One of the awful things about finishing university is that eventually the close-knit group of friends who had seen you go through some of your most formative years, start to disperse. You can’t help it if the ‘real world’ starts pulling you all in different directions but it doesn’t make the change any easier. I always miss my Geeks and I wish I could spend more time with them. Time (and money for fuel, to be honest) is, unfortunately, in short supply.

This blog isn’t going to be me being all maudlin about the loss of days gone by. It’s about giving a gift of time when I have little time to give. A gift to my friend, Ali.

As I said before, free time is a premium commodity in my life and I don’t get to spend anywhere near enough of it on Ali (or, indeed, any of my other university friends). Feeling as I do about this, when Ali’s birthday started to bleep on my mental radar I gave some serious thought about what I could do for her birthday to let her know that I wished I could give her more of my time. The answer didn’t take long to hit me square between the eyes: I was going to knit her a lace shawl.

“A shawl? Why a lace shawl?” I hear you ask (you are asking that, right? Just nod and smile). I decided on a lace shawl because you can see the stitches more clearly in lace than in any other type of knitting. I wanted those stitches to be visible because every one of those stitches is a moment of my time, a gift of seconds, minutes and hours to my beautiful friend.

There was a minor issue that meant it wasn’t finished in time for her birthday. Well, maybe not so minor – I had to rip back a sixth of the final shawl size because I screwed up and you can’t hide mistakes in lace. I finished it about three months later and taking the extra time was definitely worth it:

Not the best picture of it, but the best one I have of the whole thing

So, three and a bit months late, I finally sent Ali’s birthday present to her. I have to say, I was very impressed with Royal Mail’s efficiency because the following morning, this appeared on my phone:

I don’t know why, but I think she liked her gift…

I may not be able to spend as much time with Ali as I did when we were at university, and that will always make me sad, but now I know that Ali has some of my time, precious moments, captured in a my gift to her. Moments that belong to her and her alone.

And that makes me smile. I hope it makes her smile too.