"You made some sort of hilarious 'mong' noise."

It was a matter of days until my daughter's first birthday party. Plans were in full swing for me to bake and decorate her a ladybird cake, along with baking up a storms-worth of sausage rolls, mini quiches, cupcakes... the works. My brother and M's grampy on her dad's side had arrived a few days early to help out, and to celebrate his arrival, we decided to get Chinese food. Gramps and I took a wander down to order it while M was prepped for bed, and stopped in at our local for a drink while we waited to pick it up. 

Once we had gone back and smashed through the food like a quartet of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, I went out into the back garden for some air and to let my food go down. M's dad followed me out five or so minutes later and noted that I looked a little bit peaky. I felt dreadful, truth be told, but put it down to eating too quickly and attempted to wait for it to pass. 

It didn't. In fact it got significantly worse in the space of a few minutes and all of a sudden, my brain was trying to decide whether to make me keel over, crap my pants, or vomit all over my nice jumper. I felt the blood completely drain from my face and, without wanting to risk throwing up all over my then-other-half, I decided that I should probably go inside. Leading up to our flat from the garden was a fairly steep flight of iron-cast stairs that, looking back, I'm extremely glad I didn't start to climb before the next part happened.

On my way towards said terror-stairs, I felt like my brain had broken and ended up completely blacking out, face planting into the fence (I ended up with a rather attractive chin graze as a prize for that one,) and landing with all of my weight on my left shoulder. I came to after what I was told was about 10 seconds, missing a shoe with an enormous hole in my jeans and blood on my chin... not to mention the fact that it felt like my shoulder had exploded and I was squealing like a stuck pig. Ignoring that anybody else was around, I tried to get myself up, falling face first back onto the floor when I realised that my left arm was no longer in the land of the living. M's dad helped me up and my brother stood on the stairs of death looking like he was going to pass out himself. He sat me down on one of our garden chairs and was apparently trying to talk to me, but I had gone temporarily deaf but for a loud, shrill ringing that seemed to be rattling around in my skull. I also couldn't see properly out of my left eye. It wasn't my most attractive moment.

After a bit of a rest I slowly made my way upstairs. This was the moment that M's dad decided to point out that, as I was coming to and due to the intense pain I was in, I "made some sort of hilarious mong noise." He found it a lot funnier than I did. I had to hold my left arm in place because of the sheer agony of it, and cried for a good while before rinsing the floor grot off my face and knee and climbing into bed. I've never had such a poor nights sleep in my entire life. 

Looking back on it, I probably should have gone to the hospital as soon as it happened, but instead I waited until the next day. I went to the ER with my brother and sat around wincing at every little move I made, until I was called in for a check over and an X-Ray. 

Expecting them to tell me that I had sprained it or pulled something, I was shocked to hear that not only was it dislocated, but it was severely fractured, too. So fractured, in fact, that a huge chunk of bone was about 2mm away from coming off entirely. Excellent. This meant that they couldn't fix the break because of the dislocation, but because of the break, they couldn't relocate it in case it totally dislodged the enormous piece of bone that was clinging on for dear life. This was obviously music to my ears... not.

I was strapped up in an amazingly unattractive sling and sent on my way, asked to return in six weeks time.

M's party preparation was an all-round nightmare, but thankfully some awesome family members and friends of ours pulled through big time and brought the food that I was too crippled to make... one of which being an extremely talented chef who well and truly saved the day. 

Dosed up on pain killers and dressed like an elderly woman (since I was too broken to wear what I had planned to) I raised a glass to my daughter that day... with my right arm.

"Pete, get up, mate. We've got beakball practice in half an hour! ...Pete??"

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen me tagged by close family and friends in photos and stories about dead birds and animals... the most recent being the "don't throw your gum on the floor or birds will eat it and die" campaign that circulated a few months back. 

Now, before you go thinking I'm some sort of Patrick Hockstetter wannabe, murdering animals and keeping them in a junkyard fridge, I figured I should probably explain why I'm tagged in these God-awful posts and why everybody seems to find it so hilarious... which it is, but wasn't at the time.

