About Me

This story begins in November of 1972, when my mother gave birth to me in Barrow-in-Furness in the North of England.  I was her first and most definitely ended up being her favorite and most cherished child (my brother and sister might disagree, but still…).  We continued living in Britain until I was two years old.  My Dad was working for Vickers and was offered a transfer to Canada.  He took it and in 1975, my parents boarded a plan, along with myself and my younger brother, and we flew into the Great White North.

In 1978, my sister was born in Montreal, Quebec.  She still lives there and, in fact, just had a baby of her own.

In 1983, I think it was, we moved to South Africa.  Why, you might ask.  Well, my Dad’s brother was living there and he sang the praises of the place.  He ran what he called a success business and encouraged my Dad to join him.  Business was going so well, he told us, that he needed a partner.  So we boarded a plan again and emigrated… again.

We lived just outside Johannesburg in a town called Boksburg.

That lasted 9 months in all.  During that time, we were subjected to racism and violence and a country that was in great turmult.  I was only 12 and I didn’t have any prior experience of these things and, looking back, I realize how little I understood at the time about what I was seeing.  But my parents understood plenty and, as soon as they could, they got us home, to Canada.  Where we belonged.

My memories of Africa are of a visually stunning country with such a vast and interesting culture, but it is also a country that, at the time, was struggling.

With all the moving back and forth, money was tight, but my parents pulled through and we settled back into Quebec like we’d never left. 

High school was good, although I was thrilled when it was over.  I hate that kind of structure and those unbendable rules.  Drives me nuts!

Why then, you might wonder, did I continue on to college?  Because it was the thing to do.  I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my future and, I guess, at 34, I still don’t.  So I enrolled at Dawson College (yes, where that shooting was in 2006) and took Creative Arts, a pre-university program.  It was a light-weight, wishy-washy kind of program and, as I was in it, I took it to be the program that people take when they don’t know what to do.  I’m sure that’s not true, I’m just telling you how I saw things.

About a year and a half into Creative Arts at Dawson, I got the letter asking me not to come back.  I hadn’t been attending classes as I should.  I just shrugged and told my parents that I’d decided not to continue my education there.  It wasn’t for me.

I worked after that.  Everything from cashier to manager of a call centre.  I have been frustrated by my lack of formal education, but not to the point of ever doing anything about it.

In 1999, I got my first computer, a hand-me-down from my Dad.  He also introduced me to ICQ, which brought Hubby into my life.  He’s a Brit who was living in Essex in England.  He had three kids of 14, 13 and 10.  Within a year of our first ‘hello’ online, I was living with him in Billericay in England.  We flew back to Canada for a holiday in 2001 and got married in Hudson, Quebec.

In 2003, we started the immigration process so that Stephen and his kids could move to Canada with me.  And in March of 2004, our son was born.

September of 2004 saw us boarding a Zoom airplane bound for Ottawa, and we’ve been in Canada ever since.

Our daughter was born in November of 2006.

And that brings us to the present.  I feel like I’ve rambled on forever which is strange, as I’ve cut so much out!


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