That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
I like park benches but never before had I paid them so much attention as I did the other day.
This week, for the first time, I had a university friend in my home. Not just my home-town, but my actual house. Okay, it was a fairly brief encounter: he lingered in the doorway, obviously nervous of the general family craziness going on around him, but he was there nonetheless.
I could see it from his point of view: here you have a set of people that he knows will have heard about him – some good things, some less good – and what do you say to people when you're not sure how much they know. I thought he'd be able to cope, though. I was a little unfair really, I guess, just throwing him into that.
But I was a bit nervous too. Meeting someone from York in my own territory – I'm a natural worrier – and I worried. Just seeing him there, this reminder of drunken nights and crazy days at university – of a life so far removed from the mediocre, quiet, small-town life I'd been living for the last three months: I'm not going to lie, it was unnerving.
Understand, it was entirely by coincidence that our paths had crossed this summer. He'd been in the area on holiday and, after getting over the initial shock of why anyone would want to come on holiday to our little part of the woods, I'd decided it would be silly not to say hi. So I text him, suggested meeting-up, and after we'd established that no stalking was going on, we decided to spend a day chilling out in the sun.
So there we were, chatting and laughing and watching ducks – pretending we were back in York – when he suddenly pulled a face.
'What?' I'd asked, looking around. There was a couple walking towards us. 'It's my parents,' he told me with a look of horror.
In the world of university friends, well, new friends in general – especially friendships between members of the opposite sex, there is so much room for getting-the-wrong-end-of-the-stick; that has got to be one of thee most terrifying - or hilarious – sentences ever.
I, being me, found the whole thing fairly amusing.
At first that is.
However, after what felt like an age of awkwardness (was probably about two minutes) in which I was very tempted to let out the awkward turtle, I realised that this was how he probably felt being confronted with my parents. I wasn't sure whether to say anything or not, very aware I was interrupting their holiday and that I hadn't really brushed my hair that morning and probably looked an absolute gormless mess.
But after the parents, on both sides, had disappeared from view things were more like uni again. After we'd gotten over the initial awkwardness of what to do in a town that has, literally, nothing to do. After we'd worked out that actually, you can pick up the level of banter where you left off at the end of term, I discovered that it doesn't have to be where you are that dictates how you act. So what, we weren't in York, we could still talk like we were.
Want to know what we did? We sat on every bench in the park, that's what.
But, you know what?
It was fun.
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