I worked very close to the local flower gardens in Dorset, and would occasionally head down there to eat my lunch, usually under a tree on a hidden ants nest because I'm lucky like that. One afternoon I decided to take my sausage and egg baguette down to said gardens and eat it there instead of on the beach, where I would undoubtedly get a mouthful of sand every three bites. Not long after I sat down, a group of three pigeons arrived. For the purposes of this tale we'll call them Dave, Rick and Pete. I ignored them for a while, and managed to polish off most of my baguette, before feeling guilty and deciding to share it with them out of the goodness of my own heart. 

I threw a chunk of my baguette to Dave, who sort of pecked bits off it and ate it in stages. The next to receive my bread bounty was Rick, a scrawny thing with a missing toe and what appeared to be pigeon Tourette's. He held the chunk of bread down with his foot and tore it into several pieces before eating each bit separately, with occasional breaks to twitch and stare menacingly at me. Talk about ungrateful.

Pete was stood gormlessly eyeballing me, waiting his turn. I threw him a piece of baguette exactly the same size as I had given to Dave and Rick, assuming that he was smart enough to follow their lead and peck the crap out of it. That wasn't what he did. Instead, he decided to try and swallow the entire chunk in ONE GO.

I freaked out a little as he struggled to breathe, flapping his wings like he was trying to take off. My brain repeated the phrase "please cough it up, please cough it up, please cough it up," as I watched him get weaker and weaker, wheezing like an elderly chain smoker. Finally, a minute or so later, there he was... dead as a dodo. 

I HAD KILLED A POOR DEFENCELESS ANIMAL. 

I WAS A BIRD MURDERER.

A BIRDERER.

I might add, I did not take this photograph. I'm not *that* sick.

I stayed for a few more minutes before heading back into work to spend the rest of the day riddled with overwhelming guilt and sadness. "Is this what Ted Bundy felt like whenever he killed somebody?? WHY WOULD HE EVER DO IT A SECOND TIME?! THIS IS AWFUL!!"

And so, poor old Pete the pigeon, through his own stupidity and my act of "kindness" was lost to the earth that day, and bound to forever haunt me via the taunts of my friends and family over Facebook. 

Rest in peace, Pete the pigeon.

"Beagleman, stop building my coffin at 3am, I'm trying to watch the Big Brother live feed."

And here we have a delightful tale about how I shouldn't be alive right now. 

I'd like to add at this point that certain details of this story, when I first relayed it to my mother a while back, were left out so as not to freak her out... I'll add those in this time. Sorry, mum.

Just over three years ago, I moved into a grotty little bedsit in Dorset. I loved my grotty little bedsit. It was everything a person could want in a grotty little bedsit and more. I had a chair, a four hundred year old television, a bay window (oooo-OOOH!) and MY OWN KITCHEN. Yes, you heard right. Not only that, but I had a bed that was mounted a grand six feet off the floor that required me to access it with a ladder. Somehow I never fell to my death barrel rolling in the middle of the night, and for that, I'm thankful.

The building itself was split over three floors, with roughly four flats per floor. Each floor had a shared toilet room, and a shared shower (I know.) On my floor lived a fairly young bricklayer type called Rob who had his daughter to stay every few weeks. She always looked like she wanted to cry when she stepped into our building as it had the faint odour of cat piss and whiskey. Next to him was Graham, a forty-something single guy who stank of weed and always "popped over" to ask if he could borrow my TV antenna. I always said no. 

I was lucky enough to be in the flat next to someone who I will from this moment on refer to as "Beagleman." 

The reason for this affectionate nickname is as follows... In the entire six months that I lived in that flat, I only saw him three times - usually when I was coming home from/leaving for work and he was going into the bathroom to do a poo. Not once in these three meetings did I see his face. Not because he had his back to me, but because he was wearing A F*CKING LATEX BEAGLE MASK. For reference purposes, it looked something like this:

Yes, I know.

