Thats what friends are for

I hate to say it, but its true - to a certain degree you get overly accustomed to your friends always being around and you forget how much they mean to you. Well this past weekend, I was given a wake-up call as to how much my friends mean to me, and how much I apparently mean to them.

My house just about always has people in it. Hardly a weekend goes by without something happening here - whether I cook, or we watch DVD’s, or people just come around to arb on the floor with coffee to chat - there’s always something happening. It rocks. In true bachelor style tho, my house is far from furnished. I have 2 old pink couches that came with the flat, and that match the pink carpets and pink curtains. Saying its “retro”, just wouldn’t cut it. I make do with the limited crockery and cutlery that I have - 2 teaspoons, a plate or two etc…
So I was told a week ago, to keep this past Saturday open as we were gonna watch movies. Everyone was gonna meet at my house for drinks beforehand, and then we’d all troop to the movies. Cool. So around 7pm the doorbell goes and I open the gate etc and go back to my study to wait for whoever arrived to come inside. I’m sitting in my study - a room adjoining the lounge - and I realize after a few minutes that its really quiet and I haven’t heard anyone come inside. So I get up and walk around the corner into the lounge and theres about 20 people in my lounge all shouting - SURPRISE!!

I absolutely crapped myself. I didn’t have the slightest clue what it was all about or who’d organized it - but there stood everyone with gifts and food and all sorts of odds & ends. Turns out, one of my closest friends here in PE organized a second ‘housewarming’ for me, to show everyone’s appreciation for the constant usage of my house etc…

There have been few moments in my life that I’ve been absolutely speechless. I’ve got a quick wit and I’ve always got something to say. Except that night. I was without a word that could express my true gratitude for what had been organized - my true gratitude for my friends in PE.

I was showered with gifts - a microwave, toaster, crockery, cutlery… even a can of chilli pilchards and a toilet roll :)

But it really wasn’t the gifts that made the biggest impression on me. It was the realization that all my friends here in PE had spent the last week or so, organizing all this for me… keeping it secret, buying gifts from a list that had been made up. It was realizing how much I apparently mean to my friends. It was truly moving and an incredibly validating experience.

So this is a brief blog article to say to all my friends here in PE, thanks. Really, thank you for making me feel so welcome here.

You guys rock.