Being me is pretty cool sometimes. I love how random people who I don’t remember ever meeting, seem to recognise me out of nowhere.

It has been a bit of a rough day, to be honest. A few weeks ago, Dom got in touch about finally organising a funeral for Lyn. Of course I thought it was a good idea, although I knew it would be difficult. We were just talking about it at first, but today we finally got going, selecting a few pictures of Lyn to use. Dom then suggested going to Lewisham to get them printed.

Dom could cycle there, but of course for me it meant taking the bus. It was an easy enough journey, but I was just approaching the bus stop at the end of my road when all of a sudden I heard someone exclaiming my name.

“Matt! MATT!” I looked up to see a heavily set Jamaican man coming the other way. I didn’t recognise him at first, but as he came closer I realised who he was.

When I first moved to London, there used to be a small pub between Charlton and Woolwich which I took to drinking in called The Kings Arms. It was an odd little place, famous for once being bombed by the IRA. It was a quiet place where I rarely saw anyone else, so over time the owner, Cox, kind of got to know me. He even began to help me drink my beer, memorably repeating “Cold and nice! Cold and nice!” in his rich Jamaican accent as I sucked my straw. It was more or less the first pub I came across on my own after moving in with Lyn, so it briefly became kind of a personal retreat for me.

That was well over twelve years ago. The Kings Arms has long been closed and demolished. I only really went there for a month or two, and soon forgot about it after that. This afternoon, however, who do you think I should bump into but Cox, the pub owner, who I hadn’t seen for so long. He obviously recognised me and greeted me like an old friend. Sadly we didn’t have time to catch up as my bus was soon approaching, but little occurrences like this only serve to remind us what a small world it really is, and that we’re never really very far from friends.