So, this is awkward, isn’t it? I mean, it’s been so long: we’ve lost touch, drifted apart. Some of you have probably changed your names and taken on new identities so you don’t have to pretend to read this site any more. I would imagine many of you will have deleted your bookmarks/RSS subscriptions, muttering something about how “this is the final nail in the coffin” and there are plenty of other blogs in the sea, you know! Yes, I know, I know.

When I stopped updating this site, back in June, I had actually intended the break to be a permanent one, for reasons that are too long, boring and painfully introspective to go into here.  And I will be honest: many of those reasons are still relevant, so I’m not sure how long this return to personal blogging  is going to last. I’m going to give it another go, though, mostly because my parents said they missed this site, and I have to keep them sweet or I’ll have absolutely no chance of finally getting that pony. So here I am, with a shiny new site design and everything. A fresh start!

I was going to make this post all about the various things I got up to during my summer of Not Blogging. But then I cast my mind back over the past few weeks and… well, I got nothing, folks. It’s been the rainiest, and most uneventful summer I can remember in years, and actually, it’s a good job I didn’t bother to blog about it, because that really wouldn’t have been fun for any of us. Let’s hope I lose something soon, or have my photo stolen by an Amber-impersonator or something, hmm?

Anyway, despite the uneventfulness of the summer, I seem to have lots and lots of posts lined up, so I hope you’ll stick around to read them – or at least to nod and smile, and pretend that you’ve been reading them.

Now, what have I missed?

(P.S. I do know that it’s not quite September yet, despite what it says on the banner. Like the boy scouts, I like to be prepared…)

Here’s what happened last night:

It’s not frost, it’s SNOW. This was taken at 6am, when Rubin woke us up with his patented “Yapping at 6am for no reason whatsoever” manoeuvre. By the time we actually got up, it had melted, but even so, people, EVEN SO.

This is bad. It’s very, very bad. It’s particularly bad because lately I’ve been feeling like a dark cloud is hanging over me. And that’s because there IS a dark cloud hanging over me: it’s the Ash Cloud O’Doom from the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, or “That Stupid Freaking Volcano That Wants to Ruin My Life”, as it’s known in my house.

(This is going to be one of those really whiny, bratty posts I  write sometimes a lot. Don’t say you weren’t warned.)

I’m convinced the volcano is going to stop me going on holiday. (Now THERE’S a line I never thought I’d write). Absolutely convinced. Seriously, I haven’t even bought new shoes for the trip or anything, that’s how convinced I am that we won’t be going. And sure, we don’t leave until the end of the month, so the world still has a couple of weeks to sort itself out, but the thing is, it doesn’t really look like it’s going to bother, does it ? No, it looks more like that freaking volcano is just going to keep on belching out ash, and that it’s going to do it PURELY to ruin my holiday/life. And rather than basking in the sun for three weeks, I’m going to shiver in the SNOW instead, and also have no money, because I spent it all on a holiday I can’t take.

If that happens, I am going to FREAK THE HELL OUT. I mean, like I’ve never freaked out in my life before. I’m actually starting to do it now. In fact, I feel a bit like a volcano myself right now, and trust me, if I blow, YOU WILL KNOW ABOUT IT.

I should put in a disclaimer here to make me sound like a vaguely reasonable person, even although I’m not in the least bit reasonable, ever. Here it is:

I know safety has to come first. I’m terrified of flying – absolutely terrified – so trust me when I say that the last thing I want is to be sitting in a tin can that’s plummeting towards the earth at a million miles an hour ON FIRE, just because everyone ignored the Ash Cloud O’Doom. I know it’s no one’s fault, even although I’d dearly like to be able to blame someone, and it’s at times like this I wish I believed in God. I also know that there are people in a far worse situation than me when flights get cancelled: people who miss weddings and funerals, and people who might even miss out on the chance to have their lives saved because either they can’t get to the hospital, or the surgeon can’t, or whatever.

I know all of these things. And I still want to scream like a baby, because IT SNOWED IN MAY, people.  MAY. May is normally the nicest month of the year in Scotland. This year? Yeah. The best case scenario now is that we get to Florida, THEN the ash cloud gets really, really bad, and we can never come home again, ever. That would be awesome, because right now, if I never saw snow again, it would be too soon. If our flight gets cancelled, meanwhile, I think I will try to swim there. I’m not even joking.

