friend

so yesterday I drove for an hour to MK to visit my friend. She's one of those people you just admire and love and think the world of. She's a great believer in "sucking it up" and even though the universe has thrown a seriously crap set of dice for her, she smiles, and laughs and takes such joy in things.
a couple of years ago she was diagnosed with MS - her skin itches all the time unless she remembers to take a pill at the right time. And every day she injects herself in sensitive spots around her arms, legs and tummy with some magic stuff that's meant to slow the MS, but may have other long term effects but who knows for sure?
She's had a string of awful jobs, living in a house share with a couple fondly known as Cock and Cock's girlfriend - who seem to scream and swear and yell at eachother non-stop.

But yesterday we walked round a park near her new, fab job. We watched the birds, talked about how good things are and where we're headed. We wandered into Waterstone's and inevitably bought books (we seem to do that every time we see eachother!) and had tea and lunch. She squealed with delight when we spotted some fungi-  she immediately took photos and then we hunched over her fungi book to try to figure out what we'd found!

She smiles, helps out, smiles,  rejoices in sunshine, smiles, laughs and sprouts some seriously funny jokes, which I can never remember long enough to repeat! She spends days braving wind and rain at car boot sales to help raise money for her sister and brother in law. She counts out the last of her salary and  buys her nephew presents.

She is the strongest, bravest, most determined woman I know. And I left her yesterday rejoicing in the sunshine, the fields of yellow mustard rape, and thinking about how lucky we are to know her.