Can age make a difference to a person’s outlook? I’ve been pondering this thought as of late and I’m wondering if it can.

All the way through my childhood, teenage years and early adult life I had set things that I liked and set ways I thought of stuff. I was very much a tomboy and I loved to hang around the boys and play sports. I grew up liking technology and computers- so I hung around the geeks at school. I wore trainers constantly and had a large selection of band tees and jeans. I loved the colours blue, green and especially red. I hated pink and any kind of pastel colours. I thought that everyone was a bit odd in their own ways but I also wanted to see the good in everyone.

Since I hit thirty, it’s been like a major mental shift for me and I know I’ve talked about this before but I guess I never realized how much of a change it would be. It started off with me buying dresses. Now, I know my dresses are all in primary colours and basic styles but if you asked me twenty years ago if I would like to wear a dress, I would have pissed myself laughing. And shoes. I’ve graduated from just flat shoes and many pairs of trainers to sparkly silver heels and nude pumps. And then in the last week or so I’ve been a little obsessed with Victoriana styles. Lots of lace, feathers, pretty pastel colours and insects. Bumblebees, butterflies that kind of thing. I have lace items in my wardrobe, but it’s black lace so more like Gothic Victoriana. I’m finding myself wanting to wear cream lace and pretty pastel yellow, mint green even…shock! horror! Pink!

Now. Calm yourselves. There’s no apolocalypse going on here. I actually did just say I find myself wanting to wear pink. I really don’t know where this has come from. I know I usually can’t pull off wearing pastel colours because with me not being a skinny person, I would look like a walking sweet. I really don’t want that effect. And too much lace would make me look like the window of my Grandma’s house. But I’m going to see if there’s anyway I can make this pastel/lace/butterfly-bumblebee thing work for me. You know, put a Nickie-esque spin on it like I have been told I am very good at. We shall see. Watch this space

I think this whole obsession started thanks to my assistant manager at work. I blame him a lot, and I’m sure he knows this now. He introduced me to a French band called M83 and I am in utter devotion to an album of theirs called ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’. Since then, I also re-introduced myself to some more French music by digging out old Air albums and buying Daft Punk. This is turn led me back to my memories of the time I visited Paris and I bought a 6month subscription to babbel.com to teach myself French. If I have the money this year, I’m gonna go back by myself for a weekend and walk around. Book a hotel in a small bed and breakfast, I don’t care about luxury as I shall do what I did last time and buy my food from a grocery store and make sandwiches to take out with me. Just somewhere simple to put my head down for the night. Take the iPad, take the camera, take lots of photos. Get inspired and write a lot of blog entries. Hopefully draw again, I miss drawing and I can’t find anything to inspire me anymore. As I mentioned in a past entry, I used to draw a lot as a child and it’s a part of my childhood that I miss a whole lot. I miss Paris a lot. There’s just something about the atmosphere of the city that I loved so much and the people were very friendly. I’ve not been to France though since the introduction of the Euro. That will take a lot for me to get used to! Haha!

Today I had to face my fears head on and it wasn’t pretty.

As one of the people that does Merchandising in store, I was bought in early to change the signage as our twice-a-year Final Clearance sale was going on. As I was read the note from my assistant manager about what signs to use and what needed to be changed, I thought to myself:

“Gosh. This should be fairly easy. I’ll have it finished in no time.”

How wrong I was. I managed to buzz round most of the store, changing the signage in a neon orange and yellow blur. I went up and down the lift to the room where we kept all our promotional signs a few times, I was like a ball bearing in a pinball machine. Before I knew it, I had pretty much finished it. Well, I’d run out of signage to put up so I used my common sense and moved onto replacing the perimeter frieze. This meant that I had to use the metal step ladders.

Now. There is only one set of step ladders that I’m aware of and they are chained to the wall in the lobby of the ladies floor. So I went down to grab the ladders and took the perimeter frieze with me. I guess I didn’t really know how high up I would be. I started off by positioning the ladders and beginning to scale up the steps, gingerly at first. You see, I have slight vertigo. I stand on the top of anything like ladders and I get this dreaded fear that I will fall off and badly hurt myself. So whenever I am asked to go up a set, I avoid the job like the plague. But I actually like merchandising, changing the signage and my job at the company in general so I bit the bullet and forced myself to use the ladder. Since the magnetic promotional material won’t just float up there by itself.

