Friendship

How do you make friend's when you're older?

Random question I know. But valid I feel.

When you're young it's easy. You go to school, college, university and make FRIENDS. Most will then stick by your side for life, like my old school friend Erica for instance we met when we were 11 and have stayed friends ever since. 
Some of your school friends will go off on their own little journeys and you may loose touch, however in general many friends from school and college seem to stick in your life even if it is only on Facebook.

Living in Dubai...

Dubai early evening Feb 2015 

As you know I lived in Dubai for 4 nearly 5 years. Making friends in Dubai was a strange one. Dubai is a very transient place. People come and people go. Most move to Dubai to make some money and then move on to either another country or back to their home country after a couple of years. Therefore you tend to find that one day you've met someone for coffee and got on really well, then next week your texting them and they can't meet you because they've moved house! Ok, well maybe it's not quite as fast as that but you get the idea! 

Helen & Clare Elise in Dubai 2015

In Dubai I found eventually a small group of friends who became my family out there. You find that you see. In the expat community everyone's pretty much in the same boat. Everyone's living and working in Dubai and their families, by this I mean mum's, dad's and brothers / sisters etc. are miles away in their home countries. 
My friends in Dubai were like brothers and sisters. Whenever you needed them they were there. When I was in hospital before having Baby Lewis and sick with my gallbladder problems all my Dubai friends were supportive, helpful and kind and when Lewis was born everyone was excited and everyone couldn't wait to meet him. The friendships I found in Dubai were truly special and each person that I met there I will forever treasure and cherish.

"Find A Friend"... 

When we moved back to the UK

As you know we moved back to the UK in August last year... and since then we've moved house yet again. 

I'm not gonna lie this has made finding friends tough!

I got thinking about this whole "How do you make friend's when you are older" thing simply because it really is a strange one. I mean when you're at school or college you tend to make proper friends because you see them everyday and get to know each others lives. When you get older you might meet someone say at an event or something and get chatting for a little while and then you might meet up for a coffee a little while after, however after that you don't meet up again for maybe weeks or months because you are busy with family or work or something and before you know it that new found friendship's not had chance to blossom because things got in the way. Is this the case, when we are older are we just TO BUSY for friendship? 

Friendship is important!

Clare Elise & Entertainer friend AJ

Friendship is important and I think we need to make time for it. By that I mean real time. No more here one day gone the next. Let's all promise to dedicate some proper time to our existing friendships and to the one's that are blossoming. Let's not get to busy for friends. Today maybe pick up the phone and Watsapp a friend you've not seen in a while. Or you know the Mummy you met at playgroup last week who said let's do coffee sometime, pick up the phone give her a call and arrange coffee and cake and put it in the diary.

Let's not forget about old friends and let's make some new friends as well.