How do you place a value on friendship?

An old friend turned up today. Totally out of the blue. We'd lost touch with old friend and his wife, grown apart I guess with different priorities, different lives and living in different counties.

Sometime paranoia creeps in and I blame myself, wondering what I've done to upset them. I have made efforts to stay in touch and we're sort of in touch via Facebook so I see the time they have for other people. But they rarely make the contact with us.

But anyway, out of the blue, we get a phone call. The old friend is in the area and 30 mins away. Mutual friends were staying, so it was simple to set an extra place at the table and catch up on what's happening in life.

Suddenly the time lapse was unimportant and it was good to catch up. I know now that lives are busy especially in our household at the moment. This friendship isn't a priority for me, but whilst its one that will fade into the background for most of its lifetime, one of my personal values is around friendship and there will always be room at my table for Old Friend.