I got to the top of the ladder and I could see the whole store from there. All the customers, the staff and even the front door. I could see the kids hiding from their parents underneath the racks of clothing. I could see old people meandering through the handbags and purses. I could see the cold people flocking in from outside, desperate for warm jumpers and coats. It was quite cool. Then, I had to put the signs up. I was holding the large cardboard signs in my hands and I began to panic. I had nothing to grasp the ladder with if I did slip and fall. I took deep breaths. I steadied my nerves by trying to concentrate on the job in hand, rather than on my paranoid fear of falling. I got one stuck up and I got back down the ladder. No injuries, not even a slight misplaced footing. Again, I tried. The second one seemed to be more of a pain in the rear as it didn’t want to stay up. It almost knocked me off the ladder as it came down on my head. I cursed loudly. I knew straightaway that I shouldn’t. I remembered where I was and remembered my common courtesies.

Third times a charm. I stood at the bottom of the ladder for what seemed like an eternity, I talked myself into trying one more time and I stood there having conversations with myself. I probably looked like a crazy person to anyone that saw me. I think it went something like:

“Go on. Get up the damn ladder woman. Don’t be a chicken. Do you want to be afraid of a bloody ladder all your life?!”

I positioned the ladder differently and I had no issue this time. Carefully climbing the steps, I banged my head sharply on a piece of equipment. I wasn’t watching where I was putting my head and the sharp pain was a welcome distraction from my nerves. I’m forever banging my head on things, so I knew there would be no visible injury. I got the next four signs up easily and I stood there at the end of the ordeal admiring my work. I mean, it was only putting up signs but I think I was far more proud of the fact that I used a step ladder without any help. I know where I get my irrational fear from. It’s my mother. She still panics even now if anyone goes up a ladder and she won’t stop worrying until you’re off the ladder and it’s away safely.

I don’t plan on telling her what I did at work today. She may call my assistant manager and tell him to keep me away from the ladder. Nuh uh.

It may seem like a really strange thing to write about, but instead of writing about what is currently going on in my life- I decided to focus more on the past. It’s a weird thing to dwell on, and people tell me all the time not to think about it. Not to think about how it doesn’t matter to what happened then, more about what is happening now in front of your own eyes. Open your eyes and see the sights in colour, not in black and white.

What I was back then is strangely no different to how I am now. I was thinking about it last night, and my 33rd birthday marks the 20th year of me suffering with bipolar disorder. Now, it’s not always been suffering and it’s not always been a struggle but I’ve been through so much different stuff that I don’t even know where my story really starts or where it will end. People are scared by the fact that I don’t see a future, I don’t have ambitions for myself. I know what I’m good at and if anything good is going to happen to me, then I’m sure that karma will dictate my future.

I’ve hurt people, I’ve worried people, I’ve let them down and I’ve made them happy. I’ve given more hugs than I care to think about. I’ve turned up at people’s houses when they’re sick with a box of cookies or a freshly-frosted cake. I’ve loved and I’ve lost. I’ve had a lot more of the latter, sadly. I can’t even remember when the disorder took a hold of me and if it will ever let me out of it’s mean grasp. I’ve been told that I am one of the sweetest people they’ve ever met and then I’ve also been told that I am extremely selfish when I’m having a bad day. A bad day for me is like nothing you will ever experience if you have never suffered with depression. Bipolar Disorder or Manic Depression is like nothing else on the planet. Some days, you jump out of bed feeling the sun on your back and the wind at your heels. You run down the street wanting to shout how much you love life and everyone is your friend. You spend too much money and you make a lot of false promises. You hug strangers and greet dogs with a friendly scratch behind the ears. You jump into the car, turn the stereo up loud and roll down the windows to feel the breeze and the sun on your face. Nothing is bad. You are untouchable.

And then comes the bad days. You open one eye, you look at the time. Decide it’s too early/too late/too much energy to get out of bed and you roll over, while pulling the covers up tighter around your chin to keep out the cold. Drawing your knees to your chest, curling into a ball- thoughts begin to swim in your head as what you should do with the day. Eventually, you get up and draw back the curtains. Even on a sunny day when you can hear kids playing in the street and the birds chirping- it feels like a monumental effort to even smile. Friends tell you to cheer up and the world just seems like there is a hazy grey mist hanging over it like a smokescreen. All the food you eat looks revolting and so you just decide on a diet of water and few bits of fruit. Eating seems like too much energy today and so you decide to just wander around the house in your nightwear while watching trash on tv. You don’t really watch the tv, your thoughts are still swimming in the grey mist and the pictures flit past your eyes like butterflies in a glass jar. You wish that people would understand what it was like to be in your position, but it’s too much effort to make them understand so stay with being the awkward, misunderstood one.

