I am half a century old, as of about 3am this morning. When i was nine (my favourite age, although twenty two was also a good year) i told my best friend a secret, as we shared an apple behind the school water tank, where we liked to hide from the evil dinner lady Mrs Russell. (I forget her name, Russell may actually have been the name of her snot-nosed-sly-punching son, anyway a terrifying figure in pastel, who smiled whenever she was angry). I told best friend, almost certainly to please her, but also because I was reading a lot of The Worst Witch at the time, that when I was old (fifty was old to me then) i would sort of evolve into a witch. That was the secret. That I would live on a hill. And that I would have fun with my magical friends. I dreamed this dream on and off over the next thirty years or so, whenever I needed a nice thought to escape to. It was essentially a retirement plan, I see that now. And I reckon those witchy primary school ambitions have now pretty much come true (bar flying over the treetops by moonlight) because as of this year I have moved my now extensive cushion collection to live on a (slight) hill. My friends have always been magical, as they were at nine, so no change there, but I do now also have my fantastic daughters, all grown up and adding their own witchy ideas to the mix. I’m not going to say blessed but … It’s alright, having daughters. I might recommend it. They keep a witch on her toes.
My only true regrets at this my second quarterly review (well the only regrets I’m prepared to admit to) are not wearing more orange over the years (it’s my socially unacceptable favourite colour), and not telling that condescending male boss when I was 24, “Fuck you with your pseudo feminist interpolations”. In fact, to this day I have never said interpolations out loud.
