We’re on the train and I’m very excited. In only a few hours, we will be in southwest London at the home of one of my dearest friends.

Sarah and I met in Japan in August 1997. I had already completed two years as an assistant language teacher with the JET programme in a little town in Fukuoka in the southwest of the country. Sarah was brand new and had come to replace my friend Liliane, who had the same job as me in the next town over. Surely, no one could replace Liliane.

I arrived at Liliane’s apartment one hot August evening to meet this new person. Sarah opened the door. I remember her holding the Arthur Hailey novel Hotel in her hand when she opened the door. Back then, I was all up myself, into the Beat poets and raving about Jack Kerouac, so I wasn’t too impressed by her choice of reading material. ‘She’ll never replace Liliane,’ I told myself.

She invited me in and we sat at her kitchen table (Liliane’s kitchen table) and started to get to know each other. Twenty-eight years later and I’m on a train to London to see Sarah. I’ve no idea where Liliane is.

Sarah’s first year in Japan was to be my last. We quickly became firm friends and giggled our way through that year, having all sorts of fun. A year after I left Japan, I returned to visit her for a few weeks the next year and when she returned home to live in London, our friendship only deepened. She came to Ireland and met my family and I went to England and met hers.

We met our future husbands at around the same time. I still have the letter she wrote to me about the cute Spanish guy she met while she was in Boston and how he stuck a Post-it note to her work computer, asking her out on a date. She sent me that letter around the same time I sent her a letter about the cute English guy I met while I was studying in Aberdeen. Her wedding a couple of years later to Luis remains the best wedding I’ve ever been to.

We became pregnant with our first babies within months of each other and Lily and Isabel have known each other since they were tiny. Then I had Katie and Sarah had Daniel and our four kids – now all teenagers – get on like a house on fire.

Rarely a year has gone by when our two families don’t spend time together – her English-Spanish family coming to spend a few days with us; my Irish-English Spanish-speaking family spending a few days with them. These annual visits are a highlight of our year. The fact that our children all get on so well makes it all the easier for Sarah and me. Over the coming days, we’ll hang out, go places together, she’ll tell my kids stories about me and I’ll tell her kids stories about her – all from the days when we weren’t a whole lot older than they are now. And we’ll part ways after those few days, our friendship renewed and, despite a few more wrinkles than last year, the two of us feeling, just a little, like we’re in our 20s once again.

Now, I wonder what ever happened to Liliane?