Remembering… I had this sudden memory today of your dad Pete, sitting on the seat of your swing . He was having a coffee I think. You were stood slightly behind him and silently you beckoned me to you. Curiously I joined you as you pointed my eyes downward…. To look at the crack of your dad’s bottom - as he sat his trousers had gone lower and honestly, your cheeky smile and secret giggle 🤭 just makes me smile to think of you. I miss you Karen. I so loved your irreverent often a little bit naughty humour and attitude. Those carefree moments we shared, you often as my teacher (the caterpillar 🐛 you fed and kept through chrysalis to butterfly, how to make a pom pom, having a pet (snowy) . Us as little girls remains the best bits of my early childhood. Thank you .

17 years ago... we are all different people now, reinvented by life's joys and sorrows. I know that your life and death will always be a sorrow that shaped me in some way, into the person I am today. I feel sure that we would still be friends. And I often feel your presence. xxx

Once upon a time we were just little girla who would strap on our clunky over trainer roller skate endlessly going up and down the concrete paths which were between the houses of our neighbours. You showed me how to angle my feet to perform a smooth turn at each end, a progression from just using the brick wall to stop myself. . As an adult I think about how much noise this must have caused, yet not one of those nextdoor neighbours ever complained & we were never asked to stop or go elsewhere (& it really was nonstop for hours, daily!) We later progressed to skating the pavement at the front with its large grassed triangle, which was helpfully slashed in half midway with a cut through tarmac pathway. This new arena gave us slopes & much longer stretches to skate and the occasional scraped knee too. I’ve black & white photos of us somewhere - we were the bees knees! Creeping down your immaculately kept back garden as your dad rested for a cuppa on your swing seat, giggling as we went behind him to see the exposed crevice of his derrière as he sat there. A glass tank, where you’d got a caterpillar 🐛 & were feeding & watching its natural lifespan play out…I was in awe of your parents, Jean & Pete who were so endlessly attentive & loving to their golden haired little girl. I was madly envious of the fact that you weee allowed to put up posters - Leif Garret & Gary Glitter (who knew then what he would become!) You showed me how to make cardboard formers to make pom-poms, and we would wind many a gaudy woollen toy for your pure white kitten, who you named Snowy. In a pet free home, how lucky you were to have a kitten of your own! It wasn’t all rosey. I do remember we would squabble & fall out at times, though what about I have no idea. I threw a stone which hit and marked your arm & I got in so much trouble! It never lasted & hearing you skating the pathway between the houses, I’d ask to go to yours, just a few doors away & we soon made up,