I wish i'd beena tortoise and had my home on my back....!

About a month after the earthquake, I got a call from the rental department, who were managing the apartment and I was told that a surveyor would be coming round.........which triggered all sorts of panic in me - I could only think of one reason for a surveyor coming round = because the owner wanted to sell up......we had only been in the flat 4 months, and I loved it so much, it would have broken my heart to have had to move.

Anyway, I was reassured by the rental peeps, (and also the owner, who had "popped" round one day, to ask if everything was ok after the quake - I appreciated this, she didnt have to, did she?) So feeling a little better, I let the surveyor in one day, who was clearly a total gossip, the bloke couldnt hold water, never mind client confidentiality, bless him and he blagged and told me it was because the flats were concrete, which apparently means that they cant be remortgaged or anything............

So, ya got it.............................flat WAS put up for sale, but only after the owner had tried to put my rent up by £150/month - apparently this would have "brought it in line" with other one bedroom flats in the area??!!! I searched long and hard, and t0 be honest, the £550 I was paying for a one bedroom flat in Folkestone was OVER the norm at the time - to be asked to pay £700 was blatantly taking the piss............

Getting in from work one evening, there was a note pushed under the door giving me notice to quit..................and so the search for a new property was on...........but not before I had reverted back to Bridget Jones, opened a bottle of wine and called all my friends in pieces, just booing my eyes out........I still, to this day, regret having to leave that flat and if I ever get any money, im going back to buy one!

Now I was thoroughly cheesed off ..........no boyfriend (although, to be honest, that was no great shakes at the time!) no money, no flat, no seaview and even Dave the Dolphin had left town at this point.................

Luckily, Stu and I found a lovely little house in a cul de sac up the steepest hill you can imagine, in a quiet corner of town near the harbour.....................and we began the move of the century....!! The new house was only about 10 minutes walk from the old flat, so we literally moved by suitcase! - Every evening after work, we would take 2 or 3 suitcases full of stuff over to the new place and lug it up this bloody ginormous hill!! - I developed muscles in places I never knew I had! (I know I have spelt ginormous wrong, by the way,but I can be arsed to google it - isnt it weird when you spell something wrong, and then whatever way you type it, it still looks wrong?!)

Anyway.....one digresses...........so we moved into the new house, relatively painlessly and everything was yet again hunky dory.........till I met Kevin...................and hold on to your seats, coz im REALLY gonna name and shame this bugger next blog - with both barrels - because of this tw*t my son and ended up homeless, in Dorset.....but I did get offered £1,000 by Take a Break magazine to sell my story ................Kevin's a Naval Officer, you see, and he was a VERY NAUGHTY BOY!!

Ciao darlings.........enjoy the sunshine and catch ya later...........

Did the earth move for you dear?!

Copper and I limped on ..................till the earthquake!!

By this time, son and I were happily esonced in our flat in Folkestone - it was tiny, but the seaviews made it all worthwhile - I had changed jobs, by now - I was working as a site secretary/document controller for a construction company and I adored it...............I admit, at first, I floundered.......but with the Office Manager, Julie, and the South East Area Manager, Barry, I just bloomed!!

I loved it - it was a daily challenge, thats for sure, but the variety in the role and having an office junior (16 yr old "my Dan") it was a pleasure to work there............for the first time in my life I actually looked forward to getting up in the morning and getting to work.........and I have some GREAT stories to tell you about working on a construction site, but they can wait for another time....too long to put here!!!!!

Copper and I were drifting ever further apart - one night, he stayed over and he got a parking ticket and he didnt stay after that!! Apart from that, things were great - then one chilly spring Saturday Morning, in April, I was rooting through my handbag (as one does!) and the earthquake hit!!!

I remember it all VERY clearly - one minute, son standing looking out the window, im rifling through my handbag, and then the earth "shimmered" I SWEAR to you, it MOVED and wobbled, and I half expected Dr Who to land in my lounge (I wish...!), but then, all of sudden, there was a HUGE bang, like a bomb had gone off and everything was shaking.

My immediate thought was my son, but he's younger and fitter than me and was already running for the door, shouting "we've got to get out of here!" I shouted at him to not take the lift and we were pelting it down the stairs!! "Its OK Stu, I panted (!) I think a crane has fallen onto the roof" (our flats were in a huge victorian block, which was curved and the end flats were still being renovated by builders, so this is not QUITE as random a statement as it first sounds!)

When we got outside, we were met by the other residents, and a stunned looking group of builders, all of whom had run over to the other side of the road and were mumbling "its nothing to do with us"!!! (although they didnt look TOO sure!) All the seagulls were whirling overhead, screaming and screeching, just in blind panic, and there were people everywhere........some said a gas main had exploded, some said the channel tunnel (entrance just 2 miles away from us) had been blown up, NO ONE even imagined what it really was!!

Well, I wasnt going back in that flat, not for no-one, so we headed into town - which was when we realised the severity of the occasion. It seemed that we werent the only ones to have this idea, and most of Folkestone was there............and it was WEIRD!! I mean, proper weird - none of the shops were open (power was down) and there was a lady outside Sainsburys with a battery operated radio listening to the news, with all these people in their nighties and pyjamas sitting there listening - just in shock, in dead silence.....like the blitz in the war.....and this was when we heard that it had all been caused by an earthquake..............and then the rumours started........

