Reunion

I was quite shy and reserved for my first two years at university (1995-7), and spent much more time in my room or the library than down in the college bar or out clubbing (although Durham holds the dubious honour of being the home of the worst nightclub in Europe, 'Klute', so can you blame me?). However, as soon as I became a third-year student and moved back into college after a year out in a house, I was suddenly adopted by a delightful group of people with very little in common with each other or me - a real motley assortment. My room, previously a quiet haven, became the 'FCR' (Fiona's Common Room), where toast and tea were consumed at all hours of the day and night and naughty behaviour and prankery of various kinds were planned and executed. Despite constant idiocy during my final year, I still emerged with a degree and a great group of friends into the bargain, with whom I am still in close touch to this day. We aim to meet up once a year, and although it usually proves impossible to get everyone together at the same time in the same place, everyone except Tim made it up to Durham this weekend. We are scattered all over the country, living variously in London, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and County Durham, so we keep in touch largely over email. Some days there isn't much communication, due to heavy workload or lack of inspiration, but at other times we can exchange between 50 and 100 emails in the course of a day, with extra in the evening if there's more to say. Even all these years later, now we are no longer footloose and fancy-free undergraduates, we still slip back into the old banter as soon as we get together, and there is always a tremendous amount of affectionate leg-pulling and merciless teasing over a carelessly uttered sentence or two that has immediately been recorded for posterity.

Joe, for example (far left), will never live down the fact that he spent his gap year in China before embarking upon a degree studying Mandarin, and often referenced his experiences in that country when first getting to know the others. The phrase "Err...when I was in China...!" is never far from anyone's lips, delivered in an appropriately public-school voice. He is unfailingly cheerful and great to talk to if you need some sensible advice. Aggie (next along) is really kind and does a great deal of good work with the youth at her church. Alex is utterly hilarious and a wonderful mother to her three children. Nikolai is train-obsessed, always up for a bit of mischief, hysterically funny after a few beers and enchantingly good with babies, willingly reading "Thomas the Tank Engine" to Joshua last night. Keston is imperious and often impatient ("Er...right, Fiona! I need to know what's in these two desserts before I choose one!"), but one of the funniest and most original people I have ever met in my life. Ben - well, he's the love of my life! Rachel I didn't know very well at college, but she is lovely and has a great sense of humour. And Marianne, far right, is an incredibly dedicated primary school teacher and a wonderful correspondent. Tim, who couldn't be with us this weekend, has a little daughter who was due at the same time as Joshy but was born very prematurely. She survived, thank God, but is still too little to make the journey from Hampshire to Durham. He and I compared notes during the respective pregnancies in our families, and now have a new understanding of what the other is experiencing, and therefore a changed friendship. He was once heard to say "But... you should KNOW that!" in utter bewilderment after Nikolai - who was studying Geography alongside Timothy - blithely admitted ignorance of some apparently fundamental aspect of the subject, and has been gleefully and regularly quoted for the past fourteen years, in and out of context, whenever someone displays evidence of a gap in their general knowledge. Comparisons are often drawn with Professor Yaffle, of Bagpuss fame.

Over the years, the nonsense has not subsided; junk mail has been organised for unsuspecting members of the group who suddenly receive invitations to test out stairlifts and hearing aids; one memorable winter weekend saw an innocently-purchased can of squirty cream being used to decorate the windscreens of all our cars whilst we slept; and 'Joe's Room' in college remains labelled in permanent marker (by Nikolai, who is a discreet vandal) on the helpful signpost directing one upstairs to the room Joe occupied in 1998, providing delight whenever we manage to make a pilgrimage back to see if the cleaners have managed to scrub it off yet.

I do occasionally look around at the group and wonder how on earth we have stayed in such close touch for all these years, given how different we were all those years ago at university and how much our lives have diverged. Some of us share a Christian faith, and some of our degree subjects overlapped, but other than that we have little in common besides our shared experiences as undergraduates. This is very probably the very reason why we are still bound together as a group - when we get together, we seem to revert to our 21-year-old selves, with a pinch of wisdom and maturity thrown in. I rarely laugh as much and for so long as when I am with these people, and I am so blessed that they considered me to be worth adopting all those years ago. Here's to the next decade of merriment and nonsense!