The God of Diversity (Flash Fiction)

High time I posted something new! This one was an entry for a national flash fiction competition that I entered but didn’t win. I thought it was amusing enough to win a prize myself. See what you think.

When I was in halls, Kaitlin and I attended Doug Farrell’s booze-fuelled 20^th birthday party at Faraday House.  Around 1AM, we nabbed a seat on the sofa and sat discussing about a thousand frivolous subjects over Smirnoff Ices.

“Hey Andrew,” Kaitlin smiled, “What do you suppose the God of Diversity would look like?”

“Eh?” I said sluggishly.

“Well, think about it,” slurred Kaitlin, “The Greeks had Poseidon for the sea, Dionysus for wine, Aphroditie for love, a god or goddess for everything important.  Diversity’s dead important in our time, so what would the god of diversity look like?”

I thought hard before replying.  “I reckon he’d have a soft, pale, serene face without a beard, like Hermes.  He’d carry a dove, for peace, and magical threads to bind people together.”

Donal McAllister overheard us.

“He should have red hair,” Donal added.  “Redheads, you see, they’re the ultimate minority.”

“So he couldn’t be black, then?” Ambrose Maguthi sneered.

“He’s a Greek god,” Donal protested, “He wouldn’t be black.”

“He might look like me, as a compromise!” laughed Lenny Ho.

“And a bisexual to boot,” suggested Harry Rushmore.

“He?” shrieked Donal’s ex-girlfriend Sarah.  “Why not she?”

“Or even a hermaphrodite?” a drunk voice slurred.

“It’s intersex, you intolerant bastard!” yelled Sarah.

“Says who, bitch?” the drunken voice roared.

“Cram it will you, Preston!”

“You cram it, snowflake!”

A bottle smashed against a worktop and within a minute the room was a brutal blur.

Kaitlin only sustained a broken wrist, so the doctors discharged her first.  She came to visit me once they had finished the stitches.

“I think I’ve worked out what the God of Diversity would look like, Kaitlin,” I croaked through bloodied lips.

“Do you?” she enquired.

“He’d look exactly like the god of war.”

Molly Wrestled; Another Special Song

We end off my very good year (2023) with one last post, since I missed out posting in November. I wrote this one to create a musical synopsis of a book I’m working on and to entertain my fellow writers at this year’s Christmas party. For anyone who wants to try singing it, use the tune for “Pearl’s A Singer” by Elkie Brooks. The song was not only one I like quite a lot, but it’s about much the same kind of character as in my story.

Verse 1

Molly wrestled;

She stood up to a gang who were stealing

In a hotel.

Molly wrestled;

She was trained in her husband’s gymnasium.

She started training for her fights

Around her chef’s job, working nights

In a hotel.

Verse 2

Molly wrestled;

She lived far from the Earth with her family

In the future.

Molly wrestled;

They all said she looked soft, but she wasn’t.

She gave it all between the ropes

To improve her children’s hopes;

She didn’t make it.

Bridge

Almost her century’s Ronda Rowsey;

Too bad her manager’s ethics were lousy.

Her phobias got her just before her first big fight;

And they dropped her the very same night.

Verse 3

Molly wrestled;

And she lived with her husband and family

In the future.

Molly wrestled;

And a space captain went there to watch her.

He thought it much too great a slight

To have her go back, working nights

In a hotel.

Finale

Molly wrestled;

Now she cooks for and trains up the crewmen

On a spaceship!

Molly wrestled;

Now she earns four times more than she used to!

Though it was hard to fly away,

She sends love home every day…

And she’s happy.

The Goodwill Song ; A Poem

I wrote this when my writer’s group challenged us to write a Christmas poem on the subject; “The Season of Goodwill.”

A time of the year far above any other!

There’s loving and giving and opening of hearts.

But what of those people who feel no contentment,

Who are laden with burdens, not gifts for their mother?

To the woebegone, I offer joyous outpouring,

Goods that hands cannot touch but the heart knows are real.

I drift far and wide like a leaf or a feather,

Casting out warmth and succour, to send a heart soaring.

They touch those without shelter, those working, or stranded,

And all those detained who have long paid their dues.

I reach out to those sneered at for loving our Saviour

And to those with good hearts to whom love is not handed.

I give eyes to the blind, to the weary give power

And all those already content, I insure.

The light of goodwill behind all gifts this season

Is my gift to the world in this singular hour.

