Leon and I became penpals when we were both in school, me at Llantarnam Comprehensive School and Leon at the Federal School for the Deaf, Penang; introduced to each other through a “letter exchange” between the Deaf pupils at each school, back in circa 1992. We wrote to each other for donkey’s years, exchanging not just letters but also artwork (from Leon) and stamps and various mementos and goodies. One such goodie was a framed RM$2 banknote which I received for my 19th birthday, which I still use as a bookmark.

In 2003, Leon visited the UK for the first time as part of a whistlestop tour of Europe, and he came to Wales to meet me, my family and my friends, and stayed with me for the duration. We got along like a house on fire and communicated with each other in a mixture of BSL and ASL. It was surreal to meet a penpal face to face, and pretty cool at the same time.

Leon then moved to the USA to study art at the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, and he now resides in New York City as a working artist, and has become a well known artist in his native Malaysia, and even has >his own Wikipedia page!

In recent years, as we’ve both matured into adults and forged our own careers, Leon in art and me in law, we’ve stopped sending each other letters. However, thanks to the advent of the Internet, we have remained in touch, albeit infrequently.

I found out yesterday, via Deaf News Today’s Twitter feed, that Leon has been recognised for his work on TIME magazine’s year-end cover picture of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange using the text of a leaked cable. You can read all about it here.

I think Leon’s story is an astonishing one, and I am proud to call him a friend. Leon, we’ll come and visit you in NYC in the near future, promise!!

Leon Lim took one of me when he came to stay at my parents’ house in August 2003, during his European travels. You can see it here. Do you think that picture reflects my personality? Discuss!

It’s been a great evening, socialising with RAD staff and Laura, Claire and Andrew’s partners. We’ve had a few laughs; banned ourselves from talking about RAD, and if we did, then we had to drink a shot of Southern Comfort. I fell prey to these scheme, but at least I wasn’t Claire, who had to drink three shots. Andrew and Andy got away with their gaffs cos they were driving!

Anyway, best be off. Need to be up early for a shower and a bacon sarnie, plus team meeting at Chelmsford tomorrow. Nite.

I have to say their flat is superb. It is really nice. I also have to say that I have never seen Stuart looking so happy. It was really nice to see him; I hadn’t seen him since before Christmas 2004, and as Karen was away for a hen weekend, it meant that we had one of our blokey weekends i.e. food, booze and DVDs! This was a very rare opporunity for us; the last time we did anything like this was when we were both in Cardiff Law School doing our LPC.

On the way home, I got to thinking about whether it’s good or bad to not see your best friends so often. Since we both left Cardiff Law School, I’ve only seen Stuart on four occasions. I do miss him, but I think long absences makes me appreciate him more. It’s the same with a lot of my other friends, some I don’t have very frequent contact with, but I do think about them from time to time.

I guess it’s just life – we all take different paths throughout our lives, and this will affect friendships and relationships. I guess life is just a constant test of friendships and relationships. I’m glad to say that Stuart and I are still the best for friends, and he’s doing me the honour of being my best man at THE wedding, so I’m chuffed about that.

Bath is a lovely city; never fails to disappoint, although this weekend it nearly did cos it rained most of the bloody weekend! Rach and I ventured out to the shopping centre on Saturday and bought a few bits and bobs. Otherwise, we mostly chatted, watched DVDs, drank white white and ate quite a lot of lovely food.

What do I think of Luke now that I’ve met him the flesh? To be honest with you, he’s a lot nicer than I’d expected. His manner on MSN is quite brash and blunt, but in person, he’s a lot more considerate and decent. Quite a contrast there! However, I must say that even though he comes across like that online, I have always thought him to be a trustworthy and honest bloke. So in that respect, the online Luke and the person Luke are one and the same.

It was lovely to see Rachel too – I hadn’t seen her for 2 weeks since we came back from Majorca (due to my going to Leicester last weekend)!

Don’t you just love it when people continue to surprise you even if you’ve known them for a while. Stuart certainly has many sides to his personality and character – perhaps he’s schizophrenic?

For all of you in the know, Stuart’s going to be my best man at Rachel and I’s wedding, and his comments on this blog have reassured me that he’s going to give a blinding speech. Who could ask for anything more?