In 2012, Kristi was living in Santa Barbara, California, running an on-demand pilates streaming service. She’d recently started dating an anatomy teacher who was based in Florida. When he invited her to join him in St Andrews, Scotland, where he would be teaching a dissection course, she jumped at the chance for a holiday. “He was really good friends with the course manager and his partner, Jane,” Kristi says. “I’d heard a lot about them and was nervous to meet them.”
Jane, who lived in Bath and worked as a primary school teacher, was also joining her partner on the Scottish trip. “The dissection classes were for people with an interest in a holistic approach to anatomy. They were usually in London but this one was moved to St Andrews because of the London Olympics,” she says. They all booked to stay in a shared cottage, where Jane and Kristi met for the first time. “I remember how noisy the seagulls were,” laughs Jane. “Our partners were so close at the time that I think there was a lot of pressure for us to get on.”
Kristi says her first impression of Jane was that she was “really tall and beautiful”. “We had haggis for dinner on the first night and I don’t usually eat much meat,” she says. “It didn’t appeal at all and I was struggling. Jane leaned over and told me it was mostly oatmeal, which made me feel a lot better.”
Jane admits she was in awe of Kristi at first. “She was so glamorous with this successful aura – I was terrified,” she says. “But when I spoke to her, we got on straight away and it was really easy.” The next day, they spent a lot of time together, exploring the local area. “I am not one for chit-chat and get anxious in social situations but I felt like Jane got me straight away,” says Kristi. “She was asking about my long-distance relationship and what our plan was. She was really curious from the start.”
After the trip, they continued to stay in touch on Facebook. In 2015, Kristi and her partner travelled to Somerset for the wedding of Jane and her partner, before making another group trip to St Andrews, where their friendship grew closer.
Later that year, Kristi’s relationship began to break down and she turned to Jane for support. “I went to visit her on my own at Christmas,” says Kristi. “She’s the most logical person, who always thinks before she speaks, whereas I’m the exact opposite. She helped me come to terms with the end of the relationship.” Kristi and her partner broke up in 2016 but her friendship with Jane remained strong and the pair would regularly visit each other across the Atlantic.
At the start of the pandemic, Jane’s relationship also came to an end. “Kristi was my rock throughout that. We spoke a lot during lockdown,” she says.
“We started using FaceTime and would spend hours chatting,” remembers Kristi. “Sometimes we could just leave the camera on while we went off to do things like feed the dog.”
While Kristi is still running her pilates business, Jane is now an assistant manager at a pub. They talk regularly online and continue to visit each other a few times a year, staying for two to three weeks. “When Jane comes over, I love how well she integrates with my friends. My entire workforce knows her too as she often takes pilates classes when she’s here.”
Kristi describes herself as “the neurotic one” and says her friend is more reserved. “I can call her any time and she’ll be there,” she says. “I didn’t even know a friendship like this was possible. When someone shows that kind of love towards me, it teaches me to care for myself more.”
Jane loves that they are always open with each other, and never keep secrets. “I really like her ability to cut to the quick and help me decide what to do. I always appreciate her bluntness, her honesty and her love for me.”