My friend Tereza came to London for a few days and we have spent beautiful Saturday afternoon by the pool in Brockwell Lido, having to disguise our bottle of fizzy wine to smuggle it in, lying on different flat surfaces in park, dipping in water whilst indulging in an endless banter, like so many times before in so many different places and life's circumstances.

Eons ago, our picnic adventures used to look like this:

There was some wine and strawberries on the Donau Insel in Vienna:

And today in London:

We did some serious decadent dipping indulgance in Brno:

And fountains in Brno:

In Labe river on our bizarre trip to Kuks:

In a pond close to Písek town:

In Spain, Alicante:

And today, again, in London:

                       ***

I remember crying vigorously when I finished elementary school for getting away from all of my friends and inevitably losing some of them in the process.

My mum, who's always been very brutally blunt but honest with me, did not help:

"Yes, you will lose most of them, but find new friends on high school, and than you'll lost those too and replace them with a completely new group of people on uni, and then workplace. But with those, who are worth it, you meet them after not seeing each other for twenty years, and you'll just rekindle and follow from where you've left off like there was no gap in between."

And seeing this as a zero consolation, I cried some more.

But yes, she was right, as mums usually are. Most of us manage to shake off a certain moral absolutism, that makes us judge people and relationships mercilessly, after the puberty. I'm afraid I retained it well overdue into my twenties. But albeit some of us on a ridiculously slow pace, we do grow up and change and (I'd like to think) wise up.

One of my core beliefs has always been that out of all the pleasures in live that brings us joy, it's not a profound sensation of satisfying hunger, or sexual appetite - you find those everywhere else in nature - that is worth pursuing. But the one specifically human, finding a pleasure in dedication that transcends one's ego - love. As simple as that.

And maybe not even a motherly love, however magical and strong this is, as that as well is not specifically human condition. But more so love as in a friendship or partnership, where one is experiencing a selfless joy and pleasure stemming from a company/attention/happiness of another human being.

I have always put my friends through a lot, trying to manifest my ideal of friendships as two lives intertwined and lived in a near proximity. Only when I've aplied yet another filter on the group of my friends- by moving to London - and with the distance lost some people I thought would always be there,.. and only after going through a despair of seeing that friendship in a big heaving city like London really is limited to seeing each other couple times a month (if you're lucky and that's only after cancelling on each other twenty times before due to life getting in a way) I grew up and wised up a tiny bit. And as per usual when learning a lesson, it was a painful process, but as well at the end you re-emerge stronger.

I haven't seen Tereza in months. And we only text each other from time to time. Couple years ago, I would consider this as a relationship unworthy the friendship status.

There was a period in life when we used to literally live together, drink (heavily) and prance (tirelessly) and laugh together (fiercly) from dusk till dawn. Long, sunny days that somehow now seems like being void of any troubles and obligations, so far away, almost like a different lifetime.

And that's just five years ago...

So much have changed. We have changed. But the crucial thing is, no matter how different now from the people we were five six years ago when we became friends, we went through the changes together. Maybe not physically side by side, but always there interested in each others lives and little personal achievements and failures.

And no matter who are we going to be five years from now, and where and with whom, I know she's still going to be kept in a loop and we'll still going to swim side by side and dip in yet another pool, river or sea in yet another random part of this wonderful world.

And knowing this, having this certainty when a different person is involved, is one of life's little miracles.

So yeah, thanks for that.

Yes, I was being extremely cheap and embarassing and brought a needle and thread to the pool with me to fix my backpack.