26 April 2006

Monday night and old friends

Met up with some old friends yesterday. Old as in friends of 12 years, as long as I’ve been in this Island across the ‘not-so-scenic’ bridge.

Well the reason for the meet-up was that dear old Shirm came a calling and decided to spend her last night in this part of the world with us before she flies off back to London today. As I simply put it out to her, she had chosen to save the best for last.

So, with the usual last minute arrangements and changes (though we were forewarned a month back), we made plans to meet for dinner at Golden Bay Seafood Restaurant. Thank goodness for Julian and his offer to pick us up in his car, for without it would make the journey to this west coast diner in the rain quite a challenge.

Anyway, the usual suspects all turned up for the dinner with the exception of Lam. Karen arrived with lil’ Daniel in tow. Julian and Tsumain had picked up the rest of us - myself, Peggy and Shirm from Clementi. And the surprise inclusion for the night was Ree Nee, who had been absent from our many gatherings in the past 10 years.

Over the course of dinner (Crab and Veges!), we caught up with bits and pieces of updates from each other. Not an easy task when you have a table of food separating us, and each of us trying to get their questions in, while our hands are kept busy breaking crab shells and our mouths trying to strip off the meat.

Group Photo 1

These Faces
I remember
Once young and leaner

Familiar faces
I used to see
Every day
in the hall way.

The laughing faces
At midnight birthdays sessions
And of worried faces
Nights before morning papers

Older faces
Twelve years on
Bearing different scars
Carrying distant cares

These faces
Still remember
And reaches out
Across time

To a common thread
Now thinner, slackened
But still clinging
To kindred souls

No comments: