An unexpected reunion on our return to the island was an old school friend. I’ll tell you the story, and maybe you’ll understand why Sharon believes our meeting was meant to be.
About 15-ish years ago, I went off tea. I used to love tea — I lived on the stuff — and then suddenly it just started to taste wrong. No matter what I tried, more milk, less milk, more sugar, less sugar, different varieties, even lemon… nothing worked. It still tasted like sticks. I was just off tea.
I’ve since learned, or come to understand, that it was all linked to hormones and menopause.
Anyway, about five or six months ago I tried again, and guess what? I liked it! But only out of a teapot. No dunking a bag into a cup — no, it has to come out of a teapot… even though I still dunk the bag in that. LOL
The teapot that started it all
While I was browsing an Isle of Man website before our visit, I saw a beautiful teapot with Celtic designs on it. I wanted that pot. I was determined to find it and bring it home.
In our first week on the island, I hunted through many souvenir shops and likely places, but I didn’t see it. I turned to the internet and found the suppliers instead. I contacted them via their “Contact Us” page and received a lovely, very helpful response.
And here’s the thing… I recognised the name on the email.
So I replied and told him who I was 50 years ago — my maiden name, my then nickname — and asked if he remembered me. I also mentioned I had gone to school with his niece but had lost touch.
He did remember me, and he gave me her number.
Sharon
Sharon and I were in the same school intake when we were four years old. We stayed friends all the way through school, spent weekends and holidays together — we were inseparable.
And then somehow, within two years of leaving school on a small island, we lost touch.
I have tried to find her over the years, even as recently as 6-7 years ago, I looked on facebook. But never could find her and eventually gave up.
And now suddenly… I had her phone number.
I was so excited I quickly sent a message, and within five minutes I had a reply. We arranged to meet at a coffee shop the next day.
We talked and talked and talked. We sat there for four hours!
Then, because the fire alarm went off in the café, we had to leave, not wanting to part ways yet, we walked along the promenade in the sunshine, still talking. We remembered school days, homework, younger siblings, and old adventures.
And then the teapot…
Our walk took us past a gift shop, and what should be in the window? The very teapot I had been looking for.
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It turns out Sharon lives just a couple of streets away from my brother. We headed up the hill together, and hugged on the corner, promising to meet again before I returned to New Zealand.
We quickly snapped a selfie — there was no one around to help us.
Meant to be?
Sharon, of course, wasn’t on holiday, so between family and work commitments we only managed one more meeting before I left. But again, we slipped straight back into conversation as if no time had passed at all.
Forty years is a long time to catch up on… but somehow, it didn’t feel difficult.
I told her about going off tea and then finding my way back to it, and how I had originally been searching for a teapot and ended up finding her uncle instead.
That’s when she said it:
“It was meant to be, Lou. It was meant to be.”
A final twist
There was another small twist that felt like a sign.
A day or two before I sent that email, Tony and I had been to Ramsey, my old home town, visiting an elderly friend. She had moved house, but we tracked her down to a building that used to be the Prince of Wales Hotel, it's now converted into apartments.
Back in my childhood, it was owned and run by Sharon’s grandparents. Sitting in Edna's front room catching up with her brought back memories of that very same room, I remember going behind the bar for fizzy drinks and crisps and running across the road to the beach afterwards. On rainy days we’d play in empty rooms or in the guest lounge.
That’s also where I first met Sharon’s uncle, who would gently tease me and call me “Spennylegs” — a nickname his brother (Sharon’s father) had given me.
Sharon does have a Facebook account, created only a few years ago and hardly used, but she now has Messenger on her phone and we’ve promised to stay in touch.
Maybe it was meant to be.
I sure hope so.
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