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!)
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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!)

When I meet people and am introducing myself, I often mention that I have a blog. My reasoning is that, if then they want to get back in touch with me, they can look up my blog and find me through there. Once I mention to people that I have a blog, and that it’s called Trusty Water Blog, their first question is usually “and what’s it about?” to which I normally reply “Oh, it’s just about funny and weird things that happen to me” but I’ve been thinking about that recently, and, really, that’s not true.
    Really, what this blog is about, is friendship. Of course, telling people it’s about friendship would probably make them think it’s really boring, but the reason I write these things up is because I really value my memories of time with friends. I might be writing an anecdote about something that happened five years ago, with a friend I don’t have any real contact with anymore, but through writing it up, I re-experience it and remember fondly how I had enjoyed the time we had together. I write this blog to remember the nice visits to Bath town with David Tubb, the lovely sleepovers with Tülin, sharing writing with Oscar and Sophie, nights out with Elliott Egan, visits to London with Mairi and many others. I shan’t mention everyone, because that will take too long and get boring because everyone from my past is very important to me, but that’s the appeal of this for me. I write about something that just happened, then in a few years, when I can’t see the people involved any more, I reread it and remember them fondly. So, really, this blog stands as a testament to the fun I have had with each and every one of my friends and how much I love them all. And it will continue to be that, for years to come.
    Oh, and it’s also about video games and books.

I had better put a warning at the start of this anecdote. I’m not writing about anything sexually explicit that actually happened, but this anecdote will contain the suggestion of sexually explicit activity, so, you have been warned! I hope I don’t damage the family friendly image of this blog.
    In 2009 I was in one of my GCSE Media Studies classes. These classes were very nice, and I shared them with my friend George Moore, but, I think he must have been away on this day, because I can’t remember him being here while this happened. Or, maybe he was there and he just didn’t do anything.
    Back then I had a pair of trousers which had broken pockets. They’d been hanging up on the clothes line and the dog had decided to eat the pockets for whatever reason, and so there was just a hole in them. If I were to put my hand into my pocket, I’d just end up touching my leg, so, as I’m sure you can imagine they weren’t awfully handy. It did have its upsides though.
    During that particular Media lesson, I had an itch on my leg, so, using the pocket hole, I could just scratch it directly. What a nice relief.
    “Woah, Adam, what are you doing?” said a student behind me.
    “Oh, I’ve just got an itchy leg. I was scratching it,” I said.
    “No you weren’t,” he said. “You were just masturbating!”
    “I hardly think that would be appropriate for school, would it?” I said. I pulled my hand out of my pocket and the hole in it was revealed.
    “You’ve even cut a hole in your pocket. That’s disgusting.” And he did seem quite disgusted.
    “No, it’s not disgusting! Don’t worry, I really was just scratching my leg,” I said, trying to reassure him.
    “Everyone, Adam was just masturbating in the middle of class!” he shouted. A lot of people turned to look at me.
    Now, this is why I don’t think George was there that day, I’m sure he’d have had something to say about it. He’d probably have defended me. Indeed, the class was mainly full of people I didn’t know very well and there were lots of disapproving remarks.
    “I really wasn’t,” I said, a little sadly. There was one person in the class who I had a blossoming friendship with. Surely she would believe me?
    “That’s really disgusting Adam.”
    I guess not.

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