During an idle non-coffee break at work I thought I'd look up some old faces on facebook.

Lots of names to personally conjure with but one absent. My best friend Nick.

Then I did a bit of internet dectective work and found that 7/8 years ago he'd been at deaths door with pneumonia. (See http://archive.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/2002/7/26/182290.html) But he got better.

Now he runs a farriers business in Chippenham (the town where my grandparents live) and I was wondering if I should contact him or not...

And then I saw this task. I liked the timing of the two. The universe clearly wants me to renew this old correspondence.

I dropped her a message saying that I hoped I had the right Mrs Rule. (Which isn't a great way to start a message)

I used to be very good friends with Nick but lost contact with him after I went away to university. The last time I saw Nick was at the prize giving night where he was awarded a commendation for being head boy and I won the prize for literature. We were both 18 years old.

Since then I've moved about alot with work and haven't really been back to Calne at all as my parents and family moved away. And as growing up in Calne was quite difficult for me I don't really have huge numbers of people I want to meet up with again. I've done various jobs (teaching, artistic director of a theatre company and now working at Birmingham University) and usually at some point I get round to talking about "my best mate, Nick" to people. Him and Katie Taylor (but she's married now...) were really good friends to me.

So I'm hoping that she can help me make contact with Nick again.

UPDATE: 15/01/08- Still no response from Mother Rule. Am going to try the brother.