It has taken me a long time to pluck up the courage to write this blog post. I think, until now, I have been unwilling to face the reality of my loss. Unwilling to admit that it really happened.

You see, it has been 4 months now since I last saw my beloved water bottle. My faithful friend, my constant companion, the source of my life. My confidant, my closest ally. My butler, and my bodyguard.

This post is dedicated to him.

We first met on Christmas day 2012. From the very first moment I squeezed water through his baby blue filter, I knew that ours would be a beautiful friendship.

Very quickly we became inseparable. He stood by me in my darkest hours. He celebrated with me in my triumphs. We journeyed the mundanity of day-to-day life as brothers-in-arms.

When I was thirsty, he gave me water. When I was hungry, he gave me water. When I was naked, I didn’t mind, because he was a bottle. He didn’t have eyes.

He never failed to provide me with cool, clean, life-giving liquid – filtering the sin out of the filthy tap water of the common folk. That is, unless I had forgotten to change the filter in a number of months. Which was fairly often.

If I’m honest, I didn’t treat him well enough. When I opened my mouth, there was a 50% chance that it was to say: “Has anyone seen my water bottle?” 

He would turn up in the oddest places. The downstairs toilet we never use. On top of an ATM in Natwest. In a bin in an Italian café. On top of an ATM in Nationwide. In a wheelie bin next to a kebab van near a roundabout just off the M3 Junction to Winchester.

But he never complained. Partly because he was just a water bottle, but mostly because of his stoic nature. A true British bottle, showing stiff upper lip at all times.

He was a survivor. He endured being kicked across a car park by Ben Reid, being shouted at by a London nightclub bouncer, being mistaken for a baby’s bottle and thrown away by my boss, and being dropped countless times by my own careless hand.

It was at a fancy dress party on the 29th March last year when he started sporting his trademark moustache. Always a colourful character (apart from his body, which was distinctly transparent). Ever the life of the party. He wore his facial hair with pride to the very end.

Perhaps we will never know for certain what became of him. The prevailing theory is that he was thrown away by an over-zealous methodist whilst cleaning. Or maybe I left him on top of my car and drove off.

But let us not dwell on our loss. Let us not focus on his demise. Let us remember him as the faithful friend that he was. We do not weep because his short life is over. We smile because it happened.

If you’re going to weep for anything, weep because you just finished reading the obituary of a chuffing water bottle.