Nowadays I seem to spend half of my life saying cheerio, either to friends and family in Bangkok and Broughton, or witnessing others say goodbye at train stations and airports. In fact I’m starting to feel like I am living that scene in the credits at the end of Love Actually, an array of touching and heart –warming reunions amongst family and friends. The difference is I’m doing it in reverse and focusing on the goodbye, rather than the re-union part, which makes it a bit sad and lacking the feel good factor of the film!  On the plus side, I feel I have become quite the expert on the different types of farewells that exist.

THE AVOIDANCE. The avoidance farewell consists of statements such  “I’ll be off then,” or “see you in a bit,” delivered in a nonchalant tone which may suggest that a trip to the local co-op is the order of the day, rather than a lengthy separation. If THE AVOIDANCE is not entirely successful it can be supplemented by claims of there being a high pollen-count,  to account for otherwise inexplicable watery eyes.
 
THE DRAWN OUT. These consist of frequent repetition over a long stretch of time of, largely unnecessary directions, instructions and reminders, such as the “what time is your bus leaving?” and “don’t forget your passport” type phrases.
 
THE GREEN EYED MONSTER. These consist of carefully crafted questions covering  thinly guised criticisms of details of departure times, travel routes and transportation methods, of those who have some resentment about your departure.
 
THE BACK SLAP. This is a recent farewell having largely replaced THE HANDSHAKE. It is reserved for use my men of 40 plus years. This technique is sometimes used alongside or replaced by the shoulder bump. It’s like how high fives have been replaced by fist bumps!
 
THE SOB. It is fear of THE SOB that leads to the frequent use of THE AVOIDANCE. It is though, far more frequently used by those in a ‘break-up scenario’ or those with a weakness for watching weepy movies.
 
THE PDA. The use of this is for exclusive use by ‘love’s young dream’. It may be activated for farewells as short as popping to make a cup of tea.
 
THE DENIAL, also known as the Paul DANIEL(S). This is the easiest of farewells. An advanced form of the AVOIDANCE, it involves simply disappearing, like magic, without any mention of leaving.
 
THE AFTER EFFECT. This can often be used with either the AVOIDANCE or the Paul DANIEL or even the BACK SLAP.  It can be delivered through any form of social media from voice message to Facebook to share emotion. It does come with a health warning that it should be used with caution after alcohol consumption as it can lead to an outpouring of too much emotion.
 
THE SELF-ABSORBED. This is a farewell to be wary of receiving. It involves loud exclamation of “how much you will be missed”, a show of tears and much noise in public places. In this respect it is not dissimilar to the self-absorbed. The person delivering the SELF ABSORBED usually makes a quick recovery, shows no long term ill effects from missing the departed, and can be found in the bathroom touching up their makeup. 
 
THE PACKAGE. This is a loving and well-organized farewell by the non-traveller for the traveller, with a similar psyche to those likely to participate in the AVOIDANCE. It  is non-vocal and consists of providing enough sandwiches, cakes, and drinks to feed the traveller, not only for the duration of their journey but several weeks after their arrival. It is often, but not exclusively, afforded to student offspring and has been known to go hand-in-hand with twenty-pound notes.
 
The type of goodbye you use will, of course, depend on personal circumstances and situation. Anyone who knows me will easily guess that my own preferred ‘goodbye’ is probably the AVOIDANCE. What about you?

I was chatting with my mum the other day and we got talking about things that she might have done differently and what advice she might have given to her younger self. She said she and my dad could have maybe spent a little longer choosing their first home, but she couldn’t really think of anything else that she would have changed. It is strange, though, how we do make hasty decisions over important things. I swear I spent longer choosing my last pair of jeans than I did choosing my wedding dress. In my defence, I wear them a lot and I think they do look pretty good!
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​I took it as a positive that my mum couldn’t think of much, within her control, that she would have changed and, upon reflection, I realized that I was pretty much in the same boat. I wouldn’t change too many of the decisions I’ve made either. Well I might have advised my young self to not over pluck my eyebrows, but guess that’s not overly profound or life changing.
 
