Look, take it from one who knows about these thing, when it comes to birthday parties, or indeed any sort of gathering where more than family member is likely to be present then it’s really not a good idea to get absolutely rat-arsed drunk on your Uncle M’s sloe gin and then proceed to tell each and every person in the room exactly what you think of them in no uncertain (if slightly slurred) terms.

So, what did I go and do at my Mum’s birthday party on Saturday night? That’s right. I didn’t get absolutely rat-arsed drunk on my Uncle M’s sloe gin and I certainly didn’t proceed to tell each and every member of my family exactly what I thought of them in no uncertain (if slightly slurred) terms.

Instead I remained perfectly balanced (a chip on both shoulders and a plate of onion bhaji’s in my hand) for the entire evening. Well, almost the entire evening. It’s bloody difficult to maintain ones equilibrium while pitching headlong down a staircase towards the kitchen table after tripping over the vicious bronze candelabrum that cruel and unfeeling mother has placed on the narrowest point of the curve in a deliberate attempt to murder her only daughter. Especially when, as you fall from a great height, all your bloody relatives move as one – to rescue the food, leaving you several feet of polished hardwood to break the fall rather than the light and fluffy goats cheese quiche you’d been aiming for.

I do have a vague and hazy remembrance of agreeing with my Aunty J at one point (she of the almond green metallic ankle-straps shoes and five ponies – and let’s not even go there, because why she should have five ponies when I don’t even have one is still a sore point - who really doesn’t qualify for the honorific of Aunty as she’s only ten years older than me - which by my reckoning makes her just turned 37 and therefore far too young to be a relative) when she was dissing someone’s sister. But as the aforementioned sister of the sister who was being dissed had been stuck into the (rather nice but I can’t remember what it was) New Zealand white for at least three hours at that point and as the sister who was being dissed was in a completely different room at the time then I think (I hope) that we might have gotten away with it. Besides which I don’t think that I said anything bad about anyone during the course of that conversation. At least I don’t think I did. I may have agreed with various comments but that’s not the same as having said them. Is it?

Rewind. Rewind three months. Rewind to a happier time…

Here I am. In my room. Note the possessive. My room. Not stuck behind a computer in the corner of the kitchen in a city that I hate but here, in a room with two huge windows. Windows which look out, not into other people’s windows, but trees and a yard which has (or will have just as soon as I get round to planting them) flowers in it. The sun is shining, the birds are singing (probably because they need feeding), there’s a red tiled open fire (although the chimney needs sweeping) with a mantelpiece on which I have put some of my prettiest bits and pieces and I am happy. I am happy. I am sitting in front of my computer screen, which is on my table in my room, and I am happy. Life is good. Or at least as good as it can be when you have to start everything from scratch – again. For the third time in thirteen years. But because the greatest thing about life (as far as I’m concerned anyway – although I do have a very low boredom threshold) is that it all will turn to rat-shit and you’ll have to scrap everything you’ve ever done and redo and rebuild it all again – life is incredibly good.

So I’m sitting here in my gorgeous room, at the gorgeous old table kindly donated by Aunty J (she of the green shoes, five ponies and too few years to be called an Aunt at all) who wanted it out of her shed, and I’m in front of my computer screen because that is where I spend all of my life and I’m happy (I was probably singing) and then all of a sudden, as if by magic… an email appears.

From an aunt.

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