A month or so ago, I had a lovely day out in Bath with my friends Dalfino Madrigal Keyte and Christian Watkins. An important part of any day out, of course, is the lunch and we went to the marvellous Pizza Express. It’s a restaurant I’ve always been very fond of; every time I order a pizza called a romana padana and it has spinach, onions, goats’ cheese and many other excellent toppings which make it a rather wonderful meal.
    But, for me, when visiting Pizza Express, the biggest excitement always comes from the desert. Every time I go there, I get myself their absolutely delicious tiramisu. I already like tiramisu a lot, but this thing is on a whole different level. I mean, when I eat porridge, or beagles, or lemon cake, or whatever, I think of them as nice things to eat, but when I eat a Pizza Express tiramisu, I think of it as a nice life experience. So very nice indeed. As an appetiser to the desert, there’s a mint leaf on it that I eat first.
    As I was lying in the silent ecstasy that follows from one of these tiramisus, I realised that Dalfino had not yet eaten the mint leaf that came with his own tiramisu.
    “May I eat your mint leaf, please?” I asked him.
    “Yeah, sure,” he said.
    “Excellent!” I said and popped it into my mouth.
    “Except I was sucking on that for ages earlier.”

One thing that always concerns me is becoming separated from my closest friends. I’m a terribly needy person, as I’m sure regular readers of this blog may have been able to discern about me, so it makes sense that I’d be sad when I can’t see friends anymore. So it’s a terrible shame that this has happened an awfully large number of times over the last few months.
    First, it was David Tubb. He and I would do things together all the time. We’ve been to the theatre together, trekked through fields, climbed under barbed wired fences, gone out to dinner together, played video games, made videos, made comic strips, gone to Christmas events and a huge list of other things. All of it was wonderful, but sadly David slowly began to become ill. Due to a very unpleasant illness (which he wrote a superb blog entry about) I now see incredibly little of him, even though we’re both very keen to meet up, we just can’t. He moved away somewhere quiet to help speed up his recovery, along with Naomi Brennan, his housemate and another friend of mine. I’m very pleased that he still has a friend with him, but also I still get the occasional selfish thought about it being a shame that I don’t get to see her anymore either. I also can’t help but feel selfish about writing this, since my mild upset at not seeing people is probably nothing compared to his regular troubles.
    Then there’s my old friend Elliott Egan. I’ve known him since about 2007 and in 2011 he left for university. As he’s such a kind and reasonable person (with a lovely sense of humour) of course I really enjoy spending time with him, even if that time is in a night club. Recently, I had the rather misguided idea that he’d be back to Corsham once his course was over (which was silly, since it’s a nursing course, and there wouldn’t be many jobs of that kind here) and recently I had the most wonderful surprise when I saw he’d sent a lunch invitation to my phone. Of course, I accepted this, but it was while I was there that he told me he’d be permanently moving away and that he had no plans to live in Corsham again, which was sad. At the end of the lunch he said “Bye, Adam, I’ll see you…” and I got excited because I thought he was going to name a day during the week “sometime next year probably.”
    My friend Mairi Mac Arthur has always lived in London, so it might seem strange that I feel sad about her moving away from there when I never lived there myself. But I’ve regularly visited Mairi for a few years now, and I’ve always had nice, fun days out with her. She may not have lived in Corsham (or even Bath) but in my mind she was always a ‘current’ friend, and if I ever had a strong urge to pay her a visit there was nothing stopping me from doing so. So that’s why I was a little sad to find she was moving to Scotland (which is out of my range). I arranged a ‘Goodbye Day’ and we had lots of fun together before I went back home. When I got on the train, I was still very happy because of the high of a nice day out, but it slowly dwindled into a sort of melancholy as I began to think of how days like that may become rarer.
    I must say, that I find it strange that I have so few anecdotes on here about my friend Rory MacLellan. Rory is infinitely kind and helpful and I’ve spent such a huge amount of time with him that it seems odd that I scarcely write about it. I guess the explanation is that we just do nice things together which wouldn’t be all that exciting for somebdy to read about, but are very exciting to take part in. Funnily enough, he also moved to Scotland, and at the same time as Mairi! I certainly enjoy fun coincidences like that, and I’d enjoy it even more if it didn’t mean Rory were moving away. We watched some Doctor Who together during my last visit, and I had the feeling of not wanting to leave as the day drew to its end because I knew that would be the last time for a while that I’d get to spend time with him.
    And finally there was my friend Tülin. It’s actually rather funny, in a sad way, because before the last time I met up with her, I had actually suggested making it a ‘Goodbye Day’ because I had a feeling I’d not get to see much of her anymore, but she insisted that we’d still see each other lots and I was just needlessly worrying, and now that was the last I saw her before she arranged to move to a place far away (and out of my range). She’s done some extremely kind things for me in the past, and her help in getting me to overcome certain anxieties has been invaluable. No longer do I have somebody to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with, and in a rather silly way, now I’ll feel a bit sad when I watch it by myself.
    And so I’ve been a little sad lately because so many of my friends have ‘disappeared’. I almost wrote something along the lines of “so, I’ve lost a lot of friends lately” but I haven’t lost any of them. I still love them all deeply, and I’m sure the feeling is at least partially mutual and with things like Facebook, I’ll never lose contact with them. I also realise that this must seem a very selfish sounding entry; instead of being happy for all of my friends who have exciting new beginnings, I’m wallowing in self-pity. But I am still happy for them, and proud of them, I am just also sad that I will no longer be able to share their company. I feel like a chick that stayed in the nest while his brothers and sisters left to become wonderful eagles.
    But on the bright side, at times like this, I can appreciate the friends I can still see even more. I should be sure to spend as much time as possible with friends like Oscar Taylor-Kent, Chloe Ward, Sophie Marie Mills and others who are not far away. I also don’t mean to imply I’ll never see the people mentioned in here again, another bright side is that when I next say them, that’ll be something else I’ll be able to appreciate even more.

(Sorry for a rather personal entry today.)

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
.

In my sixth form, the computers showed you the name of the last person who had been using them. Often the previous user was somebody I didn’t know, but occasionally I’d have a small moment of happiness when I saw that one of my close friends had been using it. One day in 2010, I had one of these moments when I saw that my friend Sarah Kryworuczka was the last person to use the computer I’d just sat down on.
    For a bit of fun, I thought I’d try and guess her password. First I tried ‘password’ and, of course, that was not her password. My second guess, however, was actually correct and I found myself logging into Sarah’s account. Of course, I can’t tell you what my second guess was, because I suppose it’s not impossible that she still uses it on something!
    Once I was logged in, I opened up Microsoft Word and started writing.

“Dear Sarah,

I just want to point out that it is important to use a password which is hard for other people to guess. It is not wise to use a password that is quite obviously linked to you; your favourite film, musician, the name of loved ones, etc. A good password can be made by simply picking a random, unexpected word, or adding in numbers or using capital letters. I hope that in future, you’ll use a password that a little harder to guess than your current. Sorry to hack your account, but hopefully my hacking it now will stop criminals hacking it in future.

A concerned friend”

After writing it, I obviously signed out, went onto my own account and got on with some work. Shortly after, I saw her come into the room. I couldn’t help but watch her, to see her reaction to my document. Sadly, I wasn’t quite subtle enough and she figured out it was me. Still, I think the lesson was learned!

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)