Okay, okay, Facebook has its downside. I object to being given a new e-mail address without being consulted at all. That's just one thing. If you were to ask my son Tim, he'd come up with a zillion things that are wrong with Facebook because he's a Google Plus Boy.
The trouble is, Tim, all my FRIENDS are on Facebook. Yes, they ARE friends. Friends in a different sort of way to people I've met in real life and go round to dinner with or off to Tunbridge Wells on a girlie shopping outing. Virtual friends.
Here's an interesting article: Should one attend the funeral of a virtual friend?
I'm thinking...probably not.
But THIS is the Very Good Bit about Facebook. Thirty eight years ago, (surely not? I'm far too young.) I worked on a farm in the very north of Norway before going to university. About three years ago, in an idle moment, I wondered if I could find any members of the family on Facebook. I found Åsa, I thought, maybe, perhaps, could it be? - the daughter.
I sent off a tentative hello. In FIVE MINUTES, she had responded.
Yesterday, she and her daughter and two of her friends arrived here to stay with me. THIRTY EIGHT YEARS later.
