‘A bottle of red, a bottle of white’; Billy Joel’s ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’ plays in my mind while my friends are huddled around two small metal tables outside the Cambridge Wine Merchants. My friend tells us how she left her metal fork in the microwave while making her dinner, because she was distracted by two pigeons having a fight on the grass. This term, we’ve decided to give an hour-by-hour of our day in an attempt to make Easter term a bit more palatable.

“We all get together to give each other the best bits, the most memorable moments”

The rules are simple: a few times a week, we all get together to give each other the best bits, the most memorable moments. If we don’t spend enough time together, we’ve concluded Easter term will be sure to get the better of us. But if we spend too much time together, Easter term will also be getting the better of us – or more specifically, when we get our results and realise yapping does not get Firsts (if there was a degree in it, however, I’d be topping tripos). Our compromise is spending an hour or two a few times a week, at the end of the day, to give a play-by-play of our days, hour-by-hour.

It’s much easier to be glued together in Michaelmas and Lent, even during the day, especially with the majority of us having lectures on Sidge. But, with so many revision supervisions, exams, coursework deadlines, and ongoing lectures for our resident NatSci, it’s harder to spend time together during the day. In the evenings, we all have our different routines. I eat ridiculously early at 4.30pm while they have dinner at 6pm. Even when we try to stay ‘locked in’ together, we just yap about every insignificant thought that comes into our head (admittedly, this one may just be me). It seems like we’re spending more time with iDiscover than each other.

“Even if we’ve had a bad day, we have the hour-by-hour to look forward to”

Our play-by-plays have been beneficial for a multitude of reasons. First, we’ve managed to filter out the irrelevant and pointless stuff, because it’s been forgotten after a few hours. This means we can spend more time on the valuable debrief, like who we spotted on Sidge, or for making plans for the end of exams. It means that, even if we’ve had a bad day, or even just an uneventful one, we have the hour-by-hour to look forward to. It helps ease the separation anxiety between us all. When I haven’t seen my friends all day, I’m very aware of the dryness of my eyes from a lack of cry-laughing, the emptiness of my fingertips not linked to my friend’s. This is all fixed by the evening when we go through the day.

But fear not, this can still be revision-friendly, and therefore booze-free; not every time will we be in the pub or a bar. It mostly takes place after or during dinner. On a particular occasion, two of us had submitted coursework and felt it needed to be celebrated with a glass of the finest (cheapest) white wine, overlooking the sunset on Magdalene Bridge. It’s very much the small things to get through the dregs of exam and revision season.

Is it slightly cringe? Probably. But it is something I recommend to help you and your friends get through the term. You don’t want to miss out on how they’re doing, especially if they’re going through the works, or they have achievements deserve celebrating – even if it’s getting a text back. If any future employer is reading this, I’m locked in at the library, I promise – but exams aren’t everything. Without the good people around us, by God will we all be miserable. And in 20 years, I hope we’ll be sitting around two small metal tables somewhere in the world (probably with a bottle of red instead), going through everything that’s been happening in the past, no matter how long it’s been since we saw each other.