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From Revered Kate Bottley, Vicar of the churches of Blyth, Scooby and Ranskill:

I’ve just finished morning prayer when my teenage daughter phones, she’s missed the school bus and needs help, I’ve got assembly at the primary school at 9 and a nursing home visit after that and this is the last thing I need. I jump in the car scoop her up from the village bus stop and set off, working out I can just make it if I’m quick, suddenly there’s a flash of black and a dog runs out in front of the car. I’ve narrowly missed him. I jump out and pick him up. He’s a terrier, he’s fine and I’m his new best friend. He lets me know this by his repeated attempts to lick my face.  I phone the number on his collar while my teenager complains loudly that she’s going to be late. There’s no answer. So I put Buddy in the back of the car, of course he doesn’t want to stay there, there’s a much better view from the parcel shelf, he climbs all over my daughter and even makes an aborted attempt to sit on my lap while I’m driving. Buddy is a handful which perhaps explains why he’s running around on his own at 8.30 on a weekday morning next to the A1. Taking Buddy with me for the rest of the morning could well end in disaster, I need a plan B.

And so I knock on my friend’s door, she is still in her dressing gown, ‘No time to explain’ I tell her, looking at my watch ‘but can you look after this dog for an hour’ ‘But this isn’t your dog’ I just about hear her shout after me as I dash back to the car.

An hour later, teenager at school, assembly done and nursing home residents visited, I drop back to collect the dog, Buddy is a fickle soul and has now found his second new best friend of the morning. Eventually a little later he’s reunited with his real best friend who is thrilled to see him. 

The Christian author CS Lewis said ‘Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .’ Friendship means to find someone else and to connect. Some friendships are lifelong, others are only for a while but all born out of connection, a connection of one being to another joined in a shared moment. Friendships can define, shape and inspire us, they give us stories to tell and someone to share those stories with.