There is something about the smell of an infant’s school that always makes me feel five years old. It’s about thirty-seven years since I first attended infants school but just setting foot inside the entrance foyer of my six year old’s school instantly made me think of KP nuts (break time), Frère Jacque (the first song I ever learned) and immediately stripped away all of the confidence and bravado of adulthood. I guess that’s why it’s instinctive to call the teachers Miss so-and-so or Missus thingy even when I’ve known them since Steve started at the same school thirteen years ago. I have no idea what it is, other than it is the smell more than anything. The junior and senior schools don’t have the same effect on me, maybe I miss my younger childhood more than my later formative years.
That’s how I started my day, thrown back to my infancy for a few moments. I had to drop my car off for a service this morning so I volunteered to take Jason to school. The car couldn’t be dealt with this morning so I didn’t get into work until ten-thirty, I missed the sandwich van and my usual bacon roll so I have no energy and I am in a particularly bad mood. I did intend to start searching through social networking websites in attempt to find and contact Simon Avery.
Friday is a good day at work. Friday is a finish at noon type of day. I like Friday. However, it’s a bit inconvenient today. I honestly thought there were only a couple of dozen, at most, social networking websites. A quick Wikipedia search reveals at least a hundred, I really wanted to be finished by lunch time.
I know Simon is not on Facebook and I can’t find him on MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn nor Google Buzz. I even checked Tagged, Wasabi and Blogster. Friends Reunited yielded nothing, it was at this point that I voiced my frustration to the guys in my work-shed (it is a shed believe me). Glen, ex –RAF, we’re mostly all ex-forces where I work, suggested Forces Reunited. It wasn’t listed on Wikipedia and I hadn’t heard of it so I’m grateful for Glen pointing this one out.
Simon did indeed have an entry, listed against HMS Berwick; as explained yesterday I’ve changed the name of the ship and also Simon’s surname. I have subscribed but haven’t posted or listed myself against any ships or establishments as yet. I have dropped Simon a one line email, you know the sort of thing;
Hi Simon, long time no see. Want to meet up for a beer and catch up?
The reason I’ve kept it brief is that he seems to be taking great pains to limit any means to really chase him down or track his details so I thought if I kept it short, and apparently an honest attempt to contact an ex-comrade, he may be more likely to respond.
Time to sit back and wait.
More later. Hopefully not too much later.
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