I have always been very happy in my own company. Where as most kids wanted the approval of their classmates, I actively avoided it. I always found other people a complication in my life. It is much easier to do what I want, if nobody else is involved.

More recently, I have found out this is an autistic trait. Before this it was being a ‘loner’. A term is usually used negatively to describe somebody abnormal, somebody strange, somebody to be feared.

In my case, it is the exact opposite. I like being alone as I struggle with unpredictable behaviour. I actively avoid big groups, young children, animals, drunk people, street entertainers, birds or anyone who might do something I can’t predict.

Plus not having anyone else to please means I am free to do what I want, when I want. I don’t need to justify my decisions as I don’t really have anyone to justify them to.

It would be lovely if being a ‘loner’ was seen as a positive rather than something to be feared but until then, I am happy to embrace the term to describe myself, not as a negative but (like blonde or tall) a simple statement of fact.

One thing that has always terrified me is cooking. All the warnings we got at school about food poisoning ended up with me not cooking anything at all. Meat, fish, rice, eggs, anything frozen, things past sell by dates, rice, things that have touched meat, all of it has the potential to be deadly.

So my diet for 20 years was fresh, pre-made food. I have a wide depth of knowledge about supermarket sandwiches (the Christmas ones are especially good). Then things in tins, toast and satsumas (for vitamins) made up my diet.

Then six months ago, I got a cook book. It was aimed at students who had no utensils and explained simple things like how to boil an egg or do a baked potato. The dishes all have a difficulty rating out of five (anything three and over, I have dismissed as too complicated).

Since then I have had almost nightly disasters with things falling on the floor, burnt hands (I have oven gloves but worry about getting them dirty), melted Tupperware, missed ingredients, incorrect quantities and absolutely nothing that looks like the pictures.

Luckily, I am only cooking for me. I have also made the decision that tins & toast aren’t do bad after all…

On a holiday resort anywhere in the UK or on the Med there is ‘that guy’. The one who either

• You can pass annoying family members onto, so you get some peace
• or
• Keeps trying to give you quiz sheets and begging you to do stuff you hate

I am ‘that guy’

Some people think I am the best thing on planet earth, others look at me like I am a walking version of bird flu. Usually the amount of alcohol consumed depends into which group people fit.

It is best not to take the love/hate for simply existing too seriously as tomorrow they will have all checked out and the whole process will start again.

For months now my manager has been asking for my DBS record… I somehow misunderstood DBS to mean Digital Banking Service and that my boss was being weird and wanting to see how much I have in my account…

Turns out it is the ‘Disclosure and Barring Service’ which sounds very Peggy Mitchell (‘get out of my pub’) and I need one as I have chosen to work with people…

There is something terrifying about official procedures, not because I have anything to hide (I am really not that interesting) but trying to work out how to fill it in is extremely complicated.

The first bit is easy – addresses, contact details, payment details (of course they want payment details before anything else) – it is the second part that is difficult.

I need to

• Provide two pieces of ‘approved’ ID
• Take them to a post office to get another form
• Find a post office that is still open
• Pay for the post office (that must still exist somewhere) to do this
• Take the form they give me and ‘digitally attach’ this to the ID
• Work out what ‘digitally attach’ means, then how to do it

These are the bits I can find out of the process so far, it is no wonder they take the money first, they would never get paid if it was at the end.

Apparently I will get the results within 7 days of the application being entered although at this rate by the time I work out how to do that, the process will have changed again.

Bureaucracy is so much fun.

I have been writing for a few months now, taking classes and trying to work out what I can and can’t do..

Following a year of major change I decided I wanted to use my brain and learn something new. It could have been…

• Art
• Computers
• First Aid
• Child Care
• Dogs
• Looking into space
• TV programs with Des O’Conner
• Ways to chop a pepper

But having a day off on Tuesday and not really wanting an evening thing, it meant writing was the default choice as it was the only class on at a convenient time.

The first class was terrifying, I had to take the anxiety medication twice that morning, anything new is always difficult and a terrible phone call with the ‘Leisure and Pleasure’ department at adult services didn’t help. There were so many questions they wanted me to answer, it felt like a struggle even getting here. Plus Leisure and Pleasure seems to be a department simply because the name rhymes (but has too many syllables to be a pub name).

I never intended to become a ‘writer’, it would be very easy to argue that I am not one anyway.

The first class was about ‘the big why’. Why are we writing? A lot of my classmates wanted to leave stuff for their kids or to make money. I had no idea why (well, it was to pass the time but this is not the answer they were looking for).

Over time, it turned out to be me learning about me… How did it take 35 years for anyone to figure out I was autistic… Does it matter…