When I was a teenager, I filled many journals with random scribble about my life along with pictures and bus tickets and movie show stubs. I would write about what my mother had made for dinner and what was going on with the neighbours in the street. I never wrote about school. I wasn’t popular and I very much would live in my own world. I was the girl sitting on the wall outside the lunch hall with her head in a book and eating sandwiches from an ice cream tub. I didn’t wear make up and I rarely had people join me. The lack of friends didn’t concern me though as the characters in my books were my friends. I wrote about the books I read, I had a small sketch book where I would draw the ducks on the school pond and the grey squirrels in the trees. I always had pencils and pens. Plenty of paper to write on. I would write on napkins from the dinner hall and on the insides of cigarette packs also when I started smoking. I thought I could be cool. I thought if I smoked I could be like the cool kids. I could be like this beatnik at school who wore DrMarten boots, and constantly carried notebooks while smoking a cigarette. I pictured myself living in Paris in some small apartment overlooking the Seine and having croissants for breakfast with steaming hot coffee while I typed away on my typewriter.

It never really turned out like that. Every dream I chased, a bad ending always came to it. I finally made it to Paris but I’ve not been back in over 10 years. My life long dream to go to America turned out a disaster when I became poor and destitute- begging for help from my parents to let me live with them again. I’m still never happy in one place for too long, I’m a traveller with gypsy blood. I meet people and leave people, hoping I bought some joy to their lives when I never hear from them again. I don’t want people to remember me, I just want them never to forget the strange English girl with the addiction to writing and taking photos of everything that moves.

It was a good day. I really thought that I was having a good day. I got up around 10am, I opened my curtains to the birds singing their little hearts out and the sun was shining. I stepped out for a little while and walked around the block. It wasn’t incredibly warm, but it was nice enough for a stroll without a jacket. I wished that Liam was with me holding my hand as we walked in the sunlight. I got home and had lunch, my mother went to visit my aunt for a few days and I waved her off as her car left the driveway. My dad went to town, so I had some peace and quiet for a little while. I just sat around watching tv and bumming about in my room on Twitter. I’ve not had much energy the last few days, yet I’m not tired and I stay awake most nights until around 3am. I can’t seem to sleep, I’m not sure whether it’s because Liam isn’t in the same bed or whether I’m going through a manic period. It’s probably the latter.

So the afternoon comes around. I make all these promises to myself and none of the stuff on the list actually gets accomplished. Lying on my double bed and staring at the ceiling, I daydream about having more money and less time to myself. Time to myself is very bad as my mind starts to wander and I usually end up hating myself. This is what happened this evening.

It started off okay. I was listening to music and talking on Twitter. Myself and Liam watched a film together over Skype, as I bought up Netflix on the laptop and used the camera on my iPad to transmit the movie to his end. It was nice, but I really wished that he was lying next to me holding me close. I missed his physical presence next to me so badly. The film got me thinking about my life. And then that’s where the thoughts got out of control.

You see. When I am at work, I have no time for thinking as most of my idle thoughts are consumed with work stuff like proceedures and rules and hours I have to work. Lots of ‘Am I doing this right?’ and ‘Oh god. Don’t mess up, if management catch you- you’re for the chop, Missy’. Even when I am at home, as long as I have work the next day I don’t have time to really get thinking. My thoughts don’t have the chance to fall into a groove. But anymore than two days off work, and you can guarantee that before long I’m reaching for the alcohol and playing Radiohead while I weep in a corner. Used paper tissues around me in a circle, mascara-stained cheeks and eyes so red and swollen. I’m a horrible mess and I would dread for anyone to see me like it. I’m ashamed to even admit it now, I’m sorry if this gives you a different impression of me but that’s the way I am.

I thought about my life. I thought about how my marriage had fallen into a deep, dark pit. How I tried to rescue it but thanks to my ex’s drinking- it was long beyond salvaging. I still regret leaving my daughter with my ex. I wanted to take her with me back to the UK so badly but the moral part of me decided that it would have been incredibly selfish to move her away from all the people she knew and the only life she knew and the only friends she had. I know, she was four at the time. It would have been easy for her to adjust. BUT STILL. I never want to hurt my daughter, and I know deep in my heart that she misses me dearly. I miss her too. I wish I could split myself in two so one side is in the US and the other in the UK. I want to be a Mom. When I was there in October, listening to her call me Mommy and randomly hugging me while telling me ‘No Mommy. You’re not going home to England, you’re going to stay here and love me forever.’ broke my fucking heart. That night, I went home and cried myself to sleep. It was the saddest, most heart-rendering thing my only child has ever said to me and I don’t think she could do worse. I’m aware that she never meant to hurt my feelings. I know she wants me to stay with her, I want to stay with her too. I love her more than I love anyone else on the planet. I will always love her forever, and hopefully one day she knows that.

