Then I took up playing bridge so we talked about that a bit and it went from there (well my nephews might have had something to do with getting us talking again).  Years later and I finally felt our relationship reconstitute the other week after he and his wife visited for a couple of days.  He found the clay possum he'd made as a school boy that I'd put in the garden beside where I'd put our mum's ashes, not that he hadn't seen it before but this time it affected him and he spent hours and hours in the garden in this very contented engrossed state building a roof of chicken netting for the chicken enclosure to keep the scrub turkey out and something opened up in me.  It was such a nice feeling as we had always been close growing up too.  

I'm glad it happened but it's not like we live in a vacuum is it.