Nicky and Gordon

I have known Gordon for as long as I’ve worked in this industry. I met him on my first day as a journalist. He set up my email account. Since then, we’ve always worked together, although not always on the same magazine, been on countless matching press trips, and of course we presented The Lab together for two and a half years at LBC/ITN.

On Thursday, though, he left the country, emigrating to New Zealand with Nicky. They’d been talking about it for years, and it always seemed like it was such a long time away, so there was a slightly surreal feel to the night as we all gathered at the Market Porter pub beneath London Bridge to say goodbye on Wednesday night. (Probably not helped by the fact that it is the Leaky Cauldron in the Harry Potter films. We were upstairs, in the room where Harry took refuge at the start of The Prisoner of Azkaban).

Unbelievably, Nicky was still heading into work the next day - the day they flew off to Buenos Aires - to complete her last day of notice, leaving Gordon in a flat now devoid of clothes, furniture or any kind of gadgetry, to await the point of departure.

It was a great turn-out. Almost like a reunion of the most recognisable faces of five years back, with even Ursula and Mike taking a night off from being parents. It was Mike’s first time on a tube for about two years, he said.

All told, though, it was a very civilised affair. Nobody falling down drunk, nobody being sick on the stairs. It all flew by so quickly, though, that I’d barely spoken to Gordon and Nicky before the bar was calling last orders and it was time to say goodbye. They promised they’d be back to visit in the summer, and I offered them a spare bed for a night or two, but while we didn’t see each other more than once every couple of weeks it’s going to feel very strange having Gordon right over on the other side of the planet from now on, and for all our chats to be by iChat or VoIP.

I guess it’ll be a good test of technology, though, which somehow feels highly appropriate after all this time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2006 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.