On Monday morning at 9.15am, I waved goodbye to one of my best friends. She’s the second person in twelve months that I’ve lost to Australia. Bloody Oz!

Jojo was my housemate for the first two years of Uni, and my best friend (well, one of them) and holiday buddy following that. Even though she was in Lincoln and I was in London, we managed to keep in touch, see each other fairly frequently and cause mayhem everywhere we went. I have such brilliant memories of our days as students, terrorising the staff in the pub round the corner, making margaritas in the kitchen, wondering whether our other housemate really was eating toilet paper…knowing she’s not just a couple of hours away is a killer.

But, I know she’s going to have the most amazing time. Her visa lasts a year, so she will be back eventually, but as much as I know the next twelve months will go by in a flash, it seems like an eternity to be without the girl who rides motorcycle, swears like a trooper, drinks like a fish and then goes home to tend to her vegetable garden and play with her cat.

I managed not to cry until today.