Although I wouldn’t change many of my life decisions, as in things I’ve actually done, I probably would have changed my outlook a bit. I think I’d tell my younger self to chill out and to put the angst away, not least, because it gets a bit boring to everyone else around. Everything does not need analysing to death!
 
Lacking much wisdom myself, I asked my friends what advice they had for their young selves. This is what they said:

• Don’t worry about trying to impress anyone. If someone needs impressing then stuff them.
• Be genuine and be honest, but white lies can be useful.
• Do your best today. Don’t wait until tomorrow.
• Cherish your oldies. They are just a more wrinkled version of your friends.
• Live in the moment.  Don’t worry about tomorrow.
• Take a gap year, but don’t be a slob!
• Be bold and brave - the world is waiting. Travel.
• Spend a bit save a bit.
• Be kind to yourself and compassionate to others.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously,
• It’s not a competition.
• Nothing beats a lifelong friend.
• Try to make a difference in something worthwhile that you enjoy doing,

Wise words indeed eh! I don’t think the young people I know will need this advice for their younger selves though. The young people I know, know loads more about how to enhance their personal well-being than I ever did. They don’t stop at thinking about themselves either and create and develop societies to help each other. Time to plug a group my daughter is in called LETS - 'Let’s Erase The Stigma' relating to mental health issues. A big shout out to the young ‘uns and everyone in the education and counselling services for enabling this progress. 
 
It seems that my own friends also have things pretty well sussed out now too. I’m going to add to my own list, to tell my young self to ‘live a little’ and, in the spirit of doing just that, I think I’ll go put the kettle on, and what the heck, I might even have a digestive too.  

I was lying in bed this morning imagining the day that I would make it as a writer. I visualized impatient readers queuing out the door of Waterstones, whilst I preferred to do personal book signings at the smaller independent booksellers. Richard and Judy would beg for my text to be their next book club choice; and such would be my success that Michelle Obama would likely fly in her private jet to ask me to write a review of her next autobiography ‘life after presidency’ and well, just to have a chat and a cup of tea with me.
 
It didn’t stop there. Library cataloguers, across the world would fight over whether my book belonged in the classical literature section or popular fiction - the dilemma existing because I’d been tipped to win ‘best new writer’ and the ‘man-booker’ prize in the same year (I’d obviously then go on to advocate for it changing to person-booker); and the advance I’d been paid for my second novel was such that Saint Mick of Thana could retire and spend as much money as he liked on golf clubs without me batting an eye-lid.
 
Well a girl’s got to dream.
 
So far I’ve not been very successful, but I’m keen to learn and improve.
 
Linda Newbery, a writer I hugely admire. once kindly read the opening of a story I was writing for upper primary kids called Jimmy Dumpster. It was my first try at a longer piece of fiction. She gave me some helpful tips on writing and suggested I should try to ‘show’ not ‘tell’ more. This is advice I’ve repeated to many of my own poor GCSE English students over the years, but it isn’t easy to do. In my story poor 11 year old Jimmy was down on his luck and went missing, only to spend several chapters traversing through the interior organs of his mum’s body as a result of having touched a magic box belonging to his grandmother. It was in the depths of his mother’s bowels that he had happened upon his good-for-nothing step-father, heading South and searching for an escape route. As I recall Grandma had been a kindly soul whose main fault, (in addition to leaving a magic box around that could cause all kinds of mischief) was to hang her outsized pants  on the kitchen radiator. Anyway, It will come as no surprise to learn that, about 10 000 words in, I abandoned the project. It seems fantasy/magic is not my forte.
 
Not to be put off I tried my hand again at story writing, this time with an older readership in mind. I aimed for a 1000 word a day output and lasted just over a week. The story was to be a hotbed of scandal and seduction and started with two sisters standing at the graveside of their abusive Uncle Pete, eyeing up the good looking pall-bearer who doubled up as one of the sister’s pizza delivery man. This part of the plot was to be developed into a who gets the guy cliffhanger. One sister worked as a disenchanted civil servant whilst the other one used her feminine wiles to live comfortably. Anyway, knowing little about feminine wiles, or what being a servant entails, you’ll appreciate that I ran out of umph and gave up.  It seems romance isn’t my forte either.
 