Once I decided that saying "Hello" was probably polite given that he was my (mentally dysfunctional) next door neighbour. He just sort of stood there looking at me blankly and then gave me a muffled "Hi." and if that isn't terrifying enough, he then continued to stare at me until I got back into my flat and put the chain across faster than I thought was possible.

Back when I was still a dirty smoker, I would stand outside the front door of the building and have a cigarette under the security light so that my bachelorette pad didn't smell like an ashtray. The front door was at the side of the house, as part of a spooky alleyway that led to another house with it's own bizarre little miniature car-park further down. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good security light, and was more for getting-your-key-in-the-door-at-night purposes than for protecting me from nutters. It would stay on for about twenty seconds and then go off, requiring me to flail my arms around frantically until it came back on. Not only that, but it only seemed to light the area directly below it, meaning that anything further than two feet away was some sort of black abyss. One evening I stood there, freezing my bananas off, and every time the security light went off I would hear slow footsteps coming towards me down the gravel pathway. Being as how I could only see two feet in front of me when the light came back on, I tried to repress my absolute terror and ignore it. The footsteps stopped. Twenty seconds later the light went out and the same thing happened again... and then again. After suffering from a rabbit in the headlights moment, I stepped back inside and locked the door behind me. I never smoked outside again.

For the weeks that followed, it seemed that Beagleman was using powertools at all hours to construct what I can only assume was my coffin. Not only that, but he seemed to take a liking to randomly knocking on the wall between us, or worse still... on my front door. I would hear a quiet knock knock knocking for about five minutes, before he would give up and leave. I knew it was him because I could hear him walk away and go back into his flat. There were also numerous times that I could hear somebody tampering with my lock.

Creepy enough already right? WRONG.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I walked into work, hung up my coat and washed my hands ready for a normal working day. My supervisor came up to me and said "Oh, I thought you weren't coming in today!" Confused, I asked her why. "Well, your dad called us this morning to tell us you were ill and weren't going to be in for a few days so I assumed you weren't coming today."

I'll tell you why this is bullsh*t. Firstly, I wasn't living with my dad. Secondly, I wasn't ill, and thirdly, my dad didn't even live in the same country as me at the time.

Still totally confused I asked if she was sure the call was meant for me. She stated that it definitely was because [I was] the only Laura to work [there] for years and he called the kitchen directly rather than going through head office, so he knew the transfer number. I'm fairly sure a little bit of wee dribbled out at this point and I felt like somebody had just walked over my grave. Clearly Beagleman had some sort of plans for me that didn't quite work out the way he thought they would. I've no idea how he knew my name, and I can only assume that he knew where I worked based on my uniform and possibly overhearing me talking to people on the phone through the wall with some sort of ear-horn contraption.

Very shortly after that I moved to London, and not long after *that,* a friend of mine still living in Bournemouth called to see if I was okay as my building had been bulldozed. I didn't ever receive a letter stating that it was to be destroyed.

So, since then, as much as I love dogs... I do shiver a bit if I ever see a Beagle coming towards me.

And people wonder why I've got Anxiety Disorder.

"Hi, nice to meet y-... is that an Ed Hardy t-shirt?"

At some point in the future, I'm going to need to meet somebody of the male persuasion so that I don't start amassing an impressive 'personal cobweb' collection. Unfortunately, this means that I will have to go on a dreaded FIRST DATE. I have decided to prepare myself with a list of 20 bulletproof tips to success.

#1: If you decide to go in for a handshake upon first meeting, spit in your hand first. Bros for life.

#2: Open a packet of Salt & Vinegar crisps and hold them near your face to activate your salivary glands. Your date will undoubtedly be aroused by your excess of spit.

#3: Tell the most racist joke you can think of.

#4: If things aren't going well, spit directly into their eye. They'll be forced to spend the night winking at you. 

#5: Explaining your bowel movements from the last seven days in great detail is guaranteed to get their motor running. They'll have no choice but to mentally picture your butthole. 

