Back to reality

After the euphoria of finishing exams, reality returned with a bump today. I went to the funeral of a girl who was in my boarding house at school. She died in a car accident last week. It was nice to see old housemates I hadn't seen for a while but obviously it was sad that it was at such an occassion. Unfortunately it's not the first time it's happened to us either. There was a big sense of deja vu because the last time a lot of us had seen each other was also at a funeral two years ago. That was for our housemaster who also died in a car crash.

I went with my sister who needed to be taken back to Oxford afterwards. Two other people there were also heading that way so I offered them a lift. One of them was the girl's best friend at school who was taking it all quite well - definetly better than her parents anyway. When she told her mum and dad that I was taking her back up they approached me and gave me an on-the-spot road traffic test! I was quite surprised but understood their concern. Her Dad insisted to see the car that I was going to be driving them in but stopped short of actually doing so. I guess I'd be doing the same in the circumstances so I didn't mind it too much.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took from today was that you never know what can happen to you. One minute you can be laughing and the next minute you could be crying. Bearing in mind how happy I've been over the last few days maybe in future I'll try harder to temper my emotions and be a bit more even-keeled so that I can be prepared for whatever comes my way.