BS: What to do when your best friend goes.

Subject: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:12 PM

I suspect no-one noticed but a thread earlier mentioned that Iarf aka Spot the Dog aka Dave Wynn is emigrating to Scotland. Dave is a founder member of Swinton Folk Club, a dancer with Rumworth and Abram Morris as well as the finest 'Doctor' ever seem in a Pace Egg play. But most of all he is my drinking buddy, confident and best friend.

We helped him move up to a wonderful location in South West Scotland last weekend and I really do wish him and Linda all the best. They have done wonderfuly. Both the location and property would please the most critical estate agent! But, what am I supposed to do now:-( I can't nip off to the pub with him on a Sunday because he is not there. He's on the end of a phone and only 190 miles away but Swinton just won't be the same any more.

Anyone got any suggestions about how to fill this huge hole, not only in my life but in that of all the friends and family of Dave and Linda?

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: gnu
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:17 PM

Sad, indeed. All you can do is cultivate new friends... maybe from their old friends? Good luck.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: GUEST,Lox
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:19 PM

Skype

Instant messenger

Facebook

E.mail

but most importantly, go and visit often.

Whatever you do don't let it slide.

Nothing has ended if you don't let it - but iit has chhanged annd if you want to hold on to what matters, change with it.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:24 PM

He's seen sense and moved to a civilised country then Dave :)
G

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:32 PM

I wouldn't argue with that Giok!

Our friends were, in the main, mutual, Gnu and we have every intention of doing so Lox. Like I said last week. They are calling back for a leaving do next weekend. I will give them plenty of time to settle in before calling back. Maybe the weekend after...;-)

D.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:13 PM

Our very best friends live 400+ km. away, and have for many years. When we retire, it is very likely that we will move to be close to them, possibly an adjacent property. With very close friends of long duration, I find relationships don't fade at all, even if it's half a year between visits.

But I feel your pain - I miss those friends very much if I haven't talked with them in a while.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: LilyFestre
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:42 AM

I used to wonder what to do when my best friend moved away, first down the block, then to a southern state (I am in PA) and then he moved to Alaska. I thought it was a terrible thing and missed him. Phone calls were always great and so were visits but it wasn't the same as having him so close. Then he suddenly died at age 33. I guess Alaska wasn't so far away after all.

Keep in touch with your best friend, near or far....the heart connections are always the same.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:26 AM

My best friend, and still is, moved to Australia... we keep in touch via web cam and messenger. Its the next best thing for us. Try it... it may help you too. Good luck.

Suzi.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:40 AM

Only 190 miles away? Here in Texas that means he still lives in the neighborhood. Really - he is close enough to pop over for the weekend and visit HIS new neighborhood pub - correct?

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:06 PM

That's about the size of it, Wesley:-) Trouble is there is no pub in his village - Nearest one is 2.5 miles away!

Thanks all.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:11 PM

Good Lord! Is that your only problem?
My best friend is gone and I popped in to help you through the painful process.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Midchuck
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:11 PM

190 miles away - and the problem is?

My kids are 2500 miles away (4000 km), although they are still in the same country. We drove out last summer, but it was four long days on the road. (It was also expensive, since I went out of the way to stop at Elderly Instruments.)

In the western US they'd go 190 miles to go out for dinner.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: ClaireBear
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:28 PM

Hey! I live in the western U.S., and I don't think I've ever gone 190 miles for dinner. (However, I've definitely gone that far to see Riders in the Sky.)

I do, though, travel 127 miles (each way) to visit my best friend on a fairly regular basis. We both started out in Berkeley and moved -- he north, I south. This hasn't separated us, though; it's made our visits all the more precious when they occur.

Claire

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:47 PM

My goodness! Two and a half miles to get to a pub??? Nothing closer than that??? Y'all need to come to Texas. I'll show you how far we have to drive to get anything done.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 02:57 AM

Distances are all relative - In a country as small as ours 190 and 2.5 miles are formidable distances! ;-)

D.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: CapriUni
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 03:04 AM

Phew! I thought this was going to be an obit thread...

Be grateful it's not.

But yes, I uderstand -- oh, for a magic travel machine that would keep all friends close!

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 03:20 PM

2.5 miles means its probably a bit far to pop out for a pint without driving which sort of defeats the object. On the other hand it could be good exercise!

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: skarpi
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 03:29 PM

I find a new one :>)

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 05:12 PM

You could locate a pub where there's good singing and good brew half way in between.