Evidence  suggests then that the possibility of anyone signing a book deal with me is as unlikely as winning the lottery - I don’t even buy a ticket and I haven't thus far seemed capable of finishing a project. I’m not giving up on writing just yet though. Winston Churchill once said, somewhere, that "success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." (I don’t know much about Winston Churchill, but Saint Mick does, so that’s good enough for me to want to listen to him). 
 
I’m currently thinking maybe horror is the way to go – perhaps the antagonist will turn on their only friend, who has helped them recover from a severe mental illness, in an unexpected Jekyll and Hyde plot twist. Obviously I can’t give too much away because if I tell you I’d have to kill you! 
 
Watch this space and if you see Michelle or Richard and Judy popping over to my place for a cuppa feel free to join us. It will mean that success is on its way.

I’ve just had an automated email from KLM, asking me to give feedback on my recent flight to Humberside from Bangkok. My granddad used to say to me, “if you haven’t got anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.” I will not, therefore, be completing the feedback survey. 

To be honest, though, there wasn’t anything particularly terrible about this flight, but, well … is it just me .. or.. well  you are like me and you find having to sit 11 plus hours with a perfect stranger on a plane brings out your inner cringy, socially awkward, stammering child? If so these strategies may help.

• Whatever the circumstances do not make eye contact with fellow passengers. Not even if your neighbour drops their knife into your dinner tray, spills their dinner tray onto your lap or even has the audacity to change your in-flight entertainment channel when you are snoozing, so that they can multi-view. (These have all happened to me.)

• Keep your arms folded for the duration of the whole flight. Being cramped and uncomfortable is preferable to the armchair arm jig, that will otherwise require your engagement with said fellow passengers.

• Go to the bathroom before getting on the plane. This will avoid craning your neck several times to avoid toilet queues or being freaked out by the ‘whoosh’ of the aeroplane toilet that never fails to fright. (Yes, I usually really can hold my bladder for a whole day or night!)

• In the unfortunate situation that you cannot wait to go the bathroom any longer, under no circumstance disturb your neighbour or attempt to climb over their sleeping frame. This can lead to intimacy with undesired consequences, such as accidentally sitting on their private areas.

• Ensure that you have removed anything you may need from your overhead baggage to avoid awkward manoeuvres during the flight which may result in you dropping something onto your fellow passenger’s aforementioned private places.

• Ideally do not use the overhead container at all, and instead use the under-seat space, quite doable, if you are prepared to squish your knees up to your chest.

• When the flight attendant mishears what you would like to drink, take what’s offered with a smile.

• Curse inwardly at the plastic waste, but under no circumstances voice your environmental concerns. KLM flight attendants are notoriously scary - my hunch is that they think they are just epitomising the characteristic and arguably stereotypical, Dutch forthrightness -but they are actually frightening!

• Be stoic and uncomplaining in the case of having faulty earbuds or inflight consoles. 11 hours of silent, eye avoidance, leg cramped, arm folded activity can be fun.

• In the following situations smile warmly and say it is fine:

The child behind you kicks your seat continually for 11 hours.
The passenger in front of you reclines their seat to its max for the duration of all meals.
The inflight attendant spills hot coffee on your lap.
The inflight attendant gives you a meal you didn’t request.
The inflight attendant forgets to give you wine or bread roll with dinner (this particularly applies to vegetarians).

• Smile and say it doesn’t matter as the trolley catches your ankle for the umpteenth time, when you have the worst seat, next to the toilets at the back of the plane.

• Upon landing, don’t acknowledge any smelly armpits, bumped heads, or squished bodies as you remove your luggage from the overhead rack and wait standing for a good twenty minutes to depart the plane, such has been your haste to depart.
• When in transit at Schiphol head quickly to the back of the airport where all the city hopper flights to the UK leave from. Once there don’t make eye contact with either the scary oil rig workers or the drunken hen/stag party participants.