I’ve taken to writing her frequent letters now when I can’t make phonecalls. I hope she saves them and looks back on them fondly. I want to do so much for her, I have so much love to give her and there’s only so much I can do. I want to do more for her, but I can’t and it hurts. I never used to understand when parents used to tell me about a ‘Mothers Love’. But it’s so true. You never know what it’s like to love your child so deeply and dearly until it is ripped away from you like a warm blanket.

I want my soft, warm blanket back that gives big sloppy kisses, tells silly jokes and holds me tighter than anyone else I know. I want her so badly

Liam tells me I’ve not been online to my Battle.Net account in nine days, and I’m a little surprised about this. I wasn’t aware that it was that long, I really thought it was shorter. I know that with Christmas and New Year- things were busy in both my personal life and my working life. But now things have calmed down, I’m just trying to relax I guess.

I’ve been to the gym a lot, getting more exercise, trying to be around people that aren’t my work colleagues or my family. I’ve been reading a lot more, and since one of my resolutions is to try and finish writing my book- I’ve been writing a lot more too. A small part of me wants to get back into my comfy, slob mode and retreat back to sitting around in my sweatpants and not moving from my computer. Return to playing video games for days in end, only moving just to eat and shower. Yes, I shall admit that. There was a time when I was so into playing World of Warcraft that I literally became a reclusive hermit. People would not see me for days and I would only leave the house to be at work.

Then I met Liam. I strangely stopped attending the gym, which I still can’t understand. He helped me feel happier about myself. I stopped obsessing about every little pound I wasn’t gaining. He hugged me even when I felt like a massive hippo. When I cried because I felt lonely, he would attempt to comfort me over the phone or Skype. I hate to sound like a massive cheeseball, but he saved me from my own demons.

Not to say that the demons are not there anymore. They are, just in a lesser capacity. It’s not all about him though. Friends of mine at work have helped me come out of my shell, stopped ,e feeling like I’m the biggest loser on the planet. When I am with these guys, I don’t feel like I’m a thirty year old who’s had one of the crappiest lives known to the human kind. They make me feel wanted and they make me feel loved. In some capacity, they make me feel like I belong. And frankly, after a few years of hell in the States of being pushed from pillar to post- I no longer feel like a mangy rabid dog. I have actual girls who are my friends and don’t bitch about me behind my back. I have friends that are guys, and I’m not their friend because they like my boobs.

I’ve finally moved on from the teenager gathering of friends. It’s really taken me a long time, but I’m finally able to say that as an adult I actually have friends that I didn’t make when I was three and elbow-deep in poster paint. The people that bullied me and the people that stole my things from my lockers are like a bad distant memory. I’m a lot more chilled out than I used to be, and I’m working on being less panicky too. I stress too much and I’m trying to be better. I used to be terrible when I was younger and I’m not much better now- but I am better. Mediation, reading, generally chilling out and stopping myself from rushing around like a headless chicken- all seems to be working for me. I’ve learned it’s about organisation.

Breathe. In…and out. Deep breaths…and relax…

As I’m sure a lot of you are aware, I’m currently writing a book. Thought I would treat you all to a little bit of it. Enjoy

My other half Liam is a closet Android fanboy. I am a closet Apple fangirl. This doesn’t always work out in either of our favour but we somehow seem to make it work.

Nickie’s Story

I first discovered Apple Macintosh when I was eleven years old. Slightly naive and innocent when it came to the world of computers, I pulled out the chair and sat in front of an Apple Macintosh Centris 650 at my primary school. I used the word processing software and Corel. Long before my school could afford Adobe. The computers (there was two of them) were a donation from the county council as my small school was too poor to afford a computer of its own. I remember the black and white interface, the smiley little Apple computer that would come up at the beginning of the start up sequence and when something was broken, how you would see the unhappy computer You were allowed a maximum of thirty minutes and you would have to sign in and out on the clipboard next to the computer. If you spent over your thirty minutes, a teacher or dinnerlady would kick you off and demand you go outside. I was mesmerized by the machines, they had some kind of unspoken thrall over me. I would look forward to school just so I could mess around on the computers some more. When they went wrong, I was always called to help. I became the unpaid Apple Guru before there was even such a thing. I was the first and only Apple tech nerd in my circle of friends for a very long time.

