So here we go, into the big blue yonder - up, up and away.

So who am I?

Well I've been a twentysomething, thirtysomething and now I'm a fortysomething. I am married with one daughter (born 1994) and live in a town on the south of England coast. When I was small I wanted to be a professional footballer or a bus driver! I had two trials with a league club when I was 15 and 16 but was considered, at 5 feet 10 inches, to be too small - although I suspect I wasn't really good enough! I was later offered the chance to play professional football in Belguim but turned it down.

I've been in accountancy all my professional life from the age of 17 and have worked for the past twenty-four years in a small Hampshire market town some ten miles away from where I live. My hobbies include watching sport, European cinema, listening to music (it used to be going to concerts but I gave that up around 1992), walking, holidaying in France and hopefully one day I will revive my interest in family history which I began in the mid 1980's. I also used to do a lot of writing and have won dozens of competitions as well as writing a novel and being published in magazines and newsapers.