Today I am 12 WARNING Long reminiscy dribbly post follows. Today is my watch’s 12th birthday I remember its birthdate well. It was my 21st birthday. We spent the day much as we always did back then, dossing in the dropout centre. I had no job back in those days save for a one night a week stint at Autotrader laying out the car adverts. Owen was still at uni, just getting into the swing of the new term. The evening was special though. The evening was ours. We met with friends at the Tap and Spile and had a good drink. The landlord bought me a pint. Mum turned up for a bit with Andy and met everyone. We had a rowdy evening of fun and candlelight which just didn’t want to stop, so we brought the pub back to our little flat in North West Norwich. Beer flowed, we had guitars, singing ensued. I was serenaded. Slowly people passed out or left and we went to bed. A marvellous birthdate for my watch. In its short lifetime, my chronometer has seen its owner go through bad times, good times, unemployment, homelessness, relationships, break ups, deaths, births, jobs, the works. Back then, life was simple. We were poor but happy. Little did it know, but just before its first birthday, my watch would accompany me on the biggest adventure of my life, the move away from sleepy Norwich to the bright lights of London. Times got hard. I got lonely. Owen moved too and we were left to rely on the goodwill of friends to keep a roof above our heads. Slowly things got better, Owen had a job offer, I got one too and we got our first flat in East London. By the time my little watchlet was two, we’d acquired a Salvador, living contentedly on our sofa. I’d left the world of technical support and moved on up to web development. Owen was working hard at the agency and we were starting to sort out the awful financial mess we’d gotten ourselves into moving to London. By it’s third birthday we’d met a lot of people we still know now. Back in the days of IRC and web 0.1. Fruitbat had entered our lives, enriching us with tiny bottles of gin. Barcode was our place to be, with the IRC crew. Every Friday was spent getting so drunk we didn’t mind the concept of GAY and every Saturday was spent being so hungover we didn’t move from bed. Our house became a dosshouse, random strays would stay with us from time to time, we were the constant in many lives. Aged four, still swinging happily from my wrist, my timepiece was present for both my resignation from web development and brief foray into operations management and my signing away my life for a new flat for the three of us. Sal was bored, we’d decided when hungover to pop to Ilford shopping on account of the fitness of the population. Strolling randomly along Cranbrook Road I spied a flat in the window of an agency that was just a little more than we were currently paying, but three bedrooms. We enquired about a viewing and were promptly taken 4 doors down the road to a large 3 bedroom flat that many of you are familiar with. Only back then, it was clean, freshly decorated and empty. I borrowed a large sum of money and put a deposit on it within days. Owen didn’t even bother viewing it, he noted my enthusiasm and simply said “ok”. The turn of 2000 happened. The world did not end. Life kept cruising on, my watch passed its fifth birthday and then its sixth. And then my world was turned upside down by someone who had no idea why he had that effect on me. I left Owen. I left my old job. I saved money, I put down a deposit on a new flat off Mile End Road, it fell through. I roamed leytonstone, Hampstead and West Ham looking for other places to live. Eventually I settled on a two bedroom flat in Limehouse. I left my job and went back to development. I took up cycling again. Life was good for