When I left primary school, I didn’t see another Apple Macintosh for a very long time. I kept abrest with the tech news, the new computers coming out and the rumblings of Apple wanting to take on Sony for shares in the personal music player market. I scoffed at this news. I thought it was ridiculous. Why on earth would anyone want to take on Sony for music players? I was happy with my Sony Discman at the time and I never thought anything could replace it. I was tempted by the new technology of the MiniDisc but I knew it was never really going to take off. The players were far too expensive to begin with anyway. I had a massive CD collection and as far as I was aware, I was always going to be carrying around a CD player for the near future. It was a good five or six years away from the announcement of the iPod and MP3s were very much an uncertainty. I’m pretty sure that they had been discussed in depth, but I don’t think they knew how much they would change the way that we would listen to our music collections.

College/University time. I used an Apple Power Macintosh G3. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw with it’s white and blue plastic. I can remember approaching it and thinking to myself ‘holy crap. That’s a big computer!’ Sitting down in front of it with the separate screen, I loved how everything seemed to colour coordinated from the screen to the tower to the mouse and keyboard. I scanned my photos in using the scanner attached to the computer. There were no digital cameras really then, and if there was- they would have been really expensive! I opened the photo files I had saved on the harddrive and used Adobe Photoshop 5, I thought I was the bees knees having used a really expensive computer. Editing photos was not the easiest thing in the world to learn, and it took a few tries but I got there in the end. PC’s could not do this at the time as Adobe was only available for Macintosh computers so if you were a photographer or a composer or a film producer- you used a Mac. It’s still kind of the same way now, as I know there’s a lot of people out there like myself who have grown up with the brand along their careers in the industry. It’s just what you get used to. I used this machine for two years and then as it’s highly upgradeable- I did see some on the sidelines when I went to university.

University was a bit of a disaster for me. I mean, I passed. That much is true. 2.2, 2.1 and 2.1. The first year doesn’t really count, I’m still not really sure how I got through it as I swear I was drunk half the time. The other time, I was slumped over a computer. When I started my university course, I was still using traditional film media and a scanner for my photos. Along with a Power Mac G4. By the end of it, I was using a Canon EOS digital SLR, Firewire and an Apple PowerBook G4 . The game had changed and my field of study had significantly shifted along with it. I’d used my student loan towards the end to buy myself a laptop, I’d taken to spending most of my time at home studying. If I wanted to use a computer, I had to go to the university computer labs to use one as the only one I had at home was a very basic Compaq family computer. So, I decided to buy myself a laptop. Having only really used Apple Macintosh up to this point, I decided not to break the mold and I continued on with what I knew best.

I was IN LOVE. The Apple Macintosh Powerbook G4 was like a dream come true for me. Anything I threw at the computer, it would process it with the speed of light. Being used to the family computer crashing if I tried to run more than one thing at the same time- this thing was like an angel sent from above. I would cart it to and from university with me. I had my little Yahoo email address. My very first website talking about music. I became obsessed with the internet and I began posting my photos online. Around this time, Apple dropped the old format of their OS systems and started up with the new versions of Jaguar. It was a step into the unknown and no one quite knew what to make of it all. Additions to the OS included the much loved iPhoto, which still to this day is my favourite part of the OS. The little friendly computer screen was gone to be replaced by the SPINNING WHEEL OF DOOM. Oh how that irritated me! To the end of the course, my PowerBook was looking bedraggled and my parents bought me a new one as a graduation present. Well, I thought they were going to. Instead, I ended up with this:

An iMac Flat Panel G4. They thought it was better I had a desktop computer, and it was cheaper than a new laptop so that was my gift. Not to be ungrateful, I accepted the gift and played around with Jaguar for a year. I sorely missed my PowerBook though and looked into buying another one. As a second computer I could hide at a friend’s house or something. I knew it was a stupid idea, but the day that the salesman handed over my new shiny PowerBook G4 17″…I almost thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was heavy too, the first 17″ laptop available on the market in 2002 and I looked a bit ridiculous sitting in public with it as it was bigger than most other laptops available at that time.

It had a lot of firsts for Apple, the first computer of theirs to have built-in AirPort Extreme and FireWire 800. It had a built-in wireless adapter before the rest of the market had even thought about it. That sadly meant trying to find a wireless connection in public was nil, and it was tricky to use. I would take it out to type on but it had a bit of a lousy battery life so it wasn’t long before I trudged home with it under my arm to put it back on charge. That year I got a merchandising job, and it turned out I was actually really good at it. I would take along the laptop with me as at the time I couldn’t afford an iPod too so I used it as my stereo and would blast my music from it in the evenings. Until I fell in with a bad crowd at work. My now ex boyfriend, stole my pride and joy from me. I left it at his house and then when I asked for it back after we broke up he failed to show up with the goods. I reported him to the police. It turned out he was in the country under a false name and false paperwork. So both myself and the company we were working for were stung by his behaviour.

