Life Goes Full Circle

My amazing year of working in Manchester has connected me with old friends as well as new ones. I have looked at photos I brought into the Documentary Phtographic Archive back in 1982. I have listened to my interviews on a reel to reel Uher tape player. I have walked down streets and sat in restaurants that have particular significance for me. I have revisited some of the places that are still part of my dream life. Last Friday was my birthday. I am looking for the next job and I had been invited for an interview in Leeds. Not only did I have to find my way around the university buildings where I used to study, but I was also a baby's cry away from where I was born, at Hyde Terrace. Family legend has it that my dad had to cut the cable on the BSA Scout to free the frozen brakes and drive my mother from Wakefield to Leeds. It was the end of January after all. Leeds railway station is also part of my dream landscape, but not as it is, or ever was. Some things looked so familiar, others completely unrecognisable. There were university buildings I had never seen or ventured into, some of them really architecturally beautiful. The English Department held lectures in theatres allegedly used for the filming of Clockwork Orange. I thought I would come to the end of the coincidences and connections as my year in Manchester draws to a close,just because I felt there had to be a limit. But last Wednesday I went to a birthday celebration meal for some old friends, newly rediscovered. Among their friends was a someone I knew from 40 years ago, who came to my first wedding.It was so lovely to see her and to hear about her family. And then home for a lovely weekend with my family. Many happy returns.