The scariest one was that we could expect aftershocks for up to two weeks after............but the one that really made me crack up laughing was the "old dear" who was telling everyone that they shouldnt go to the beach in case there was a Tsunami!! Now im a thick bitch, but even I know the English Channel is about as deep as a puddle and there was no chance of that happening!

So, unable to get much needed chocolate in Sainsburys, we headed back into the centre of town and joined another crowd of people just sitting in their nightwear watching all these news helipcopters flying overhead...................and no one spoke..........I promise you, it was the eyriest atmosphere I had ever know............hundreds of people, no noise, and all these helipcopters whirling overhead - it was like armageddon, or night of the living dead, or something............

Stu and I stayed out till 4 in the afternoon, we were unable to contact anyone as the phone networks had gone down and the novelty of watching news reporters interviewing people had worn off, so we went back to the flat - there were fireman outside, and they told us it was safe to go in.......although a lot of buildings in Folkestone had had chimneys and walls fall down, so we got off lightly. Well, we went home and I can tell you - everytime the wind blew for the next week, or there was a creak in the floorboards - I didnt sleep that night!!

I thought we had got off lightly, and compared to some, we had, but what I didnt realise was that the earthquake HAD caused problems - and it would lead to Stu and I having to leave...........................and Copper and I too break up for good..................

Smoking is bad for you....

So anyway - there i am, the council had moved me to the roughest part of Ashford, but I was soo glad to get outta that house (which did end up being repossesed, by the way) that i wasnt even bovvered - new flat, new start. Simples.

Life was pretty good there actually - my flat (actually a maisonette, with two HUGE bedrooms ) was spacious, my neighbours were lovely - a german couple on one side who didnt really say much but always smiled and a younger couple of newlyweds on the other - very friendly, they were. We had a top floor flat, which did give us wonderful views over the Kent Countryside, and if the lift was either broken or had kids pooing in it or teenagers sh*gging, well that didnt matter either coz there was a staircase - and to my mind I needed the exercise anyway!!

So we settled in, me and my son, Arnie and Daphne had long since passed, but we were blessed with a house rabbit called Allie, who used a litter tray and attacked people when you opened the door to them (handy when you live on such a rough estate!) My son started school and I met a fella (possibly one of the shortest relationships in history - one day ((IE just after our first date in the local Wetherspoons)) he took me out on the balcony and announced that he was a "smoker". Yuck, I thought, followed by "well as long as he doesnt do it in the house, or near stu, then I will learn to live with it". Unfortunately when he told me that he was a "smoker" I hadnt realised he meant the "wacky backy" and was horrified when I found him the next day on the balcony outside my flat stoned out of his head at 3.20pm just as I was walking stu home from school. So that ended that. Not one of the great romances......!!

It was hard but I managed to save a few pennies from my wages at the old peoples home and took stu on holiday to Butlins at Bognor - we got a single parent discount and had a great time - except there was this one couple who had about 5 kids who decided that because I was a SINGLE PARENT I must be REALLY LONELY and they basically stalked me the whole week we were there......I couldnt go to the bog without the mother putting her arm through mine and asking if I WAS OK? or if I was LONELY? or asking if I was bored ON MY OWN?! Like I was some suicidal nutter or something (thank god she hadnt met me two years before....!!!!) Anyway, despite the stalking, it was a great holiday and I will always remember it as the time my stu made his stage debut - he fell in love with the show the Blues Brothers that the redcoats put on everynight and he turned up for every performance, front row with his black shades on and wouldnt take them off. In the end the inevitable happened and they had him up on stage for one of their numbers - im still busting with pride to this day!!!! Thanks to all the Redcoats - you guys work bloody hard and we had an awesome time..xx

My parents, as ever, were supportive in their own way - mum bought stu and I tickets for Disneyland Paris on Valentines day - its not like I had to wait in for the Postman! I will never forget this trip- mainly because it was so bloody cold (there was ice on the lake around the princess castle!) but also because it was the first time I really laughed hard since the biological one and I had split up - we went on some pirate boat ride and stu really enjoyed it until it came to the last bit, when the boat goes down a small "waterfall". Well, stu flipped out!! He stood up and shouted to everybody to get off the boat "OH No! We are IN DANGER EVERYONE" I hardly noticed the waterfall - was trying not to pmsl and what with all the french ride attendants screaming "assez vous assez vous" (or something like that!) and trying to cling onto stu, it was a hell of a ride! Not quite as bad as when he got out of his bumper car to thump the french kid that "bumped" him, but nearly........!

So yes, although we were evacuated from our flat nearly every night because some tosser fell asleep with the chip pan on and although I (briefly) dated a pot head, and you couldnt use the lifts because of the sh*gging and the pooing, it was good times here......i genuinly have nothing but fond memories............

Then I met the love of my life (well, he was at the time.........!!) and my world got turned upside down...................