Cara called, out of nowhere, this afternoon—she’d gotten my number from a mutual friend. It’s a funny thing: we were never very close back in school in Singapore—we were friendly, sure, but you know how it is, everyone’s got their own posse, and the two of us never really hung out. And then we graduated secondary school, and she went one way, and I quite another.

So it really was a surprise to hear her voice down the line this afternoon as I was tossing some mushroom and chicken in the pan. I thought maybe she was someone from the employment agency, ’cept she didn’t say “—and I saw this really great listing and thought of you.” And I don’t know why she called, really—maybe just to say a quick hello as she blew through town—but all of a sudden we were making plans for Italian in Soho.

And it’s funny how things just fall into place—even things that begin, tentatively, “So what happened after IJ?” “IJ” is our once-upon-a-time, sixteen-year-old Convent girls in white blouses and blue pinafores. Twelve years to catch up over pasta and Primitivo. We talked about the ends of six-year relationships, and the starts of infatuations with European boys; about being expats in New York, in Tokyo, in London—and about being expats in our own homeland; about being in awe of our school friends—the one who is heading up a hospital’s speech therapy department, the one who is saving the world in Aceh. Dessert bought us extra time. And we talked about how we all, it seems, are slowly, surely, in our own time, on our own terms, finding our own ways back home.

Some three, four hours later, a tight hug on the corner of Charing Cross and Old Compton—and then she went her way, and I quite another.

In other news, my horoscope in Sunday’s Observer Magazine said to not give in to my “Libran indolence” this week, so I’ve been camped out at Foyle’s for the free Internet, applying myself to applying for a job. There’s one I want this week, and it’s ideal in many ways—children’s books, for one; and a six-month contract, for two, that means that in six months I can maybe take off, because why not, to Spain.

In other other news, I finally remembered to get some cheese today, a nutty, bitey Saint Gall and a small ashy mound of Dorstone, and they each taste a little bit like heaven.

P.S. Also, I have just discovered heaven is hiring.