"It's Friendship! Friendship! Just the perfect blendship!"

The relationships you have with your friends are the ones you invest the most emotion and time in outside of your immediate family and your lover. Striking the careful balance between you and your friend can sometimes be a double-edged sword, much like a relationship with your lover.

As time wears on, the similarities become differences, the shared sense of humour become polar opposites and the friendship inevitably fades away. Whether that is a happy thing whereby you rejoice for finally dropping that annoying twat or it leaves you wondering where it all went wrong – it is up to the individual and the circumstances.

We’ve all had friendships that have dissipated, in the last 12 months alone, I have not heard from two friends who I got along with like a house on fire, fought with another two friends (one of which I didn’t speak to until I fought with the other one six months later), had friends visit from overseas and almost lost one to respiratory problems (although he would probably argue that I was exaggerating his near-death). Of late I have been spending more time with a friend who I felt I didn’t see enough and we recently spent the better part of a day together just talking, gossiping and enjoying the relaxing flavours of Kashmiri tea.

Also this year I developed friendships with people I lost contact with and made new friendships with the nicest, funniest and most endearing people all of whom I am grateful I met. I probably don’t tell my friends often enough, if at all, that I appreciate their company and their opinion (even if it’s not what I want to hear) and their friendship. I invest a lot of time and emotion into these fragile relationships and although they probably don’t see it, it’s there, hidden under layers of fat, hair, bitch-thick exteriors.

It was probably due to my friends health scare that I realised how much I truly appreciated them all and realised that they’ve all stuck by me even in 2006 – a year of real change for me as an individual.

It’s a wonder how Ethel managed to put with Lucy’s antics for so long.