There is something intriguing about watching people come and go in A&E on a Wednesday evening. Not too many drunks tonight. I have been here before, on a Saturday night, and the entire place seemed to teem with drunken youths and their older counterparts, falling in gangways, swearing at one another. Tonight it is different. How did I come to be here and why? Well, for one thing, there is nothing wrong with me. I was packed and ready to have an early night before leaving for Marseille and a long weekend in the sun. It is my friend who has fallen foul of Friday thirteenth, a full two days…

The deceptively large fabric shop, in Shepherds Bush, is bursting with colour and contrast. A typical London building, the shop spans three floors and is as deep as it is narrow. Its walls are lined with rolls of fabric that spill out onto the floor, in a rainbow of colours, meeting  the toes of awe inspired customers as they tread, carefully, across the boards. Why am I here? More importantly, why am I here on a gloriously sunny, English summer’s day, instead of relaxing in my Hampshire garden among the flowerpots and wheel barrows? Therein lies a tale. I had planned my day quite well at breakfast.  I would take…

The car stopped, the child who had been sitting patiently on the back seat, strapped in and apparently oblivious to our bright chatter as we drove into the school car park, undid his seat belt, opened the car door and leapt out in one fluid movement, before we could turn around. By the time we had jumped out onto the tarmac, he had legged it.

I thought I was Queen of the embarrassing moment. Let’s face it, I have had more than a few. There was the unforgettable time I needed to renew my passport photo for instance. It was busy in Boots the Chemist’s. The queues for the checkout were long but I ignored them and went straight to the photo booth that was strategically placed opposite the longest queue of all. The black curtain that would shield me from prying eyes was fastened to one side. I tweaked it and it swished to behind me, so that only my legs would be visible. I settled myself down on the little stool and pushed…

“I’ll be going out shortly and leaving the chef on his own for an hour but don’t worry, he can manage,” she promises and with a flurry of brightly coloured skirts, and hair that seems to have grown even bigger as she speaks, flies back to the kitchen.

“Are you sure he’s not still inside?” All five of us stopped and looked at one another in shocked horror which quickly turned to mirth. Of course, it wouldn’t be funny if we really had locked the poor builder on the balcony and gone off for the day, would it? Yet, still, rather cruelly, we found the situation amusing.

After ten years of writing only sporadically whilst working full time, I now find myself with both the time and the desire to re-explore that wonderful world where laughing at oneself really is the best medicine.