The lunch group

I ended up with a table full of flowers when a long-time group of former Vancouver Sun colleagues came for lunch on Wednesday.

Cheryl's bouquet looked so pretty against her dark green coat that I hustled her to the window for a photograph as soon as she arrived. 

From left, Mariken, Linda and Karenn. Lunch is a rustic spinach galette, with lots of salad and veggies.

From left, Cheryl, Mariken and Linda, with the back of Karenn's head to the camera. Too bad John wasn't there to do this properly!

We formed our bonds in the hothouse atmosphere of The Vancouver Sun newsroom, a notoriously political, intrigue-filled institution full of giant egos and outsize  personalities. The five of us were all young women, with all that entails, so perhaps it was partly as a refuge from that high-pressure world that we began to meet every few months for lunch and decompression.

It turned into much more than that. Work stories turned into life stories, and over the years, our conversations reflected the trajectory of our lives. Relationships, house-purchases, child-raising and career ups and downs gave way gradually to aging parents, their deaths, our own aging and our eventual retirements.

Now that we're all long gone from The Sun, the newspaper has virtually disappeared from our meetings. But its legacy lives on. On Wednesday, I hosted yet another in our many years of lunch meetings. It's spring and everybody knows I love flowers, so I ended up with a table full of bouquets. And thanks to the bonds created by that long-ago embattled newsroom, we still have plenty to talk about.

A pre-lunch photo. I wanted to show tulips with my lemon tart. 

Karenn's hyacinths and Linda's tulips in the living room by the fireplace. The hyacinths are scenting my house right now. 

Me with my booty. I will be enjoying these flowers for many days to come.