A Very Good Career; A Special Song

This is one of two songs I recently put together based on an existing classic tune. The tune is the same as “A Very Good Year” by Frank Sinatra and was written for my colleagues in my (relatively) new job just in time for my first anniversary there.

Verse 1

When I was seventeen,

It was a very good year;

I’d held my very first job

In an Oxfam shop

And was learning to type.

I thought now time was ripe

For such skills to get keen,

When I was seventeen.

Verse 2

When I was twenty-five,

It was a very good year;

I’d got a science degree;

Now I worked for GSK.

Though my skills were few,

I trained up everyone new.

I gained passion and drive

When I was twenty-five.

Verse 3

When I was thirty-nine,

It wasn’t such a good year;

I’d staffed the library floor

For ten years or more

And although I excelled,

All the promotions were held

For names that weren’t mine,

When I was thirty-nine.

Verse 4

Now I’m with DLL;

It’s nearly Christmas ‘Twenty-Three;

And if you were to ask me

Now that twelve months have gone,

How am I looking back?

It’s regrets that I lack.

I’m glad to be here.

It’s been a very good year.

10PM In Tennessee

This is another competition entry that didn’t have the edge to be a winner. All the same, I hope you enjoy it. Careful; not for kids!

I stumble backwards and clutch at my heart.

First the motel cans me… and now this?

I’d come to Hogie’s Bar and Grill to drown my sorrows with my last paycheque.  Instead, I see THIS?

When I’d noticed Larry’s orange GMC in the precinct parking lot, I’d thought; Swell! I can get wasted with my boyfriend rather than alone.

Then I looked in the window…

Who the fuck is this shitty little hoe?  She’s like Calamity Jane at a bachelorette party, with that glittery pink Stetson and that matching fake buckskin halter tied under her boobs!  Jesus, Larry, I’m worth ten of her!

Boiling tears well up in my eyes.  I shake like a Moonie having a fit.  Some balding old timer walks towards me, probably hoping to play Good Samaritan.  That’s the last thing I need now.

“Get lost, yah dumb cueball jerkoff!” I scream.

The old man’s eyes crease up sadly.  Hands clasped and head low, he slinks away.  I watch him go as the tears clear up and my pulse returns to normal.

Damn!  How could I forget about Larry?  Guess it’s time to straighten him out.  I know!  I’ll shove my way into Hogie’s and toss a beer right in his…

No, wait.  There’s a loose rock and an empty Budweiser bottle nearby on the sidewalk.

I know something that’ll hurt Larry a lot more.

I find the girls having a sleepover at Rachel’s house.  When I tell them what happened, they scream like Elvis has just walked in.

“Mara!  You go, girl!”

“Re-spect!”

“Larry’ll piss himself when he sees it!”

“Every man who cheats should have that done to him!  I wish I’d smashed the windshields myself!”

“We have got to see Larry’s reaction when he comes out of the bar and finds his Jimmy totalled,” Rachel laughs.  “Come on, girls!”

Jaye, Holly, Clorinda and I pile into Rachel’s SUV and race towards Hogie’s.

“Larry’s face’ll be like Wile E Coyote’s when he falls down a canyon,” Holly laughs as the precinct draws near.

“I bet he doesn’t even claim insurance,” Clorinda sneers.  “Who’d wanna call Triple A and tell them…  That…”

She trails off.  Everyone falls silent and stares slack-jawed as Rachel parks up.  We step out of the SUV with legs like Jello.

I must be going mad.  Larry’s orange Jimmy still stands right where it was, in front of Denny’s and the laundromat.  I had left it with every window broken, every tyre slashed, both headlights caved in and the paintwork scratched to Hell and back.

But now?

There isn’t a crack, scratch or puncture anywhere.  It’s as good as new.  Better than new.  How?  For Christ’s sake, how?

“Mara…”

“Yes, Rachel?” I manage to say.

“What the fuck?”

Rachel’s glaring at me with narrowed eyes.  The others cross their arms and sneer as they do the same.  I feel like a mouse caught in a trap.

“You lied to us,” Holly hisses.

“No,” I protest, “No, I…”

“Yeah, I see what happened,” Clorinda says, pointing a finger.  “You saw Larry cheating, so you had some shitty little fantasy about vandalising his pick-up, when all you did was cry like the bitch you are!”

“Yeah!” repeats Jaye.  “Hey, hold up a minute, doesn’t all this happen in a song?”