(P.S. If even one person tells me they’re “SO JEALOUS!” of the snow, I swear my head will explode. It’s like being jealous of someone who just lost a limb, seriously.)

Phones. I hate ‘em. I know I don’t have to explain this to any regular readers, but for those just joining us, I am phone phobic in the extreme, and will go to any lengths to avoid making or receiving phone calls - I have even been reduced to begging Terry to do it for me if it’s absolutely essential.

I particularly hate mobile phones. The very nature of mobile phones means that people are always going to call you on them at an inconvenient time. I mean, if I’m not at home, it’s because I’m out doing something. If I’m out doing something, then it’s not going to be a great time to chat, is it? Add to that the fact that it always seems to be a crappy connection, and there’s always loads of background noise outdoors, and, yeah, I pretty much hate being called on my mobile, and will avoid calling people on theirs, either, employing the same logic of “if they’re not at home, they’re probably too busy to chat”.  Sure, I’m surgically attached to my iPhone at all times, but that’s because of the Internet access and the apps. The actual phone part is for emergencies only as far as I’m concerned, which is why any time the phone rings, I immediately assume that it’s an emergency, and fly into a total panic.

Like I did today, for instance.

I’d just arrived at the dentist’s office to be fitted with my next set of Invisalign braces. I was a few minutes early, so I pulled out my phone to pass the time on Twitter and… whoops! Two missed calls, both from the same number, missed on account of the fact that I’d somehow managed to switch the phone to “silent”. The number wasn’t one I recognised. It wasn’t from any of my contacts, but whoever it was had wanted to speak to me urgently enough that they’d called twice, so I pulled up Google and typed in the area code so see where they were calling from, and work out from that whether I wanted to call them back or not.

The area code was from the town my dad used to work in up until the start of the year. He’s since moved offices, but still works for the same firm, so there was a chance they’d sent him to the other office for the day. And that he’d, I don’t know, DIED or something while he was there.

* PANIC *

(A little bit about my dad, here: my dad is the person I inherited my propensity to walk into doors and bang my head on low-hanging objects from. Not a week goes by – and I’m honestly not joking here – without him bashing his head on something hard enough to leave a mark. He works for a company who have a lot of heavy, dangerous machinery lying around. You can see where I’m coming from here…)

Well, I called my dad, got voicemail. Tried to email him, phone refused to send the email. And, at that point, I was called in to my appointment, so I got to spend the next 20 minutes lying with my mouth wedged open, PANICKING. It was the exact opposite of fun.

As soon as I was released, I called my dad again: nothing. So I called my mum, who assured me that if something had happened, she’d have been called first, and she hadn’t, so this meant all was well. I calmed down a little, but was still sufficiently disturbed that when I got home I typed the full phone number into Google. I didn’t expect to find anything, but to my surprise, Google found an exact match for that number, and not only was it from the town my dad used to work in, and possibly could be in at that very minute….

… it was from the MEDICAL CENTRE IN THAT TOWN.

I mean, what are the odds of that?

So, two missed calls from a medical centre in a town there was a good chance my dad was in: PANIC.

Well, I called the number, and asked why they’d been calling me. And they had absolutely no idea. “Are you a patient here?” they asked. “No? Oh, well, there’s no possible way for us to check why we were calling you, then. Maybe a wrong number? Maybe someone you know is DEAD?”

“If it was something really urgent,” I said, “you’d have left a message, right?”

“Oh no,” said the receptionist cheerfully. “We never leave messages! Have a nice day, now!”

Now, I immediately got back on the phone to my mum (I still don’t have my dad’s new office number, or I’d obviously have called him directly) who, as luck would have it, had just spoken to my dad a few minutes earlier, and was able to reassure me that not only was he alive and well, he was nowhere near the town these people had been calling me from. So all’s well that ends well, except I’ve lost a few years of my life to the panic, and have probably earned a few grey hairs into the bargain.

