: About Me

I am just starting out as a freelance writer and thought joining Helium would be a good way of making progress and receiving feedback.
I was born in a small town in northern England called South Shields. It's an economically depressed town where the sky is gray for three hundred days a year and the buildings are in dire need of restoration. I majored in English literature in 1998 and did a series of mediocre jobs for a few years. In 2001 I took up a position as an English teacher in Athens, Greece. I loved it and stayed for four years.
I met my husband in Athens two years ago in a restaurant located in a very old area called the Plaka. I came to visit America when he invited me. He proposed and we were married very soon after. I have since lived in Maryland with Dave(the husband) and my much too hyper English Springer Spaniels Leo and Jenny.

My passion is ...

Reading, writing, music, travel, films, cooking, my family and dogs.

I know too much about ...

You can never know too much. You will never know enough.

My parents always told me ...

To get a decent education and get out of the town we lived in which they thought of as the anus of Britain.

My childhood ambition ...

To be a writer or lawyer and live in New York.

My favorite memory ...

The first time I went somewhere different.

Why I write ...

Because I enjoy it.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Les Miserables/ The Queen/ Damien Rice

My first job ...

A croupier in a casino.

My best moment ...

Every moment has its beauty, even if it hurts.

My inspiration ...

My late grandmother, for her courage in the face of adversity.

Relationships & Family > Dating Dilemmas & Advice Long-distance love: Can it work?

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Although there are instances in which long distance relationships do work out, they are the exception rather than the rule. It is very difficult to have a momentous love affair with a person when mountains and oceans separate you. The vows to be faithful, telephone calls, emails and web cam conversations are little comfort when faced with the prospect of a cold, lonely bed. I had a long distance relationship with a man I met at University. He's Greek, and Greece still has the draft. Once he had completed his second Masters he couldn't justify spending any more of his parents' income to sta...

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