“That’s right,” Holly snaps.  “Carrie Underwood.  You stole the idea from her!”

Deaf to my protests, the girls pile back into Rachel’s SUV and slam the doors.

“Run back to Larry, Mara,” Rachel gloats.  “You deserve a man as honest as you are!”

They drive away, laughing horribly.  All alone in the parking lot, I stagger over to the wall of Denny’s and slump down to the sidewalk.  The tears start flowing unbidden.  I can’t think of any time I’ve felt so lost.

After what might just as easily been seconds as hours, a hand gently squeezes my shoulder.  I look up, and there’s the mild-mannered old man from earlier, smiling down on me with eyes like stars.  This time, I manage to smile back.

“I’m real sorry for hollering at you earlier, Sir,” I whisper.

His face creases subtly just as it had before, this time with happiness.

“Sir…  Did I really bust up that orange pick-up over there?”

Without a word, he helps me to my feet and leads me out of the parking lot.  I don’t know who this old man is, but one way or another, I’m sure he has the answer.

Kenny’s Last Camp; A flash fiction story

Another competition entry. No prize this time, but enjoyed by everyone.

“Inside-out and back-to-front!

Kenny McCray’s a little…”

“UGH!” spat Olive McCray.  “How do junior school kids even know that word?”

“He needs to find friends somewhere away from school,” suggested Evan McCray.

Evan found somewhere.  Kenny was reluctant at first, but his painful isolation made him reconsider.

“Sure, Dad.  I’ll try it.”

Four years passed.

It was late July, and the McCrays were off to the Costa Brava via the Santander ferry.  Evan and Olive had arranged to pick Kenny up from his last ever scout camp in Dorset, en route to Plymouth.

Olive squeaked ecstatically as they drove through the camp’s entrance.

“Evan!  Look at that!”

Kenny was walking towards their Range Rover past the whole of the 5^th Little Waldhorn Scout Troop.  This joyful phalanx of teenagers were high-fiving and fist bumping Kenny as he made a truly triumphant exit.

Evan and Olive almost cried.

Many Faces and Many Places Part 4; Trials

Concluding my memoir with a description of tougher times in my life, but moments of hope as they pass and I learn from them.

Career wise, my life has been as chequered as it has been socially.  My lack of social skills wasn’t a help in getting a job, since I rarely passed interviews.  Having studied Biology for my first degree, I tried to get into scientific publishing, but only ever found contract jobs in that field.  I had more success in finding work when I took a further degree in Library & Information Studies, for I found permanent work with my local library authority immediately after.  It was a job that made excellent use of natural accuracy, desire to help others, my compendious knowledge and, of course, my love of books.  Yet while I held this job for more than a decade, I never felt challenged and was never offered promotion.  In the end, I sought work in accountancy instead and now work for a vendor financing company out of Watford.  The job pays much better and with luck, I shall be there the rest of my working life.

Southeast England is not a cheap place to live and flying the nest is hard when you have no permanent job.  While my parents moved to a different and newly built house in 2002, one that was large and comfortable enough to house us all if need be (although Mark moved out in 2007 and stayed out), it’s depressing living at home when you’re fully grown.  In the end, my parents helped me invest in a little maisonette in the northern part of St Albans and I’ve lived there comfortably for seven years now.  It’s still missing a woman to brighten up the place, but I have not given up looking for one and never will.  Perhaps maturity and better prospects will bring one to me naturally.

My life is still full of most of the same friends as ever, even though we now have very different and more responsible lives.  Some of them now have children who attend, or attended, the very schools we did.  We still get out and do things like gigs, the cinema, curry nights or drinks at the pub, but just as we assumed childhood would never end, so too have we discovered the lie that youth lasts forever.  And sadly… neither do people.

I’ve seen many people pass away over the years, the first being my Mum’s father Ernest in 1993, then my other two surviving grandparents in 1999 and 2010.  Aunts and uncles have died, as have friends of the family.  Yet never did the power of mortality hit me so hard than when my mother died of cancer in 2017.

Mum had been diagnosed with melanoma while in Australia, prompting my parents to come back to England half a year early.  For five years she continued life almost as normal, taking holidays, attending special events and helping to support Mark and I.  A stranger might never have thought she was sick.  Then, in the last half of 2017, the cancer spread, wearing Mum down little by little.  Her mental capacity faded.  She couldn’t get around without a wheelchair.  In the end, we moved her into a hospice because she needed professional palliative care.  Mum’s life finally ebbed away one early morning in December.  In the end, Mark, Dad and I were relieved she was at peace.  The waiting was harder than not having her there.

