"Miss Cherry Red is a half Irish, wine loving, working mum. She has a hot boyfriend, a smart ass for a 4 year old and she used to be an individual. She's also nosey and overly opinionated. Don't hate her, she can't help it. Oh, and she shares. A lot. Expect to see chatter about poo, tantrums, sex and whatever crap life throws at her. Seriously, you're gonna love her..."
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Sisters.
God blessed my mum and dad with 3 children.
Two boys and me.
I was the eldest.
Daniel was two years my junior and Michael came another two years after that.
But the testosterone train didn't stop there, oh no. I have two half brothers. 8 and 9 years my senior.
So there I am. Stuck firmly in the middle.
To my eldest brothers I was someone they had to look out for. Someone they tormented with spiders and told wild lies to. Lies like "if you eat the pips in that apple, apple trees will grow out of your ears". I remember Lee (the oldest) had a duvet that looked like the cockpit of a helicopter. It was every little boys fantasy bed set. It was awesome fun.
But it was not for girls. Especially not girls of the little sister kind.
And the 'boys only' bit didn't stop there either. I wasn't allowed to play with their toys, their computer games and I most definitely was NOT allowed to play with their action men. Nor could I refer to Action Man as a doll. Calling them dolls had consequences. Consequences like finding my favourite barbies had become a casualty of Action Mans war and had lost a leg. Or an arm. Sometimes even a head.
I was not part of the boys club.
I had no one to play dress up with. No one to help me put on my mums nail polish.
I desperately wanted a sister.
Don't get me wrong, I had my mum and my 4 aunts who would happily play girly games with me, but it wasn't the same.
Thank God though for Lesley. Mum's best friend.
5 months 6 days after I arrived, Lesley had Rachael.
8 months and 1 day after Daniel arrived, Lesley had Claire.
11 months exactly after Michael (my youngest brother) arrived, Lesley had Michelle.
We were all inseprable. We all the best of friends.
But Rachael, she was my very best friend.
We did absolutley everything together. Watched movies, had sleep overs, styled each others hair, painted each others nails, talked about boys.
Everything.
Life at 13 was brilliant.
Until my parents did the unthinkable and opted to move.
But not to another town, or another city.
My parents moved us to Northern Ireland. A different country. I mean, it took more than 9 hours in a car and a ferry just to get there. We may as well have moved to another planet for Gods sake. And worse still, we were now living on a farm. What the hell was I, a 13 year old girl from an estate in Reading, going to do in the bloody countryside?
I had lost my best friend and I felt shattered.
I hated my new life. I hated being in a school where no one liked me: the Catholics didn't like me because I was english. The Protestants didn't like me because I was Catholic.
I had no one to turn to.
Rachael and I kept in touch with letters. Every week I'd run home from school desperately hoping the postman would make my day.
As life moved on, the letters got further and further apart until eventually the letters stopped.
We grew up seperately and our lives took very different paths. I guess the letters were kind of a comfort blanket for us until we didn't need them anymore.
I guess it was inevitable.
After I'd left university, I moved back to Reading and set off to find Rachael.
I wont lie, it was a little weird at first. I mean, we had the same childhood memories, the same personalities and we laughed at the same thing.
Yet we were two totally different people and it took me completely by surprise.
How naive is that?
But I think what surprised me even more was at how comfortable we were around each other and how we just slipped right back into each others lives.
This time was different though: Rachael came with extra benefits. Claire and Michelle. I had almost forgotton about them. They were no longer the two irritating little girls who used to follow us everywhere we went and who would steal our make up.
They were fully grown. Instead of having to worry about them or babysit them they were suddenly sharing our world of boyfriends, upsets, heartbreaks, nights out and good times.
I never realised how much I'd missed them until I got them back.
Rachael, Claire and Michelle know me. They've seen me at my very best and at my very worst. We've been the best of friends and at times the worst of enemies.
I don't need to pretend to be someone I'm not when I'm with them. I do not need to concern myself with airs and graces.
They are like my favourite pyjamas: comfortable, reliable, irreplacable.
That makes them more than just my friends.
That makes them my sisters.
