there are BIG shIPs aND smaLL shIPs . . .

It’s just gone three o’clock and I’ve been joined in the library by two girls who have creatively teamed treggings and knuggs26 with their school uniforms. They are huddled together in front of a single computer and every two seconds they collapse with attacks of laughter. To be honest, this is fairly annoying because we’re in a library and anyone with half a head knows that libraries are supposed to be areas of quiet study. It’s making it very difficult for me to concentrate and this is having a detrimental impact on the flow of my stream of consciousness. I was going to write about how Goose and Gareth and I woke up on Monday morning with frayed nerves and humongous coffee headaches and about how my dad drove all the way down to Aberystwyth from Wrexham to pick me up and take me back to North Wales with him. Oh, and I was also going to write about Ruthie and how she ended up going home for Christmas earlier than she’d ever planned because she insisted on accompanying Goose and Gareth back to Cardiff so that they wouldn’t miss another day of double science with Mr Thomas. I was going to write about these things but now I’m not because the two giggling girls opposite are putting me right off.

So instead I’ll write about them.

Thankfully, they have stopped shrieking with laughter and one of the girls – who has blatantly cut her own fringe – is telling the other girl – who is wearing a candy necklace that she is in the process of eating – about someone called Pot-Wash-Pete. Their conversation is running pretty much along the lines of this:

DIY Fringe:	Yeah, so I was in the middle of my waitressing shift and Pot-Wash-Pete said, ‘Do you wanna come to the cinema with me on Saturday? There’s this really freaky film showing called And They Died Screaming. It’s supposed to be the scariest thing ever.’
Candy Necklace:	Oh my God!!! You’re not seriously contemplating a date with Pot- Wash-Pete, are you? That boy is an environmental hazard. He’s polluting the world with a serious geek leak!
DIY Fringe:	Ahhh ha ha ha behave. He’s a really sweet person!
Candy Necklace:	Oh my God!!! You do, don’t you? You fancy Pot-Wash-Pete?
DIY Fringe:	Get real. This is Pot-Wash-Pete we’re talking about.
Candy Necklace:	So what did you say to him?
DIY Fringe:	I told him to trot off. Look, it’s nearly three fifteen. Let’s go into town. The shops are gonna be shutting soon and I need to buy something.
Candy Necklace:	Like what?
DIY Fringe:	I dunno. Just anything.

And now they’ve both got up and rushed straight out of the library. And the weird thing is, that despite the fact that they were getting on my nerves, I’m actually rather sorry to see them go. Even though their conversation was frankly quite pointless, they seemed like OK people. I should’ve warned them how bad that film is. And also, I think I’d have quite liked to rush into town with them. Because I like buying anything as well.

But the truth is that I don’t have anyone to rush into town with.

It’s got me thinking again about that tea towel on the wall of The Good Friends Cafe. There was a lot of truth written on that tea towel. There are big ships and there are small ships but, in the great big scheme of things, they don’t matter all that much. Without big ships we wouldn’t have any Caribbean cruises. Without small ships, we wouldn’t have any cruises around Cardiff Bay. Big deal.

The most important ship of all is friendship. And friendship floats my boat.

It’s cheesier than Cheddar but it’s true.

I haven’t got any friends here and it’s a very lonely state of affairs. It’s giving me that spaceman feeling again.

And even worse than that, it’s making me feel a lot like that solitary swinging girl in that weird film I watched the other day

And what’s even worse than that is that every time I swing forward, I’m confronted with this terrible truth in massive letters, which is staring me straight in the face:

I haven’t been showing that much consideration to Gareth or Goose.

And every time I swing backwards, I get a glimpse of an even more terrible truth – but this time it’s in hazy distant faraway letters because it’s something I’ve shoved to the back of my head in the hope that it might go away.

But it won’t go away. It’s this:

I haven’t been showing that much consideration to my mum either.

And this whole minging swinging sensation in my head might be discombobulating but it has made me realize something important. It’s made me realize that rather than sitting here feeling sorry for myself, it’s high time that I went home and sorted one or two things out.