At the risk of Ben thinking I’m insane, I tell him I’d rather stay at the shop until it’s time to meet my friends. I get through the rest of the afternoon by comforting myself with the fact that I’ll soon be getting out of my head with Jess and Lisa. The bonus being that while doing so, they might offer me some sound advice – or at the very least a shoulder to cry on.

I love Jess and Lisa. I really do. I met them at tech college; our eyes met across a crowded registration hall. That was fourteen years ago. We hit it off immediately and have been proper mates to one another ever since. In Jess I saw a soulmate, a partner in crime. In Lisa I spotted a calming influence, someone who might help me fill out the forms correctly and get me into the right classroom at the right time. I needed them both. Need doesn’t always turn to affection; often it sours. But we worked well together as a unit, a team. We watched each other’s backs and still do.

Jess is funny, witty and careless (bordering on the reckless). She is the perfect person to call if you’ve ever done anything stupid that you regret (she can usually trump the stupidity or at least knows someone else who can). She is fabulously non-judgemental, which has been important to me throughout my twenties.

Jess chose to attend tech college rather than stay on at school because she was dating a boy who was also studying there at the time. The boy who gets the title ‘Her First Love’, but no more mention in this story because she fell out with him the summer before we started our courses, which was predictable but inconvenient. Jess changed vocation three times before the Christmas

Lisa is also funny and witty but she’s altogether more aware of consequences than either Jess or me. She’s always been great to have around to flash up a big amber light, if any of our single-girl antics threatened to get out of hand. Obviously, since I’ve been with Adam, Lisa hasn’t had to play the role of babysitter with me quite so much, but Jess still manages to get into her share of scrapes.