So near yet so feared: on death row, in Shenzhen

The worst aspect of Hong Kong life, apart from the fact that you can't get Mons (actually Snow, but the label is upside down) Beer, is the way friends leave and don't come back. Just as you've really got to know someone and are considering naming your first hamster after them, they're gone.

Fittingly, a black - or grey, or puce - rainstorm warning was in effect the day my good friend and veteran mainland travel mate extraordinaire, E, uttered the worst words I'd heard so far this decade: "My husband has been offered a great job in the US and we're leaving in May."

But, but … what job could be great enough to justify leaving Hong Kong? What about the prawn spring rolls at the Treasure Lake Seafood Restaurant? What about Chinese poker? And above all: what about China?

I didn't need to point this out, as everything I said was just another twist of the knife already planted in her heart. "And I had just got used to never cleaning my own toilet!" she wailed.

The months zipped by and soon it was May, and our last trip to that wonderland of bags, shoes, foot massages and great Sichuan food that is Shenzhen.

"This is how the people on death row must feel," I thought, as we rushed around the Lo Wu shopping centre picking up last-minute buys. Everything we did, every iPhone cover shaped like a rhinestone-clad rabbit we bought, every "missy, missy, you buy DVD movie" we heard were just reminders that this was the last time we would do this together. Ever. People on death row probably feel a fraction better than I did that awful day.