I just want to say, though, people: LEAVE MESSAGES. Seriously, if you’re calling someone, and you’re a medical centre, say, LEAVE A MESSAGE TO SAY WHY YOU’RE CALLING. Don’t just leave them to Google your number, assume some has died, and then not be able to find out who. LEAVE A MESSAGE. It’s what voicemail is for, and it would possibly have helped keep me just a little bit saner this morning. Possibly not, though. I mean, I am the Queen of Worry. I worry all the time, about everything. I can’t even hear an ambulance go past without assuming it’s rushing to the scene of an accident involving everyone I know. This morning’s events , though, took me right back to those dark days when Terry was ill and almost every single day brought a fresh reason to panic like there was no tomorrow. I’m every glad those days are over. I do, however, think there are important lessons to be learnt, here:

1. LEAVE A MESSAGE

2. Keep your phone switched on (DAD) so you can be reached in case of emergency

3. If you are a medical centre, never call me again. And for the love of Gaga, check you’ve got the right number before you decide to give someone else a heart attack…

Just a quick photo from the weekend, when we went bowling with some friends, and then headed back to theirs to work our way through this bad boy, which filled up the entire boot (trunk) of Mhairi’s car:

My favourite part of this photo is the “little” pizza next to the big one. Well, you wouldn’t want us to starve, would you?

Because I am lazy, here is a quick summary of some things I’ve done in the last week, in a handy list format. You’re welcome!

1. Rendered myself unable to walk, courtesy of the elliptical machine at the gym

Having arrived at the gym, I discovered that the massive blister I’d managed to rub into my foot the day before (People always ask me how I can walk in heels, but it’s always flats that try to kill my feet) was not going to allow me to run as usual. “I’ll just use the elliptical!” I thought. “Because that won’t be painful AT ALL.”

People, I literally couldn’t walk properly the next day, and I’m using the word “literally” in its, er, literal sense here, unlike the girl on The Fashion Police last month who commented, “I literally died when I saw these shoes,” and who was either using “literally” incorrectly, or communicating with me from beyond the grave. Seriously, though, when I got off the machine, my legs were trembling, and when I got up the next day I discovered they were locked into a kind of “sitting down” position, and I had to try and walk around like that until they loosened up. And every time I sat down for more than a few minutes, it would happen again. GOD.

2. Got ID’d while buying a bottle of champagne for my mum’s birthday

Now, you have to understand that this hasn’t happened to me for a WHILE. I used to get ID’d constantly. Up until a few years ago, people would come to my door and, when I answered it, would ask if my parents were at home. (“Probably,” I’d answer, “But they don’t live here, so I can’t say for sure…”) Lately, though, this kind of thing has stopped happening, and I can’t help but notice that my ability to buy alcohol without having to hand over my driver’s licence first has coincided with me ageing like an old hag. And I’ll be honest: I’ve been struggling with this ageing thing. I know you’re supposed to be all, “Oh, I’m so happy in my skin that I don’t care if it has wrinkles,” but I’m more, “Screw that, where’s that expensive face cream that’s supposed to completely immobilize my face?” (Note: that was a joke. I don’t ACTUALLY want to immobilize my face. Maybe just partially immobilize it.) So, anyway, I was downright THRILLED to be asked for ID, although the cashier’s reaction to seeing my driver’s licence was slightly less than thrilling. “JESUS CHRIST!” she said (slightly inappropriately, I felt. Also, I really wanted to say, “Oh, did I give you the wrong card? Look, here’s the one with my other identity: you won’t tell anyone I’m actually Jesus, will you?”) “I’m really sorry,” she said, once she’d regained her composure. “Oh, don’t be sorry,” I assured her. “That’s the best compliment I’ve had all year.” And it totally was.

I’m slightly surprised, though, to find that the under-age drinker’s beverage of choice is apparently CHAMPAGNE now. Kids are so sophisticated these days, aren’t they?

3. Performed the Great Wardrobe Switchover of 2010 (Summer Edition)

I’d put this off for as long as possible because, well, it just kept on snowing, didn’t it? But on Friday the weather took a turn for the (very slightly) warmer, so I decided the time had come to say goodbye to my coats and boots and hello to about fifty million pieces of striped or spotted summer clothing. This time I decided to do the thing properly, so rather than just consigning the old season’s clothes to to the top of the wardrobe, I bought a couple of big plastic containers (seriously, they’re so big you could fit a body in each of them. Just a handy tip there if any of you are currently dealing with body-storage issues.) and put the winter clothes into them. Then I stood for about seven hours, ironing all of the summer stuff that had been crammed into the top of the wardrobe for months and hanging it up. It was Not Fun. Every time I thought I was reaching the end of the pile, I’d find yet ANOTHER dress lurking in a corner. I’d like to say here that the experience was a lesson to me to stop shopping, but we all know that would be a lie, so moving on…

4. Killed my laptop, bought a new one

Relations between me and my laptop had been strained for some time, but last week, due to events too tedious, complicated and totally my fault for me to want to go into here, our differences finally became irreconcilable, and Terry decided it would be simpler just to buy a new one rather than keep on and on (and on, and on…) having to fix the old one, and listen to me whine about it. I’m pretty sure it was mostly the whining that tipped him over the edge, to be honest, which I guess is something to bear in mind next time I want to buy shoes but don’t have any money.