Yet in all the best ways, Mum’s still there.  Her funeral was, ironically, quite a happy day for me, because so many of our friends and relatives came to pay their respects that nobody could doubt that she had been loved and loved others back.  I told my cousin Claire to make sure my funeral was just as good if I went first.  Ed Sheeran’s song Supermarket Flowers came out the same year Mum died and feels like it could have been written for her.  I’ve tried to sing it without crying several times since but it’s impossible.  One of Mum’s favourite movies was Four Weddings and a Funeral.   It takes on new significance for me now, because I read out Dylan Thomas at the committal, just as John Hannah reads W.H. Auden at the on-screen funeral.

I even discovered a wonderful picture book at the library which could have been written in memoriam for my mother.  It’s called My Mum is a Lioness and the author and illustrator unwittingly described Mum to a T.  The mother depicted in the book does nearly everything with her children that Mum used to do with Mark and I; at home, in the park, at school plays, on sports days, everywhere.  She even has shoulder length brown hair and glasses, just like Mum did.  That’s the reason I bought myself a copy at the same time I did for Cousin Claire’s baby son.

Since Mum passed, Dad has remained active and in good health, and has even started a relationship with a new woman, who he met through bereavement counselling.  Her name’s Irene and we are getting along famously.  She’s giving me the same comfort and companionship that Mum used to, even though my memories of Mum remain just as precious.  Better still, Irene has a cockapoo named Maizee who I’m helping to look after in the hope I will soon have a dog of my own.  It can’t be a big one since I don’t have a big place, but until I meet a woman I want to marry (fingers still crossed), the little guy will be good company, if I can keep him well.  My friend Vicky’s family has kept Cavalier King Charles spaniels for donkey’s years and I think one of those would be perfect.

As for Mark, sadly, he’s not around as often.  He married a Canadian woman named Alisa and now lives in Nova Scotia.  It’s a terrible shame I can’t just simply take the train to visit him (they used to live near Greenwich), but maybe we’ll be able to spend some nice shared holidays over there in future.  Last year we marked his 40^th birthday with a big party in Montreal.  Who knows how many special occasions he’ll host there as the years go by?  Perhaps I’ll add places like Toronto, Banff or Vancouver to my travel bucket list, so we can visit together.

Life may well be half over, but who’s to say the best is behind me?  In 2023, a new confidence is rising in me.  Losing Mum has woken me up and made me all the more determined to live while I have the time.  My new job is bringing in more money and it allows me to work from home.  That means I can get out in the evenings more often and potentially meet new people.  I know even less socially adept men who’ve married good women, or found good relationships.  So in the end, there’s always hope in your life, and you must never give up on yourself.  Whoever is reading this, make sure to live until the day you die.  Because I know I will.

Many Faces and Many Places; Part 3, Globetrotting

A brief excerpt detailing some of my travels in life. There’s one more part after it.

Travel has always been important feature in my life.  It started with small things, like my parents taking my brother and I on camping trips to Cornwall in the summer or on murderous hillwalking trips to the Lake District or Peak District at Easter.  Then, we put longer haul trips under our belt, such as a full summer holiday in the Dordogne region of France and two weeks in Czechoslovakia just two years before it became two separate states.  This trip became infamous because Mark slashed his thumb open on a broken glass on the last day!  Our travel experience grew magnificently in 1995 when we spent another whole summer in Australia!  Feeding fish on the Great Barrier Reef, cheering in the stands at an Aussie Rules football match, sharing our jelly beans with an emu and watching bats fly over the Whitsunday Islands at Sunday were just some of the memories we made.  That was impressive enough for childhood, but in adulthood, the flood gates opened.

In the same year as my Vietnam cycle ride, I toured the historical sites of Egypt.  In 2004, I had my first and, so far, only winter sports holiday in Switzerland.  My parents took us to Tuscany in 2008 to mark their 60^th birthday, which had beautiful architecture and pleasant sun in abundance.  I have visited Tunisia and Greece with friends and had the pleasure of staying with a woman who I once hoped would be a girlfriend in Budapest.  Good choice as it turned out.  Not only do the Hungarians have as much magnificent architecture as the Italians, but their public baths are some of the best I’ve ever visited!

