Ex pat reality

Friends are precious commodities when you are an ex pat. You are thrown together with people you might not normally be friends with, but because you are both johnny foreigners together you work harder than normal at the relationship. You tend to see more of each other than on home turf and it forces you to get over some of your natural prejudice - all of which I think is a good thing. Then the person, who along the way has become rather dear to you, leaves.

So it is with my friend Sarah. I met her in the supermarket about a year ago, cold meat section. She had just arrived, and had two girls in tow - Emma and Gloria's ages exactly, give or take a month.

I think we were a bit suspicious of each other at first; there was a bit of a North/South divide, some mating differences (my husband: cash-strapped NGO worker. Her husband: already successful business person doing MBA), some personality glitches (me: relaxed almost to point of oblivion with children, her: gets anxious about a lot of things.) But over the past year we have become- I think - real pals.

We have spent at least 2 mornings a week in each others' company. The girls spent their time fighting over the dolly buggy or bouncing on the sofa in just nappies squealing for joy, while we sat drinking cups of proper builders's tea and comparing who had the least amount of sleep the night before. (Gloria made sure I always won.) We started off doing that subtle competitive thing that all mums do ("Is Emma interested in the potty?" etc), but it gradually became more tongue-in-cheek ("I'll potty train her when she's a teenager" etc). She used to tick me off about not being more vigilant with Emma by the road and I used to tick her off about worrying if her children's clothes were matching. She is warm and kind and extremely funny, and she leaves today.

I explained to Emma that from tomorrow she wouldn't be seeing Eleanor and Alice for a while, but that we would visit from time to time. As I said this, I had rather a large lump in my throat. Just as well Emma couldn't have cared less: "Ssssh, Mummy, Brian's sleeping!" she replied.