My best friend Faye

A lot of people say that you meet the love of your life and potential husband/ wife at University. While this is not true for me I did meet a lot of amazing people, who have gone on to become lifelong friends.

In the case of Faye Machin (my tiger buddy) some of them have even become my lifelong carers! Poor long suffering Faye has spent the best part of six years trying to stop me from injuring myself, while at the same time trying to avoid me injuring her.

How often do you remember the first thing you said to your best friend? The answer is not often. Well, I can remember the first words I said to Faye, and in typical Laura fashion they were ‘I almost died!!’

This is no exaggeration, and will forever stick in my mind as the day I nearly met my end after taking a paracetamol. Still shaken by my near death experience, which saw me choking on the tablet and my friend having to perform the heimlich maneuver  on me, I entered the drama studio to find someone to recount my tale of woe to. Lo and behold there was Faye, merrily sewing away.

To this day I still wonder why she decided to become my friend her first encounter of me was when I shouted in her face that I almost died! The look of confusion on her face as I proceeded to tell my tale soon gave way to laughter as I mistakenly told her that my friend had done the ‘Heineken removal’ on me.

Fast forward a few hours to Faye being interrupted once again to be told that I had super glued my hand to a chair. She came to rescue me, and here we are six years later still best friends.

Over the years we have stuck together through the highs and lows of our crazy lives. We have many memories from Faye’s birthday fancy dress party where we dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to the time when I fell down the stairs at a night club and threw my bottle at her head! We have laughed so much that it hurts, but also cried, and known that we can depend on each other to make things seem better. And that is the mark of a best friend.

So I know that in 50 years time, when we are both 76 years old, grey and wrinkled we will still be best friends, out on the dance floor with our zimmer frames laughing so much that our false teeth fall out!

“A best friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway.”