Many world destinations have been one-offs for me, but some countries have interested me enough that I have visited them more than once.  Having already toured Germany’s Rhineland with friends in 2002, I went back there in 2015 to visit Nuremberg’s supremely festive Christmas markets.  English town planners could learn a lot from German towns.  There’s so much more colour and charm to them than in the average British settlement.

Remarkably, I once visited India twice in as many years, both times to attend a wedding; first my friend Raj’s and then my cousin Helen’s.  In 2005, I had an adventure holiday in Croatia, near the Dalmatian coast, one in which I tried canyoning for the first time and did my first abseil on a cliff rather than a climbing wall.  I went back there with friends in 2022, visiting major sites like Dubrovnik and Zlatni Rat, in a trip that should have marked our 40^th birthdays but was delayed due to COVID-19.

I have visited the USA on no less than six occasions, two of which, as I mentioned before, included a visit to the Grand Canyon.  When my parents spent a year in Australia beginning in 2011, Mark and I went back there twice.  And yet there’s still so much more of the world to see.  The Caribbean, the African plains and New Zealand are all on my bucket list, and who knows what else I’ll see besides?

Lester Limbers Up! Part 10; Success?

Lester Rockwell’s Quixotic journey is about to come to an end. But what will the result be? Let’s find out…

I thought I had needed a year to get my full range of splits, but now I am at right angles both forwards and sideways. And it only took me 10 months. You reckon I’m happy?

I’m not.

Ellie turned me down! She was clearly heavy-hearted about it but she said I wasn’t for her. I showed her how I could now do the splits in all directions, but she still insisted it was a no, even though we were both deeply sad because

I couldn’t believe what she said next when I asked her why. Married or with a boyfriend I could have understood. If she was lesbian or painfully divorced, it wouldn’t have made my head spin like her explanation did, for she was none of those things.

Ellie is celibate. She abstains from relationships, just like a nun. It turns out early in life she had so many bad or casual boyfriends that she simply decided she would be happier with no-one. Even to this day, she stays true to this pledge.

“I don’t hate them and have great respect for many of them, like you, Lester,” she explained, “But to try and love them would break two hearts in the end. I’m so flattered by what you’ve done. But whether or not you believe me when I say this, Lester, in the end, both of us would be left miserable if we tried to be an item. I really am sorry.”

Of course, I couldn’t force her to feel something she didn’t. Yet I couldn’t force myself not to cry either. Nearly a whole year waiting to summon the courage to tell Ellie about my true feelings for her and it was all for…

Nothing?

No, it wasn’t for nothing.

I wipe the tears off my cheeks and start to stretch out my sciatic nerve. I move into the middle of my bedroom carpet and gradually slide my legs further apart. Down and down I go, until I am at a point my groin touches the earth. A full forward split.

I now have a body that can stretch with far more alacrity than the average person’s. I’m as limber as a spider monkey and my stamina and endurance are such that they dwarf what they used to be. The fitness I have achieved may keep me fit and feeling young long into old age. So many more doors feel open to me now.

Yes, I shall definitely come to peace with Ellie’s decision, but for the moment, I’m going to focus on keeping up my yoga and Pilates. But just imagine if I could stretch so far I could bend my ankles over my shoulders? What a target to aim for! And what girl wouldn’t want a man who could do that?

Many Faces and Many Places, Part 2; On Into Adulthood

Here’s the second part of my memoir for the Fish Publishing competition. There’s no strong timeline, but it’s still moving resolutely towards my current age of nearly 42! There’ll probably be two more parts after this, so stay tuned.

As time went by, Mum and Dad went off living in Eltham.  My father had too long a commute to work.  My mother was concerned the choice of schools was too restrictive.  It was too difficult driving to Birmingham to see my mother’s family, or to Surrey to see my grandmother Kathleen (Granddad John died before Mark and I were born).  That was why on 27^th August 1987, a big yellow lorry pulled up outside our house and took our belongings to a new home in a town that had none of those disadvantages.

St Albans, formerly known as Verulamium, isn’t the largest or most famous town in England, but it has great historical significance.  It was one of Roman Britain’s major settlements and was the home of England’s first Christian martyr, hence its modern name.  In fact, you would never have thought it now, but London first gained importance as a crossing point on the Thames between there and Dover.  How things change!