The new laptop is currently on its way, and should be here soon (Maybe even today, in fact!), at which point my working life will be revolutionized, and I will become a super-productive blogging machine, for as long as it takes me to break the new one.

I’m now off to have a shower, as I know from experience that this will be the best way to hasten the arrival of the delivery man…

EDITED TO ADD: The laptop did arrive, but… it’s faulty. Am gutted.

Yesterday afternoon, after a hard morning’s shopping,  Terry I decided to go to our favourite local restaurant for lunch.

Well, we got there, sat down and the waitress took our order. Everything was just peachy. In the middle of the table, though, there was a candle, and next to the candle, there was a giant, paper flower. Both of these were directly in my line of sight, and obscuring my view of Terry, so I picked them both up and moved them to the side of the table.

And, in doing so, I set the flower on fire.

When I say “on fire”, I don’t mean, “It was smoking slightly around the edges.” No, we’re talking big, dramatic, “OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!” flames. Terry grabbed the flower and frantically started blowing on it to put them out, and the look of sheer panic on his face, coupled with the fact that he was holding a giant, burning flower… well, people, I’m ashamed to admit that the first thought that went through my mind was, “Damn, I wish I had my camera!”

Anyway, Terry managed to get the flames out, and we continued with our (very pleasant) lunch, after which I had my first experience of removing and inserting my Invisalign in a public place. Which was… yeah.

I managed to get it out OK, by dint of ducking under the table on the pretext of getting something out of my handbag, and quickly whipping the thing out and into its case. This was fairly easy, because in the last week I’ve become quite the expert at getting the brace in and out, and as I was, um, under the table at the time, only a midget would have seen me do it.

Getting it back in, however, was not quite so easy, because before replacing the brace, both teeth and brace have to be thoroughly cleaned, and as we weren’t planning on going straight home after lunch, I knew they’d both have to be cleaned in the bathroom of the restaurant.

Now, I don’t really know why this was bothering me. I knew from previous visits that these are nice, spotlessly clean bathrooms, but let’s face it, it’s still a public toilet, and, I don’t know, there’s just something a bit personal about cleaning your teeth, isn’t there? Something that makes you prefer to do it in private, rather than with the audience of a small, but curious pre-teen girl, say?

The girl was washing her hands at one of the two basins in the restroom when I entered. Knowing that children generally find me a figure of fun anyway, and that people around here tend to have a very sensitive “weirdness” detector (i.e. they think just about everything is “SOOOO weird!”, I decided not to whip out my toothbrush in front of her. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just quickly use the bathroom, and by the time I’m done, she’ll have finished washing her hands, and I’ll be free to clean my teeth in private.”

But no. The girl continued to wash her hands the whole time I was in the cubicle, and was still washing them when I finally emerged a few minutes later. As I took my place at the basin next to her and started to wash my hands, she quickly ducked into the cubicle I’d just vacated, and then almost instantly re-emerged to begin washing her hands all over again. Either there was some kind of OCD hand-washing thing going on there, or my appearance had instantly tripped her weirdness detector into overdrive, and she was lingering deliberately in the hope that I’d do something to entertain her.

Well, I had no choice. Time was a-wastin’, and the brace had to go back in, so I resignedly got out my toothbrush and toothpaste and did the business, while Pre-Teen watched me with undisguised curiosity throughout. I suspect this is something I’m just going to have to get used to as I continue with my Invisalign journey, for in the same way that The Others hound me through shops, all crowding into whichever small, obscure corner I’ve found to surreptitiously try on a jacket or something, I just KNOW that I’m doomed to spend the next six months cleaning my teeth in public restrooms, while all of my fellow diners crowd in behind me to watch. I’m not sure why I expected any different, to be honest.