#6: If your date has something in their teeth, don't tell them. Leave it for them to find during their next bathroom trip. On their return, if they ask you how long it had been there, tell them "It looked like it had been there since yesterday. When did you last have broccoli?"

#7: Complement your date on the shadow their nose casts over their upper lip.

#8: Order a whole fish. Use the head as a hand puppet to quote Star Wars. Dudes fucking love Star Wars.

#9: Pay your date a backhanded compliment to keep him on his toes. "You've got surprisingly good facial hair for a ginger."

#10: Mention everyone you have ever known who is now dead.

#11: Eat vast quantities of garlic before meeting. Breathe on them in a French accent to make yourself seem more exotic.

#12: Having a bad hair day? Wear a balaclava. Nothing says 'marriage material' like a balaclava.

#13: There is no #13. You're gonna need all the good luck you can get.

#14: Talk about your ex boyfriend a LOT and mention frequently how much you hate men because of him.

#15: Frequently ask him: "Do you want some gum? I'm not planning on kissing you, it's just that your breath smells like Rice Krispies Multigrain Shapes and it's putting me off my Chateaubriand."

#16: Get as drunk as is possible without needing to get an ambulance involved.

#17: Leave your phone on the table in front of you and frequently interrupt him to tweet about how great his bulge looks.

#18: Cry a lot for no reason.

#19: If you manage to miraculously get a kiss at the end of the date, include as many of your teeth in the process as you can.

#20: Don't ever text or call him again. 

"Mum, I'm going to be a vet like Rolf Harris."

When I was younger, I wanted to be a vet. 

I would do chores for my parents in exchange for staying up 'late' to watch Animal Hospital with Rolf Harris. Not physically with him. He was too busy watching other people save animals. He was with me in spirit, though. 

My mum and I would sit together, cooing over the adorable puppies and laughing at the wildlife rescue squad tripping over a LOT as they stumbled after escaped swans. Donning my invisible cape of animal welfare duty, I vowed that I, too, would be a vet someday. I collected countless magazines and books about animals and randomly gave our dogs "teeth checks" when nobody was watching. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I was hoping that, one day, I would accidentally save their lives by discovering something of note hidden in their mouths. 

I decided that I was going to be the best vet there ever was. In my head, I was already wearing the disgustingly pastel vet scrubs and rambling on about "poop worms" to an unassuming dog owner. I even went so far as to "protect" our family pets by giving them "important vaccinations." When I say important vaccinations, I mean I clicked a mechanical pencil to its full capacity, and then held the clicker down and pretended it was disappearing beneath the skin of our Labrador/Collie cross, Murphy. "AND NOW YOU ARE SAFE FROM PARVO!" I would exclaim.

This all changed when I was 10. I watched an episode of Animal Hospital in which a Jack Russell gave birth to a litter of pups. Not one survived. At the end of the episode, I excused myself to my attic room (it was a lot cooler than it sounds,) and cried like a little baby. I decided, at that point in time, that I was unfit to take care of animals. I figured that if one ever died in my care that I would become some sort of desperately depressed recluse and never venture out into the world again, in case I stepped on a snail and had to end it all because of the guilt.*

Since then I have been a potential musician, artist, archaeologist, palaeontologist, web designer, textiles artist, translator, travelling hobo, caterer, baker, sculptor, astronomer, writer, comedienne, psychotherapist, masseuse, beauty therapist and a doll maker.

None of these things have ever come close to the desire I felt to love and care for animals, apart from my current profession... a mother.

moth·er  

/ˈməT͟Hər/

Noun A woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.

Verb Bring up (a child) with care and affection: "the art of mothering".

Synonyms mama - mamma - parent - mom - ma - mum - mummy If anything is ever going to come close to being a vet without actually being one, it's being a mum. Not only do I get to worry myself sick about a small, helpless creature all day... but I also get to clean up a hell of a lot of poop.

*No snails were killed in the writing of this blog post.