Long Hot Summer

I'm a strange duck I know but I'm dreading the possibility of a scorcher. I've never much liked the heat; especially since I was caught in an Indian heatwave back when I was 11. February was supposed to be one of the coolest months of the year and we got 108 in the shade!

India, 1990

On top of that I burn badly; pasty, non-sparkling vampire that I am. In Venezuela a couple of years later I burned so badly I blistered and had to spend about a week stuck in a hotel room.

But apart from the usual dislike of warm weather this year poses an extra challenge. At the grand old age of 32 it will be my first working summer.

When I left school I got a job in the Prison Service as an Admin Assistant. It was only a temporary position running from November until the end of the financial year - at which point my job was getting phased out anyway. After that I was a full-time mum for near enough 15 years.

I couldn't work when I was pregnant because of a condition called Hyperemesis Gravidarum - excessive morning sickness - I could barely go anywhere or do anything almost the whole way through. When my eldest was born in 1996 there really was no option but to go on the dole unless you had a high-paid job and could afford childcare...or else you had family to take up the slack. Neither applied in my case so I fell into the benefit trap.

Earlier this year after six months of searching but only getting two interviews I finally got a job. Not my dream job but there weren't many options. Going back into admin proved impossible without current experience, references and buckets of confidence (which after a decade and a half trapped at home I was severely lacking) so I became a cleaner.

To work the requisite number of hours to qualify for the variety of top-up benefits my family would need for survival I had to take two cleaning jobs; at opposite ends of the day. My jobs run 0545-0745 and 1700-1900 most days. Getting up at 0430 and, being a night owl I'm rarely asleep before 0100. Fortuunately I grab what sleep I can in the daytime. Even at weekends a full night's sleep is rarer now that when I had a newborn in the house because my body-clock is so messed up!

It has been a physical struggle. For a woman my considerable weight I have always been active if not actually fit - but walking 8km just to and from work every day has been agony. Four hours physical activity on top of that and I live in a permanent state of near-exhaustion.

I don't mean to complain - so many people need jobs desperately now and I know I'm lucky but it's hard adjusting. A lot of my co-workers are younger, slimmer and many have cars. Listening to one teenager b**** about her car being in for repairs so she had to walk was almost beyond my endurance! That said, one of my co-workers is 75 and I have no idea how she does it...

So I've been at this for over three months now. The aches and pains are easing but I'm not losing weight unfortunately. Leaving the house at 5am is far, far easier now it's daylight. But, as I said to begin with, I am dreading a long, hot summer.

Already I'm catching the sun on the walk to work and sweltering in the heat. I fear passing out of heat exhaustion and losing my job. I know that I shouldn't worry about things I cannot change but it's hard knowing there is nothing I can do.

Last winter we had the coldest snap for 30 or more years but that eventuality can be tackled. I can carry a change of clothes against the rain and snow, I can buy thermal undies and a thermos flask for a hot drink.

There is nothing I can do to help with the heat. I have invested in a patio set and a barbecue to 'tempt fate' but still the mercury climbs...wish me luck!

MJ Anniversary

Okay, okay I know...hardly original today but there it is! Gotta say I was never a Michael Jackson fan. I got into music after his solo heyday and it wasn't the sort of music my parents played either (they were into Queen, The Carpenters and Rod Stewart). I did buy one MJ single - Give In To Me - but pretty much only cos Slash was on it and I loved Guns n Roses.

The Jordan Chandler allegations seemed to me borne out of greed. What parent agrees to a cash settlement when their child has been harmed and other kids are in danger?

When the Martin Bashir interview came out I watched with as open a mind as I could muster but it confirmed to me my every suspicion - that MJ was vulnerable, gullible and most likely innocent. Martin Bashir came across (to me) as prejudiced and detirmined to portray MJ as a monster. I became more sympathetic to Michael's difficulties from that point on.