No other place in the world means more to me than St Albans.  I would need 500 pages to write down all the memories that it conjures up.  Some things have changed dramatically in even my short life, not least the high street.  Phone stores, pound shops and big name coffee shops were nowhere to be seen in my childhood.  I fondly recall buying burgers in Wimpy’s, sweets in Woolworth’s and records in Our Price, when they were still around.  When I was young, the local Odeon was the place where I saw numerous blockbusting movies, including The Little Mermaid, Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump.  After lying empty for nearly 20 years after its closure in 1995, it has now been reopened as the Odyssey, and I am enjoying memorable evenings there once more.  As for dinner out, I can now enjoy a dinner at Nando’s or Wagamama’s before the film starts!

My social life today began the very autumn I arrived in St Albans, for some of my closest friends today are men who I met as boys at Bernard’s Heath Infant School.  Although we were more distant back then, we remained in touch even when most of them went to a different secondary school to me, for they too were part of my main social outlet in adolescence; the Boy Scouts.  I first attended Scouts as a Beaver when I was 7 and carried on with it through Cubs and true Scouts until I was nearly 16.  As you can imagine, I was very upset when the statue of Robert Baden-Powell that sits in Poole Harbour was taken away in 2020.

My family’s first house in St Albans was a mock Tudor house near Clarence Park.  That house too brings up many fond memories for me.  My brother and I went nuts there sometimes, running away from make-believe bombs we imagined were hidden in every nook and cranny!  We bought our first home computer, an Amiga 500, while in that house, then some years later a first generation Playstation.  My friend Paul spent all night playing (and completing) the very first Sonic the Hedgehog game there in 1992.  My father held costume parties in our old house, for both his 40^th and 50^th birthdays.  We hosted seven Christmases there, the biggest being Christmas 1991, when all of my Mum’s relatives stayed over at the same time.  It was in that house, on the 31^st August 1997, that my father met me on the landing and told me Princess Diana was dead.  Almost exactly four years later, it was sitting in the lounge of that house that I went weak with horror as I saw footage of the World Trade Centre towers collapsing.

Music is a very close second to literature in my heart, and it was during my St Albans childhood that my interest in it bloomed.  Today, people are dazzled how well I can beat the intro to songs on quiz shows.  I have also developed a strong interest in West End shows, opera and ballet.  While I could never have written a song, I learned piano to Grade 3 level and tried out my junior school’s choir in my first year.  My secondary school, Sandringham, hosted musical plays every summer term and I took part in three of them.  This led to me becoming part of several singing groups over my adult life, performing pieces like Faure’s Requiem and Orff’s Carmina Burana among many other classical wonders.  I have even attended a thousands-strong concert with the Rock Choir at the O2 Arena!  Just last year, I started self-teaching myself piano.  Who knows what the future holds?

Culture of various kinds has played a big part in my life.  Books, movies and TV shows help me structure my memories, because if I can remember what cultural memories were on my mind when a certain event happened, I know roughly what year it took place in.

In childhood, Garfield and The Lion King became passions that still touch me today.  In fact, when 1994 came along I discovered it was possible to love a movie even before you saw it, for instinct told me The Lion King would be special from the very first poster I saw in the Radio Times.  Although I have seen it often enough to all but memorise it, its sharp dialogue, breath-taking scenery, engaging characters and deeply moving narrative makes my heart soar even today.  You know you love a movie when you consider the villain one of the best things about it.

But childhood doesn’t last forever, much as we may want it to.  Other, more mature, life-defining nuggets of culture entered my life; movies like Armageddon and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and TV series like Lost and Family Guy to name a few.  In the past ten years, Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway made light entertainment compelling again.  The Masked Dancer, bizarre as it may sound, changed my commitment to fitness.  This happened when Bonnie Langford (one of the characters) fooled the panel she was a woman half her age by performing stunning splits in both directions.  I decided I wanted some of that and surprised myself by becoming passionate about Pilates and yoga!  Running, swimming and weights have all become big features of my weekly routine.  With luck, this’ll end up adding a few more years onto my life.

School didn’t last forever either.  I completed my A-Levels in 1999 and took a gap year, in which I held my first full time jobs and passed my driving test.  It was at this time I became more sociable, becoming bolder about going out on the town and dancing the night away!  Yet the biggest event of that year was taking a charity cycle ride through Vietnam with my friend Oliver.  This was my first ever trip away from home without my parents and we were very proud of ourselves for doing so.