Since then, I’ve sadly had two Dell computers as I’ve not been able to afford another Apple machine. I’ve had plenty of iPods though, started off with the very first iPod Shuffle and today I have the latest iPod Touch 32GB. The nearest I get these days to an Apple machine is my iPad2 16GB WIFI. It doesn’t do what a computer does, but I can do most things and it keeps me happy- even if I am caught playing Plants vs Zombies half the time! I love Apple. My phone contract runs out next July and I’m looking forward to finally having an iPhone. It’s not because I’m being a bandwagon jumper. It’s because I love them as a company and I love their products. I’ve used Blackberry and Android too. I loved the battery life on my BB and the UI on my HTC Desire Z. But to have everything sync together as one happy family tends to have a special place in my heart. It’s annoying when the iPad2 and the iPod Touch tend to ding at the same time- it scares the heck out of me! But I really do love it, and it all started with a Centris 650

Liam’s Story

For me my “admiration” about all things Google started back in the very early 2000′s (around 2001-2002), at that time I was still using search engines such as Yahoo, Lycos and Altavista. For e-mail I was using Hotmail. One day I remember stumbling across this unknown search engine called “Google”. Intrigued I typed in a random search and I was amazing by how fast it was in bringing up a listing. From there, there was no turning back. The Google homepage was set to my homepage. Over the years as the “Big G” started to bring out more and more products I slowly converted to them. From Hotmail I switched to GMail, and from Firefox I very reluctantly switched to Google Chrome. I say reluctantly because I really liked Firefox but with each new release I found the browser to slow down more and more. Once again trying Google Chrome for the first time was like trying the search engine after years with Yahoo. The speed increase was remarkable and I found myself not going back, despite the fact that the introduction of Chrome forced Firefox to up their game, but still despite all this, I didn’t feel myself “locked into” the Google ecosystem.

This all changed in February 2008, when I decided that my LG Viewty wasn’t doing the job that I wanted it to do, so I decided to pop into my local T-Mobile UK shop and take out my first contract phone. I had a look around and one phone caught my eye. Little did I know then was that it was to be the phone that would start the invasion of the little green robots. The HTC G1 (Dream).

This phone wasn’t the prettiest phone they had in the shop, not by a long mile but there was something about it, it looked quirky and unique but normally that wouldn’t catch my eye and make me purchase it. What did catch my eye was the operating system. Even back then in it’s infancy, there was something about Android that made me thing “hang on, this thing has real potential”. If you were to hand someone who is used to the latest Gingerbread or even Ice Cream Sandwich Android phones a G1 as it was when it was released, they would truly see how far the operating system has come in such a relatively short space of time. When I first got my G1 the operating system didn’t even have an on-screen keyboard and at that time even the Blackberry App World had more applications then the Android Marketplace had.

It wasn’t just the Android operating system that “locked” me into the Google ecosystem, but it was the applications and services surrounding Android that made me appreciate Google more and more. Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Mail and later on applications like Google Plus, Google Earth, Google Maps and not just offered a service but in a funny sort of way they engaged you with that service. Google Contacts become essential for me as I’m someone who likes to change my phone a lot, Google Mail offered a fantastic e-mail client with push notifications and Google Maps has saved my bacon on more then one occasion.

After the G1, I purchased the phone that suddenly made people think “wait a second, we might actually have a competitor at last to iOS”, the HTC Hero. This was the phone that I absolutely adored. At the time the phone was slick, HTC Sense was a beautiful thing to behold (it’s now a burden when it comes to getting the latest OS updates but that’s for another day) and I really enjoyed the device. This was followed shortly after by the Nexus One, the Desire Z, the Samsung Galaxy S2 and my current phone the Xperia Mini. Between the Galaxy and the Xperia I did return back to a Blackberry I once had. This only lasted a month though as I quickly realized one thing.

When it comes to the apps on Android, when it comes to the sheer customization you can achieve on Android, for me as an experience, no operating system comes close. I’ve tried iOS for a few days. I purchased myself an iPod Touch in November but ended up returning it as well, I just couldn’t get on with the OS. Compared to what I’m used to I found it cumbersome. People say Android is clunky yet I found iOS to be just as bad, if not worse in places.

For me, I like the majority of things that Google creates. There has been some that have seemed pointless to me in the past (here’s looking at you Wave and Buzz), but these are far outweighed by applications and utilities such as Calendar, Maps, Earth, Shopper, Goggles, Mail, Contacts, Translate and of course the wonderful Android operating system itself. When you also throw in the apps that I have purchased for Android over the three years I’ve been using the system coupled with the Google search engine and Google Chrome, it’s not hard to understand why I would lean towards a Big G release ahead of the evil fruit. I’m yet to try a Chromebook and I’m yet to have an Android tablet, but knowing me, sooner or later that time will come.

