often ‘big herself up’ (I think that’s what the kids say don’t they ?) and she should !

She has been there for me through a lot of things. She was there for me when my Dad died (bearing in mind she was coping with losing an Uncle). She was there as I went through a divorce. She was at my church as I married the wonderful Mrs M. She is similar to me. We are both emotional souls, and we are both devoted to our families. We laugh at the same stupid jokes, we can both insult each other that makes people gasp.. and we just laugh at the insult. She is genuine, and won’t just tell you what you want to hear.

Last year, on my way back from the USA to Slovakia, I was lucky enough to be able to call in on English Towers, and be part of their wedding celebrations. The thing I loved about this day was how she was honest about her ‘church’ and ‘religious’ views, discussed this openly, and made the whole day about fun, love and her love of her boys, hubby and friends. It was a great day, and her smile on those days was pure and filled with happiness as it should be.

What else can I tell you about EM that you bloggers don’t already know ….. Well, her friendship will last. It has lasted for me for 39 yrs now, and when we go back home in June for a week, one of the first doors I will be knocking on to show off our baby bump, and to add to our growing EM/Moon family.. will be hers.

and we always say “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose you family” … I got lucky on both !

She cries a lot too … probably is now …………