FRIENDSHIP is a funny thing. I have friends from when I was a child with whom I'm still in touch, although it's decades since I left the northern seaside town where we all grew up.

About once a year we meet in The Taps, a favourite local pub and the years roll away.

I also meet old schoolfriends at various vantage points across the country.

Just the close little clique with whom I shared my teenage years, with all the joy and angst and larks in the dorm that permeated an all-girls boarding school in the 1950s.

I meet my best friend, Carole, more often. Ours is an easy friendship which also extends to our husbands and children. It's very precious.

Also irreplaceable are the many different friendships from those frenetic student days when we crammed a lifetime into three years. A group of us are still constantly in touch, sharing our joys and sorrows.

Our children regard each other as part of a big family and now the grandchildren are forging friendships too - a particularly heartwarming experience.

And, of course, my best friend is my lovely, affectionate, noisy and eccentric husband who I have now known for more than 30 years and have never had occasion to change my mind about him - even when we're fighting.

Then there are people who step into your life for all sorts of odd reasons and you just know you're going to be friends. One of those has just spent Easter with us and it was as if we'd been friends for life.

We all took an enormous gamble. Malcolm and I met Rae on the train between Chicago and San Francisco, Rae's home town. When we reached the end of our amazing journey she offered to show us round the San Francisco that the tourists don't see.

We spent a magical evening and we didn't meet again until we collected her from Heathrow on Easter Saturday and we all know instantly that we hadn't been mistaken.

Rae fitted into the Harcombe scene as if she'd come visiting every year of her life. She loved the many visitors and family who invaded us over Easter and they loved her.

She helped with the many tasks - like putting on lunch for 12 on Easter Sunday and a barbecue for a similar number the next day - she came to church with us, she fed the horses, she befriended Lily and the cats.

She humped stuff around in the supermarket and came with us to the pub. Most touchingly, she brought me a beautiful necklace which had once been her mother's.

She has phoned several times to say how much she enjoyed herself and how much she misses us and we feel the same. It just shows how a chance meeting can bring so much joy.