In slightly brighter news, I took a dress to my mum’s house for alteration on Satuday, and successfully managed to bring it back home again without dropping it randomly and never seeing it again. Baby steps, people, baby steps…

(Taken just a few minutes ago: excuse the dark photo, it’s, er, nighttime.)

NO. Nonononono. NO. It’s almost APRIL. It’s SPRING. Actually, as of Sunday morning, when Daylight Savings Time started in the UK, British SUMMER time has officially begun.

And it’s snowing. SNOWING.  And quite heavily, too.

I mean, they DID tell us it would snow this week. The weather people, I mean. And I was all, “Yeah, yeah, whatever! I’m totally switching over my wardrobes this weekend and getting out my summer clothes. I wore a trench coat this month, for God’s sake, so the snow can kiss my ass!”

Well, it looks like the snow decided to KICK my ass instead. I seriously cannot stand much more of this. We’ve just had the worst winter since records began, and it really feels like it’s never going to end. WAAAAAHHHHHHH! Woe is me! Woe! Woe! No, seriously: WOE.

If that snow hasn’t melted by the time I wake up tomorrow, I’m … well, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Cry, probably. And maybe book another holiday.

WOE.

I HAD planned a completely different post for today, and man, it would’ve been brilliant! But I’ve woken up feeling like someone tried to drug me in my sleep, so all you get is a photo of the new hat I bought yesterday.

It IS a great hat, though. And stripey! OF COURSE.

(Note: I was just trying it on here – I didn’t walk around with it on. I totally WOULD, though.)

We were at a local antiques fair/indoor market with my parents, as a kind of Mother’s Day outing. It’s a pretty cool place, actually: lots of vintage jewellery (of which I didn’t buy anything, although I was sorely tempted, and will have to go back soon) and, er, other stuff:

I really wanted this:

But it was £50, and I never, ever use the phone, so it would’ve been a complete waste of money. And as you all know, I would NEVER waste money, not even on those boots I’m watching on eBay right now, that I totally wouldn’t be able to wear now until next winter, but which I really, really want. Ahem.

Anyway, Terry actually took these photos for me as part of my Shoeper Shoe Challenge, and there are some more over at Shoeperwoman, should you particularly want to see them. Happy Monday!

Terry and I appear no less than four times in the Google Streetview for our area, which finally went live yesterday. This is the best one:

Weirdly, they face-blurred me, but not Terry. Let’s not think too hard about why that might be…

I had two questions on Formspring about how Terry and I met, so I decided to answer those first :

How did you and Terry meet and fall in love?

How did you and your husband meet? You seem like a perfect couple – Do you ever argue?! Haha.

You know, I’d love to be able to answer this with some romantic, tear-jerker of a story. Probably one involving a chance encounter, a railway station platform, and me wearing a kicky little hat. Because every time I entertain this fantasy, it’s always the 1940s for some reason. Moving on…

The reality, as always, is much more prosaic than that, and like most people we know, Terry and I met at work. When I say “like most people we know”, I mean that literally, by the way: most of the people Terry and I know met their partners in exactly the same place I met Terry. Which was a call centre. No one’s ever going to want to make a movie out of this, are they?

So, the call centre - or the “Phone Farm” as I always used to think of it. Terry and I both worked the weekend shift there, in order to help pay our respective ways through university. And then when we left university, we stayed on, to pay our way through the Benefit counter, and the shoe department at House of Fraser. (Can you guess which one of us I’m referring to here? Yes, Terry really needs to ease up on that cosmetics habit of his!)

I started work at the Phone Farm first, and by the time Terry joined the company, I had already worked my way up to the giddy heights of “Personal Trainer”, which meant that I was responsible for moulding the minds of the constant influx of new recruits (Which could be anything from 10 – 40 people per week at busy periods. It was – and is – a huge organisation.). That’s why, to this day, the Phone Farm has a large number of staff who believe whistling is banned AT ALL TIMES, and who would not, under any circumstances, use the phrase “just sayin’”.