I commute 180 miles round trip to commune with friends at the Press Room once a month. More often would be a stretch for even me but once a month is still fun and manageable.

Or consider a move to Scotland.

Of course one of my best friends moved from Maine to Guam. We met him one time in Australia as a compromise but we're not moving permanently from Maine.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: GUEST,Folk1e
Date: 11 Jan 08 - 03:00 PM

Or..... you could just turn up at the White Lion in Swinton ............... He might just be there tonight    ;¬)

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: folk1e
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 02:50 AM

OK
It's 7.45 am...... I'm off to work, Winn + Co are all safely tucked up in bed (with hangovers developing nicely, ta!) and a great night was had by all!
Good songs, Great company ....... who could ask for more?

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 08:16 AM

I went round this moring to give him a hand with the final bits - about 10:30am - he says it wasn't a hangover, it was flu! And that's it now. They have gone!

Like I said last night. Not the end of an era. The start of a new one:-)

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 11:02 AM

From the final verse of "The Outside Track" by Henry Lawson:

And one by one, and two by two,
They've sailed from the quay since then;
I've said good-bye to the last I knew,
The last of the careless men;
And I can't help but think that the times we had
Were the best times after all,
As I turn aside, raise my glass,
And drink to this bar-room wall.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: GUEST,rock chick
Date: 12 Jan 08 - 11:37 AM

Well I lived down South all my life but now my home is in Scotland and I just love it, albeit my friends are all just under 500 miles away, but hey make new friends, keep in touch with existing ones by web cam, face book, email etc etc, as suggested above. When visiting book well in advance and get really cheap train tickets and treat the traveling as a day out, relax let the train take the strain...although it can be a stressful journey occasionally!

Scotland is a beautiful place and the people are great also.

My great grandfather came from Edinburgh so it feels like a form of coming home so to speak.

rc

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:38 AM

Stay in touch is the obivious answer

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:02 AM

a pair of webcams

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: skipy
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:29 AM

I used to drive 158 miles a DAY, 6 days a week just to get to work, so 190 to visit a mate is nothing!
Happy driving, oh! & take your walking boots for the pub run.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Raptor
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:24 AM

BYOB! They'll sell it to ya won't they?

It's cheeper and you can have a kitchen party, They're more fun and the music is better.

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:33 AM

Yeah, keep in touch. Scotland isn't that far away.

In my experience, that keeping in touch stuff, without some real-world hanging-out time, doesn't work. One friend (in my whole life, it's been the other guy) loses interest and can't be bothered, and the friendship just withers and dies. I'd rather it didn't happen because it kicks you in the heart over and over until you realize the friendship is dead (and takes a tortuously long time if you're in denial), but I think it's a natural thing. You have to BOTH care for the long-distance thing to work.

You guys, on the other hand, don't live that far away from each other. Visit often enough so that you still are real parts of each other's lives, and start planning for that now.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 06:29 PM

We were the ones who moved away, and that's hard, too. You build a new life, but you never know the new places as well as you knew the old ones, and, no matter how much you love your new surroundings, sometimes they seem new and unfamiliar.

Visit, email the latest news, and keep the light on--

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: MuddleC
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 05:16 PM

The distance should make the heart grow fonder..??! that's something for mythbusters..
That denial phase is crappy isn't it jeri, and the kicks start when they want to go as soon as they arrive.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 06:34 PM

Rock Chick - If you are 500 miles away from home would you walk 500 miles and then you'd walk 500 more, just to to be the...

Oh, hang on. Been done in the Scottish accent already!

Skipy - I do around 40,000 miles a year anyway. It's not the driving or the distance. With a friend like this it is just them being there.

If anyone doesn't know what I mean I guess that they never will:-(

Cheers

Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: rock chick
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 08:13 AM

Dave Polshaw, Yes I would walk 500 miles for the right reason, or even person / people, and walk 500 more, just to be.....Mmmm strange done that been there, in fact even in the Scottish accent, albeit a bad accent, but that will improve.

Also I dont consider myself from home, my new home is here in Bonny Scotland. ;-))

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 06:49 PM

Been on the phone a couple of times. He has got his log burner working now. Can't wait to experience it:-)

Cheers

D.

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: redsnapper
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 08:58 PM

The answer is.... move to Scotland too.

I did... no finer place in the world!

RS

Subject: RE: BS: What to do when your best friend goes.
From: Brakn
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:31 AM

Didn't know they'd gone Dave. Give them my best wishes.