We met at Grand Met Estates in our early twenties and were destined to be friends right from the start although we had very different work ethics. Mandy's were efficiency, diligence and hardworking and mine were none of those!
But what we did share was the same sense of humour, slightly sarcastic at times but that's what always made us laugh.
In 1990 we both left to have our baby girls and had the pleasure of being new Mums together. Then we both returned to work leaving the girls in the crèche and started doing a job share where we had a famous handover book, which had lots of the entries by me that said "I didn't get time to do the filing!" Working along side us were Maria and Helen who soon became members of our Bestie gang, we forged a really lovely friendship between the four of us. Each one of us different in character but our experiences and laughter gelled us together.
We all had many adventures over the years when we could get away from our 12 children! Trips to to Spain, Cornwall, Bristol and Bath and many others and we always had a monthly date in the diaries to meet up without fail.
Mandy was our rock, and she always had great advice especially if you needed to know anything about cheese or medical things, she was your person! Her quick wit and insight sometimes did earn her the title of 'white witch' as she always seemed to know what was going to happen, as she knew us so well.
We all loved her like a sister and it was very hard to see her go through so much with her health. She was so brave and never moaned. The 3 of us used to feel so guilty when we complained about some minor ache or pain but Mandy was always so concerned for us and never made us feel bad. Mandy was selfless, never yearning after holidays and expensive things she was just content to have her lovely family close by and was so happy to be the first grandmother out of the four of us.
So it is with a really heavy heart that we say farewell to our lovely Mand, life won't be the same without you but every time we now meet up we will raise a glass and remember so many lovely funny memories that the three of us will now treasure forever. We will miss you Mand, we were so lucky to know you.
Joanna, Helen & Maria