About a year ago before I left Sing, The Best Friend told me, "P I don't know how you can dare to leave your whole life and start a brand new life elsewhere". Because I wasn't intending to go back to live anytime soon. And because I'd never been to Europe before, much less England. Knew no one in England (D wasn't back in the country yet). Basically I was walking into unknown turf with a few luggages I was struggling with and five boxes of stuff to be shipped over (also because D said, "ship everything", but I shipped half). This February, Denise excitedly Skyped me about some scheme for work in England. Oh God. My best friend coming to live in England?? What could be better! March and April followed, she underwent interviews and called me up, "P I GOT THE JOB!". Mid-September came, and she landed in England for the first time too. About two weeks ago, I took a break from packing up my dorm room and boarded the train to Stevenage. It was certainly slightly surreal that we are both in the UK. "Why are you so dressed up?" she asked me "It's just the cape. And I'm meeting you I have to look good", I replied. "You know I was panicking because I was meeting you and my skirts are all being shipped over. I have to dress up to meet you too!" she laughed. And off we went for lunch and to celebrate her birthday with her colleague batch from Sing, before heading off to shop on our own and where I introduced her to English Cream Tea With Scones And Clotted Cream for the first time. As we walked to her temporary accommodation we were musing about how natural it felt that we were both on a foreign land and adjusted quickly. . and it just seemed very matter-of-factly that we were both here eight years since we've known each other. We then shopped online for furniture (since she's moving into her own first real place too!) and tried on each other's stuff laughing at how Becks & Suze it feels. You see, we both love the Shopaholic series, appealing to the vain frivolities in us, which we discovered when we were eighteen. Except we can never be sure who is really Becks and who is Suze-- perhaps a combination-- and I'm sure that neither of us want a Tarkie (although he looked surprisingly good in the movie). She thinks D sounds exactly like Luke, which makes me laugh, and then I remembered reading something in Mini Shopaholic that sounds something like "Tarquin adores Suze so much [...] whilst Luke always looks at me with suspicion as though I am up to no good all the time. Which I am not." That sentence hit me hard. D always thinks I am up to no good-- I can't help having a cheeky face, it's been there since young!-- even when I'm just smiling whilst innocently shopping he'll tell his mom (who also thinks I'm cheeky. Oh God) I have something up my (non-existent) sleeves. We then proceeded to take loads of photographs, happy that we're both at last able to revel in coats and boots that we could only dream of and try for fun in Zara whilst living in tropical Singapore. . .
