Kate is busy organising her wedding, which will take place in Thailand next year. I will be her maid of honour as well as her first child’s godmother (despite the fact I don’t want kids of my own). Kate isn’t engaged yet (her boyfriend doesn’t seem to mind the fuss going on around him). Neither is she pregnant.

Kate has awarded me with the aforementioned privileges (aka huge, unasked-for responsibility) because her hierarchy of friendship is based on whom she has known the longest.

When she and some other childhood friends arrived for the weekend it didn’t take long before we were talking nonsense and falling about laughing even though it has been nearly a year since I had previously seen them. ‘Look at us with our handsome men,’ Kate said as the guys chatted among themselves at the bar. ‘I never thought there would be a day when… I’d have a boyfriend,’ she said and we laughed, remembering those too-cringey dates of our long-gone pasts…

There was Mick (‘just call me Quick’) who once, not only committed the sin of wearing a football shirt, but pulled it over his head and ran round the pub showing off his protruding stomach when his team scored; Trevor with his Kickers loafers and navy jumper uniform; and the guy whose statement necklace was actually a bicycle chain.

We may have changed and moved in different directions (including whole continents), but we still share our silly childish humour. As Groucho Marx once said, ‘When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, “Damn, that was fun”.’ I guess it’s because old friends know all the mistakes of our past, so we can afford to be truly stupid with them.