'It's the end but...'

Life It's difficult to put today into coherent words but I'll try anyway. Two things happened which will change my life if not forever, but for the forseable future. The first was a change in my work hours. When I started my present job it was on a rota basis. So over a repeated seven weeks programme I've been working anywhere between an 8am-4pm shift or a 2pm-10pm shift with one weekend in there as well. At the beginning it was good to have the variety but after a while it became very tiring, because for some reason the concert I'd want to go to or the private view or the film would always seem to fall at a time when work commitments meant I simply couldn't go. Also my sleeping patterns were always in constant state of flux. I found out today that the rota is being scrapped and from Monday I'll be on fixed hours, like the song says I'll be working Nine 'til Five and to a degree I'll feel like I can get my life back. For the first time, routine sounds like magic. And I smiled broadly for three hours.

Then I spoke to Fani. Fani is one of my best friends, who I've known for five years since I met her at a night school course, who's been one of the few constants through everything else which has happened. She's studied a BA and 2 MAs and now that her course is finishing she's been looking for work so that she can afford to stay in the UK. But apart a couple of weeks of voluntary teaching observation and the odd hour of tutoring here and there she hasn't been able to find anything. So when I spoke to her early to check about a night out we're having tomorrow she told me that she'd bought a one way ticket back to Greece and she'd be leaving on the 3rd November. I went to pieces, and frankly after she'd gone from the phone I cried. It's funny - I knew that she'd be going eventually, and the possibility has presented itself at the end of each of her different courses. And with our work and school schedules lately we haven't been seeing each other as much as we used to but its just going be a shock for her not to at least be there or the possibility of her returning. I know she's only going to be in Greece and if she goes through with her plan for applying for a PGCE and returning to the UK she'll be even closer so we can get together now and then, but it won't be the same -- these things never are. As usual I won't be saying goodbye really. But it's the end of an era.