Hazel

Christmas is definitely approaching. I can tell this because the weather has gone cold, I have eaten far more office Quality Street than is entirely healthy, and best of all, my good chum Hazel is back in the UK! Yay!

Hazel's a schoolfriend, 13 days older than me. I've known her since we were eleven. She's seen me laugh so hard that orange juice comes out of my nose. She's seen me cry over dead pets and rubbish boyfriends. We worked on trigonometry and figurative language together. We learned our avoir and etre verbs together. We bought alcopops and bonded over Truth or Dare. Then the cow sodded off to the Southern hemisphere. You can't trust anyone.

So Hazel selfishly lives in New Zealand most of the year. This is a blatant attempt to make me spend most of my salary on going to visit her. I think she has shares in Virgin. Luckily one of our friends out-manouevered her this year by cunningly getting married in the UK (the sacrifices we make...) and forcing Hazel to come back and be a bridesmaid.

I cannot wait to see her, but wait I must as I'm at work until Friday. Then, as fast as my little Corsa's wheels will carry me, I will bomb up the M1 and irritate her to the best of my ability. She is quite difficult to irritate though. Or at least she hides it well. I suppose there was that whole "moving to the other side of the world" thing...

I will of course be stealing her passport. She can come and live with me. In the loft. She'll love it.

Don't tell her yet though. I don't want to ruin the surprise.