I’m not saying all things Google and Android are perfect. I still wish that Google would force both the manufactorers and the carries to give you the option to have either pure Android or their skinned version. For me i’d have the pure Android version as I would like to have my OS updates before the Mayan calendar runs out. That’s the one plus that iOS has over Android. When Apple released a new version of their operating system, all eligible devices has it within hours or days. With Android, sometimes you have to wait months for companies like Sony Eriksson, LG, Samsung or HTC to finally get moving and then if you haven’t got a sim-free version you then have to wait for the carriers to shove their bloatware on top before you even get the update. Despite this though I find the Android experience to be the best experience you can get right now.

If someone came to me and said “here is an iPhone 4S, an iPad 2 and an iPod 64gb, will you take all these and not use the “Google experience” again? My answer would be a resounding NO! It’s pretty much the case of that it would take too much effort, would cost too much money to switch ecosystems, and I really don’t think it would be worth the hassle. So for me, it’s Android and Google over Apple any day.

Ever since Liam got here a few days ago, I’ve been hanging between various states of happiness. I’ve been laughing and giggling one second, and then the next tears threaten to overflow and turn me into a total mental wreck.

When he got here two days, I was running home to make sure that I got home okay and in a decent amount of time. I wanted to get home in a sufficient time frame to shower and clean up my room as it looked really messy in there with piles of clothing all over the place. I wasn’t that bothered really about the room but my mother ever being OCD chewed me out until I cleaned it up. Then as I looked in the mirror, I was kind of afraid as my hair was a mess and I knew that I was exactly the best smelling after spending a good portion of the day racing around the shop floor like Speedy Gonzales. So I jumped into the shower for a quick party with the Snow Fairy shower gel and I emerged a few minutes later smelling like a sweet shop. My shower gel makes me want to drink it rather than bathe in it I couldn’t be bothered with any make up, so I just threw on some clothes and then went downstairs to watch a DVD.

I was getting hungry at this point so I decided to throw in a pizza before we went out for the evening. Being New Year’s Eve and everything, I was going to be psuedo dressed up with my red tux jacket and silver glittery heels but nothing too over the top. When he showed up at the door, he came into the living room and I literally threw my arms around him and held him to me so tight. I never wanted to let him go, but knew that I had to if he wanted to breathe again! It was so good to see Liam after not seeing him for three weeks and I couldn’t quite believe that he was standing there in front of me.

As you know the evening went well and he taught me a little bit about the stars. I’m easy to please. I don’t need fancy candlelit dinners or expensive bottles of wine. Just us standing outside looking at the night sky was one of the most perfect nights I’ve had in a long time. And it’s pretty much been a lot more of that since. I had to get up early this morning for work and as I woke up with him next to me…I rolled over to give him a hug and I didn’t want to leave the warm bed! It was so hard to get up and I literally thought of every single excuse in the book to get the day off work. With hours being short this week, I didn’t want to call in unnecessarily so I hauled my ass up and out of the bed and shuffled around my room throwing my clothes on and making sure I looked presentable. I also didn’t want to scare the customers that early. Liam was a sweetheart and got up with me to make it a little easier on me, so I repaid the kind and made him a coffee while grabbing him a glass of juice.

Leaving was HARD. So I got in the car, shivering all the way there and when I finally got to work it was like I was at my home from home. I talked about Christmas and New Years with my fellow colleagues, asking them if they had a good holiday and seeing which of them got a bit drunk. I was assigned a boring task for the morning, and the day dragged until I got put on merchandising which I LOVE so I jumped at the chance and threw myself into the job. Luckily, after that the morning flew by and before I knew it I was on the bus home and couldn’t wait to be back with Liam so I could give him a cuddle. I missed his hugs so much, even though it had only been a few hours.

It’s always hard to be away from him, and when he goes back to Telford…the first day is always verging on impossible. I hate sleeping alone, I hate going to work without anyone to come home to. And talking on Skype is not the same as having a face to face conversation. The sooner we have our own place, the better. I’ve already been pricing up cutlery sets and towel bales. I’m turning into a psuedo Martha Stewart…only I don’t look very good in blaze orange

Last night will be one of the New Years Eves I will remember for a long time. I didn’t get drunk and I didn’t hang around many people but it was more about what happened after myself and Liam left the pub. I’d not drank that much other than a couple of pints of lager, I forgot to eat more at dinner though and so my stomach wasn’t really lined that well. Trying to drink on a quarter of a pizza is not really that smart.