Later, when MJ was accused of child molestation for a second time, rather than thinking "there's no smoke without fire" I felt sure it was a second family's attempt to extort money from the star. I was probably as relieved as any MJ fan when he was found not guilty on all charges. I wept tears of joy because the whole thing stunk of a witch trial - the public seems to like nothing better than to put someone on a pedestal only to knock them off it - I thought there was no way he would receive a fair trial. As it was, trial by media nearly killed MJ - he was thin, gaunt and I believe he never truly recovered from the ordeal.

I wasn't bothered when MJ announced his This Is It final shows at the o2. It meant nothing to me but I was surprised by the media hype. For someone who hadn't had a hit in years and had only been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons it came as a surprise to me how many fans he still had; fans who would be prepared to pay a small fortune and, in many cases, fly to London for a concert.

Late evening on 25th June 2009 I was lurking on Twitter. Lots of random conversations going on with a general NKOTB flavour...then a girl I follow retweets a news headline: Michael Jackson suffers cardiac arrest. Within minutes there is only one topic of conversation - we are all Googling MJ, searching news websites for scraps of information, researching statistics on cardiac arrest - if the story is true it doesn't look good.

But is it true? Michael Jackson has been surrounded with random stories, particularly about his health, for years. Only a few weeks earlier a rumour was going around that he had skin cancer...

Sadly it does look like MJ has been rushed to hospital...all the same, the reason might be wrong. A lot of suspected heart attacks turn out to be far less serious...

Then come the first reports he has died...

That's the moment it goes from a sense of anxiety to OMFG. Not the sort of thing you report without being certain of your facts. I turned on the TV... Flicking between BBC News and Sky News and back and forth to check on Twitter it all unfolded. Site by site was confirming the death of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, at the age of 50. I wept.

I wonder how MJ would have felt that even his death made history - the first news story when most people heard about it first via the internet. For a man who achieved so much I like to think he'd have been impressed at achieving another first, and kind of glad to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Mind you, he would never have wanted to go before his children grew up. I can't imagine a worse moment for him to have died either, just weeks before This Is It was set to kick off. Knowing how excited I was to see NKOTB after 17 years I can only begin to imagine how I would have felt if my concert had been cancelled. This Is It ticket holders did not have a concert cancelled - their idol died...they must've gone through hell. I can't imagine losing one of NKOTB. The only things that are certain in life are death and taxes...inevitability doesn't make either one easier to bear.

He was a damaged soul - an abnormal life from early childhood took it's toll as did the media's later vilification. In some ways I am glad he is beyond being harmed by them anymore. His so-called friends too. I remain disgusted that Mark Lester would claim to be the biological father of MJs children. Even if it were a genuine possibility the media is not the place to discuss it. What on earth do claims like that do to the mind of a bereaved child?!

I hope Michael knew how much he was loved - it is always a pity when someone dies that they cannot see how much they are missed.

• Michael Jackson left 3 children - Prince (now 13), Paris (12) and Blanket (7).
• Omer Bhatti (25) is a possible 4th child; he sat with the family at MJs funeral.

Hello world...welcome to The Heggie Zone - world of weirdness and general rambling!

This pic is of my elder daughter Erin, then aged 6 months, with my grandmother Winifred, then aged 91. I've been thinking of this photo a lot lately...getting retrospective. My grandma died 24th December 2000 so she's been gone a while. Erin is 14 now...she's getting scarily grown up and is significantly taller than me...not my 'little' baby for a long time now. Not that she ever was particularly little, weighing in at 9lbs 11!

I'm starting to look back on the past with a new eyes... I look back on my kids' younger days and wish I hadn't been so tired, stressed, young and generally barely able to cope. I look back on my relationship with my grandparents and wish I had been mature enough to get to know them...and less afraid. There's something quite scary about old people when you are young I think. A fragility that seems at odds with youth's understanding of life.

There is nothing that can bring back bygone days; to take hold of missed opportunities but I look at this photo and think how I'm going to try not to miss any more.

I will though... We cannot see what might have been, what we ought to have done until the moment has passed. Which is why history is important and why hindsight sucks! All we can ever do is live in the moment and do what we can. So I look at this photo and think - I'm glad my grandma is at peace and I'm glad my daughter has grown up strong and healthy and then I move on. Back in the present, back to what is really important.

:-)