No end to joy.....

I have been reading with great enjoyment a book by Alexander McCall Smith:  In the Company of Cheerful Ladies.

Here is a paragraph that struck me, now that I'm entering my 80th year, as one of the key delights of an old woman's life: 

The two women had known one another for many years, and had moved into that most comfortable of territories, that of an old friendship that could be picked up and put down at will with no damage.  Sometimes several months would go by without the two seeing one another, and this would make no difference.  A conversation left unfinished at the beginning of the hot season could be resumed after the rains; a question asked in January might be answered in June, or even later, or indeed not at all.  There was no need for formality or caution, and the faults of each were known to the other.