Watching the parade pass by

My oldest friend (not in age but in the length of time we've known each other - 20 years) is getting married soon. Another colleage mate has just got engaged and lots of school/college/other people my age are having children. And me? I still live at home and look after my mother. I should be really happy for my friends (and I am happy that they're happy) but I can't help but be jealous. I feel totally left behind and on the shelf. I realise 28 is not classed as 'Old Maid' territory anymore but my situation aint gonna change any time soon and by the time it does change I will be a very old maid on a very high shelf. I love my mother more than anything and would do anything for her and that is why I do what I do but I can help wishing my life was like the others and I was settling down and having ..... well.... a life. But this is the deck I've been dealt and I've got to make the best of a bad hand. I have my love of theatre, my dog and my dreams.

Glee

I've just finished watching the whole of the first season of Glee on DVD. I bought the discs so I could watch episodes I'd missed and just relive the experience. I really wish I belonged to New Directions. In fact I really wish I belonged anywhere. The Glee club are misfits and bully targets but their shared love of singing and music help them find each other and they realise they can belong to their own special club who can rise above the bullies and be something special. I wish they could bottle the ethos and feel good spirit of Glee and sell it as I could really do with some. I am and always will be a misfit and if only I could accept that and be comfortable in my own skin then maybe I would stop caring what other people think of me and realise that being different is not necessarily a bad thing.

My best friend

When I lost my first dog Hilly in 2004 I didn't think I could face getting another dog because of the heartache that comes when they go to sleep and Hilly died of cancer so her passing was particularly traumatic but I got Emmy in 2006 and it was the best thing I could have done. He is such a wonderful companion and is never far from my side. I spoil him rotten but that's because he is my best friend and is there for me when others aren't.

TV debut

These are screenshots from a local news show called Northern Life which was broadcast on the day I was born. I was filmed just a few hours after I was delivered so I probably am one of the youngest TV 'stars' ever. Then there was my poor mother who was thrust on to camera when she'd barely woken up from the anaesthetic and my Dad was .... well my Dad had no excuse for looking like a bad Kevin Keegan impersonator!! The cameras appeared again a year later to witness me celebrating my first birthday. I'd like to add that I tend to be a bit more ladylike when I eat now and I've progressed to china plates and no longer dine off Muppet plates.

Cover girl (not quite)

Here are some more of the newspaper articles I featured in as a baby and child.



The Miracle Baby

I was dubbed 'The Miracle Baby' when I was born. My Mam is a polio survivor who has been left pretty badly disabled because of it and in addition to this she had her first brush with breast cancer the year before I was born. Consequently she was advised not to have children as the her doctors didn't think she could get pregnant and when she did they advised her not to continue as no-one thought her body would cope with carrying a baby.  Well she didn't listen to her doctors and I'm the result. My Mam is the miracle, not me.