# 84 My big mug

This is photograph of my big mug, my over-sized tea cup. It occurred to me this evening as I rediscovered it hiding at the back of the cupboard where it's been for most of the last few years, that this is one of the few objects to have moved with me to most of the places I have lived. And I've moved around quite a lot. I am a rolling stone as my mother tells me.

I remember when I got it - there were two of them. My parents bought them at Christmas - one for me and one for my then boyfriend Andy - my first real boyfriend. I was 19 and living between Harrow and my parents house in Kent.

This mug has moved EVERYWHERE with me since then. I think that's about 8 different houses and a lot of mileage. Wow, that's a lot of water under the bridge. It also means I have now owned this flimsy bit of china just short of 20 years. I shudder at that realisation. Why, I'm not sure.

I've been looking a lot lately, at how fast time has been adding up. What with finishing three years at Uni and the discovery that I've now signed up to my fifth year in Lincoln with the same landlord (that's my only landlord in Lincoln I hasten to add) it's getting a little scary.

And since I first left home this is the second longest place I've lived anywhere (my record is 8 years). That's not bad for me. I don't have any real connections north of the Watford Gap and I'm not a home bird, I don't have many sentimental roots and I don't have any particular desire to live in any particular place. I just go where fate, work and relationships take me. It's always been the way. It's a survival tactic that seems to have served me well up to now.

Who knows where I will end up next or how long Lincoln will continue to hold me. As I said, I have no sentimental roots north of the Watford Gap. I could quite literally end up anywhere. And wherever I go next, that mug will no doubt be carefully packed into one of the many boxes I take with me.