NAME:   Seren, in real life, Eunice

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS:  Living with husband (phill), daughter (Lizzie) and cats (Morgan, Salem and Simba) in a three-storey house in a village in south Wales.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OUIJA BOARDS:   Best not to meddle with them.  I'm sure that they can be a lot of fun, but you don't know what you may be tapping into.  Avoid!

YOUR FAVOURITE TV SHOW:   Buffy!  yay, go Buffy!  Kick vampire bottom!  (Though I really adore Giles!)

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD:   I have a special Fortunecity.com mousepad given to me as I was a Minister there.

FAVOURITE MAGAZINE:  Fortean Times: more two-headed men, ghosts, Loch Ness monsters and aliens that you'd care to think about!  And great fun!

FAVOURITE SMELLS:   Rose.

BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD:  The moment just after giving birth to my daughter: bliss!

DO YOU GET MOTION SICKNESS: Oh yes!

ROLLER COASTERS-SCARY OR EXCITING:  Not scary, terrifying!  Do the words feet, on the, ground and firmly not mean anything?!

PEN OR PENCIL?   Now what kind of old-fashioned notion is that?!  Computer of course!  But if I have to use a pen, I like black ink roller-balls.

HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?  A couple, to 100's.  Depending on who it is (I can always tell!).

CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?  Chocolate.

DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE?    I can't drive and have no intention of ever learning.  (See answer to roller coaster question!)

DO YOU SLEEP WITH STUFFED ANIMALS?  Don't talk about my husband like that!  (No!)

STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?  Oh very cool.

WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN?  Pisces!

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE POET?  I have a couple of favourites: Robert Frost and TS Eliot and I also have a fondness for Gerard Manley Hopkins.

DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?  Oh yes, I am so perverted like that!

FAVORITE BRAND OF CLOTHES:  Don't care.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED, WHAT WOULD IT BE?  I'd be a writer.

IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD IT BE?   Red, I love being a redhead!

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?   Oh yes, lots of times.  See answer to star sign question.

ARE YOU A LEFTY OR RIGHTY OR AMBIDEXTROUS?  Right, with a right-handed husband and leftie daughter.

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?  Dust bunnies, kibble, the cats, aligators...usual batch of monsters.

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?  I rather like the number 8 for some odd reason!
 
 

Taking everything into consideration, including the fact that we still have not reached absolute equality, I am glad to be a woman!  And a woman of 40 at that, with a husband, a teenage daughter and three cats.

I am a woman who suffers from depression, lack of self-esteem and a feeling of being useless.  I hate feeling like this, as if thre is nothing I do that is of any worth to the world, to anyone nor to myself.  I don't work: a combination of no training, precious few qualifications, bringing up a child and bad health.  Sadly, the world values people solely by the amount of money they earn.  As I earn no money, I am of no value.  Being amother, bringing up a sane, well-mannered, intelligent and witty daughter counts for nothing, it would seem.  It makes my relationship with my husband into an uneven struggle at the best of times; a prison at the worst of times.

There are times when I almost long to age rapidly and die.  When I feel that whatever I do and however hard I struggle against the realisation, this void is my life from now until that wonderful moment of release from it comes along.  Yes, it does help a little to know that countless other women feel this way, that my powerlessness is shared by womenkind all over the world.  Of course, it should not be this way.  No one, woman or man, should ever be made to feel worthless because they have "only" raised children.  Perhaps one day we will achieve that, but I'm not holding my breath until then!