Anyway. I sat there with my Mum and Liam, and we were discussing random stuff. I’m not even really sure now as to what we were discussing but I can only remember thinking that I felt incredibly sleepy and I just wanted to go home and snuggle. I had missed Liam so much that I just wanted to glue myself to him for the rest of the time he was visiting, which I know sounds really lame but it’s just how it is. After midnight, my mother was heading to her friends house and we decided to walk home. It’s not far from the pub and my shoes aren’t uncomfortable so we headed off home. I think I need some kind of an insole for my shoes as my feet kept on slipping out of them and threatening to make me fall over. Liam, who was ever the gentleman offered his arm for balance. I must have looked horrendous as I stumbled home on my glittery heels with my knight in shining armour for help. I didn’t care though and when we got to the end of my street, I looked up into the sky. The stars were out shining in the inky blackness and it was like they came out to greet us.

We stood there hand in hand looking up into the sky and he suddenly let go of my hand. It was nothing to be worried about though as he pointed up into the night and told me about the various constalations. We could see Orion very clearly, and he pointed out the belt part. It was really beautiful and I have to say that I was quite impressed. He was like a kid in a candy store and as I looked over at him, I could see that he had a massive grin plastered across his face. The saying is certainly true, you really can see the stars more clearly in the middle of nowhere. The sky looked so much bigger too. I remember the massive skies in the middle of Tennessee and Wisconsin, but this was truly something else. I couldn’t see stars then and here I could see them quite clearly. It made it better by being with the one I love and being taught the various shapes that the stars make up in the night sky.

Honestly, it will take a lot to beat that night.

…turning over a new leaf, leaving behind the past and starting anew.

Tomorrow will be New Years Eve. I’m not doing a whole lot and I sadly have to work the morning. But I’m gonna go out, wish everyone a fabulous new year and smile. Hold my head high and hope that all my troubles and issues are in the past. I’ve been wishing the customers a Happy New Year too. I’m overcompensating for the sadness inside me, I’m holding myself together and hoping that my facade doesn’t crumble to reveal how I really feel.

I’ve wrote New Years Resolutions, just like I do every year. But this year, I’m not going to let them fall to the wayside. They are things that I desperately need to achieve in 2012 or it will be a total failure. I know I hold myself to ridiculously high standards and that I expect a lot of myself, but since most people don’t expect me to achieve a lot in my life…I’m out to prove everyone wrong once again. When I came home in 2009, I had NOTHING. I arrived at Manchester Airport with a suitcase of clothes and a Dell laptop. That was all I owned. I’ve since built my belongings up again, but I’m slowly rebuilding my life. I’m slowly becoming more social again, I’m making friends and I’m coming out of my shell. It’s a bit odd that most of my friends are about ten years younger than me, but people come into your life for a reason. And age never really matters anyway. I’ve managed to hold onto a job for more than a year, and I really do love it there. I’m sure that I drive the management crazy and I’m not exactly proud of that but I’m trying to be a better person and not annoy everyone around me.

The other night when I hung out with my friends, I realised I was home. These guys were my family. I was the oldest in the room, and for once I didnt care. When L and E gave me a group hug and told me they loved me, I wanted to cry like a small child. Tears of pure happiness. I didn’t feel like drinking that night, so I was on a prescription of cups of tea while the rest of them sat around doing chain shots of apple sours. I would usually have joined in, but I really couldn’t be bothered. I watched them having a great time and when C gave me a big manly bearhug I never wanted him to let go. I had missed his hugs so much. Yeah, most of the people I hang out with are in university but as I said…they’re some of the best friends I’ve truly ever had and I couldn’t wish for a better surrogate family. I’m old enough to be aunt to some of them, but it’s okay. I’ve accepted now that I’m 30. But I know I don’t look it, I know I certainly don’t act it and I never want to be accused of being old or boring. Because I know as long as I am around my friends…I never will be. They pick me up when I’m down, make me smile when I’m sad and celebrate the good times with me. I feel like I’ve finally come home and it’s taken three years, but it’s nice and I’m glad to be here

2012 New Years Resolutions: 

• Keep believing in myself
• Keep writing
• Push myself more
• Be honest in myself and my relationships
• Work hard and work smart
• Spend more time with my friends
• Be a better girlfriend
• Spend more time with Liam
• Call my daughter more and always tell her I love her
• Finish my book
• Buy myself a proper grown-up domain
• Climb higher
• Exercise more and eat better
• Save more money
• Stop buying things I don’t need
• Ignore those who don’t matter
• Hold those close who mean the world to me
• Don’t take everything at face value
• Read more