Although I was to come to hate and detest the Phone Farm more than I would ever have believed possible, at that time, I had yet to realise that the job was slowly SUCKING THE SOUL RIGHT OUT OF MY BODY, and was weirdly ambitious about it. I was a Personal Trainer now, but by God, one day I might become an ‘Experienced Operator’ (snigger) or even a Team Leader! (I did, in fact, become a Team Leader, but by that point I had lost all hope and accepted the job only because it came with internet access, which the rest of the staff were forbidden, on pain of death.) I also had this weird idea that when I finally graduated, I would probably become a high-flying business woman of some kind, and that the Phone Farm would provide a good grounding for this. I have absolutely no idea WHY I thought this, because there is nothing I would hate more than being a high-flying business woman, but I kept getting this metal image of myself, wearing a snappy little business suit and talking excitedly into a cellphone, while striding out of my office on the top floor of a New York skyscraper. I was an absolute idiot, I really was.

Anyway! I was young and I was stupid, and I was ALL ABOUT being a personal trainer, and upholding the laws of the Phone Farm. And then, one day, Terry arrived. “Of all the call centres, in all the world, you hadta walk into this one,” I said, with a drawl. (No, you’re right, I didn’t. I totally made that up. Sorry.) It would be great if I could say here that the moment our eyes met across a crowded call centre, I collapsed into a swoon and knew he was The One. But I didn’t. Actually? It was dislike at (almost) first sight. For both of us, I’m sure.

I still remember my first ever conversation with Terry. He called me over from my important job of pacing up and down in high heels and “supervising” the other new recruits, (The high heels weren’t a requirement of the job, by the way. That was just a requirement I placed upon myself.) and asked me if he could phone his friend, who worked in another department of the Phone Farm.

“WHAT?” I said, amazed at the sheer cheek of the man. “You’re not allowed PERSONAL CALLS! You don’t get to phone a friend! What do you think this is, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

(OK, OK, I didn’t say that last bit either. I just thought of it later. Much later, that is: I mean, I don’t think WWTBAM was even ON back then. This would’ve been a much more interesting post if I HAD been quick with the smart comebacks, though.)

At that, Terry calmly picked up the phone and called his friend. And I marched over to my boss and told her I couldn’t possibly work with That Guy, because That Guy wouldn’t listen to a word I said, had totally failed to recognise my supreme authority as Personal-Trainer-Who-Would-One-Day-Have-a-Glass-Topped-Table-in-Her-New-York-Office, and OMG, wasn’t That Guy SO ANNOYING? And my boss laughed and said to give him a chance, maybe he wouldn’t turn out to be so bad. She’s like the old, wise woman in this tale, who’s constantly saying weirdly prophetic things, except she wasn’t actually old, and I think that was the only prophetic thing she ever said to me. Well, that and “Amber, I think  you’re just about to spill that coffee down your…oh.”

So, after those Wise Words, you’re probably expecting me to say I came into work the next day, and Terry was bathed in a halo of golden light, and that was when I knew he was The One. Or even that we became good friends, and it was totally like When Harry Met Sally, but without the bit in the restaurant. But no. It took several more years for Terry and I to even be able to be in the same room as each other without bickering, and although we worked in the same department for some of those years, we didn’t really talk much. Or, you know, at all. Sometimes to this day I will look over at him and think, “Wow, I can’t believe I actually married That Guy! How trippy is that?”

In fact, Terry and I probably wouldn’t have gotten together at all if it hadn’t been for the Phone Farm’s policy of always seating people next to someone they hated. I’m not joking about this: they would change the seating plan every few weeks, to make sure you didn’t get too friendly with the person sitting next to you, because that would mean you might actually start ENJOYING work, and can you imagine the anarchy that would break out if people were having FUN? By this point, Terry and I were both “managers”. It was a small department, but we had still avoided ever becoming friends, so naturally the people in charge decided to make us sit next to each other. And THAT was their big mistake! Because Terry and I got together just to spite them, mwahaha!

Well, no, we didn’t. We did start to talk, though, and then we started to talk some more, and eventually we talked so much that we were all, “Hey, why don’t we swap email addresses? Just so we can make sure both of our email addresses are working properly?” Then we started emailing. Then we emailed some more. During the week, I was working in my first job as a journalist, and every morning I would come in to work and find a sweet little email from Terry waiting for me: often with funny illustrations, which he would draw in MS Paint. (Look, he was a student, he couldn’t afford Photoshop!) This is how he won me over: it was all because of the MS Paint.

The rest, as they say, is history. And it’s a chapter of history that involves a work night out, too many vodka shots, and Shania Twain singing You’re Still the One. I think that chapter is probably best left unwritten.