I am called Janis and was born May 30th, 1955, in Great Britain. As  a small child, I emigrated with my parents to the US, and spent some part of my childhood in Buffalo, NY.  We returned home to nurse my grandfather, who was dying, and just never went back to the US.

       As a child in particular I suffered dreadfully from asthma, so badly in fact that I missed a lot of school and had to teach myself to read and write. Despite that I made it to Grammar School where I got A levels to take me to University. Once there I decided not to do the course I had started and went in another direction, eventually ending up in Nursing.

       I enjoyed Nursing. It is such a great mixture of intellect and practicality that it suits me perfectly. I have always liked people, but you see such a broad spectrum and give and receive so much off patients that life can be very rich. Patience is something you need to bring with you, as well as an ability to keep smiling.

       My first husband was a man with whom I had been almost brought up, and he and I got together a little later to get married. He lived in Germany, so I went out there. Learning the language was hard but I did it, and stayed out there, moving to the South, an area called Bayern (Bavaria) after we split up. The Bayerns are lovely people and I had a great time there, making some wonderful friends.

       I came back home and went back up to my beloved Tyneside, but my health was deteriorating. I had to retire into disability in May 2004. This coincided with the breakdown of my Mum’s health, so we decided to pool resources and live together.

       I had already met my second husband in an online chatroom and  he moved over to Britain from the US to complete our little family, and now we live in Birmingham where my husband works as a Maths Teacher.

       In 2006 I had a slight stroke, which left me rather more disabled, and I used to get about with a scooter for long distances,  progressing to a stick at times for shorter ones.

       As a hobby I build and rebuild old computers, but am no means an IT specialist. At home I have set us up a nice little wired LAN of 5 computers: one as a server, 2 desktops and  two laptops. I used to be an amateur scrambles rider with my motorbike but when I damaged my knee I lost interest in the bikes I could no longer ride and moved on to computers.

       Once I began to recover from my stroke, I decided I wanted to work again, and took a lateral shift into Medical Secretarial work.  I love my job and have been doing that now since 2008.