Pick Me Up! 27-Jun-2019

Listening to Mum as she told me about her hectic week, I couldn’t help but smile. If she wasn’t offering support to her students, she was busy advising me. ‘Do you ever take a day off?’ I’d tease her. ‘That’ll be the day!’ she’d say. Such a superwoman. And without her I don’t think I’d be where I am today. See back in 2015 we suffered a series of stressful events that left me battling severe anxiety. There were whole days when I couldn’t drag myself out of bed. That was where my mum came in. She was there with me every step of the way. Ducking in after school to see how I was doing or encouraging me to keep seeing my clients as a nail technician. Day by…

Here’s Diego doing his best impression of Harry Potter. He certainly cast a spell on me. Cassie Tahiraj, via e-mail Our daughter Skylar was born with a unilateral cleft palate. But that doesn’t stop her from snacking down. Callum Abraham, Torquay Here I am with my hubby Parm as we celebrated my 40th recently. He really spoiled me! Manisa Kuinkel, Harrow I met some lovely feathered friends on my holiday in Madeira. One even decided it was nap time. Clare Cannon, Glasgow My husband Jack and I had a great time seeing the Edro III shipwreck in Cyprus at sunset. Emma Rafferty, Emsworth I was living the high life on this zip wire over the ocean. Sian Salsbury, Halesowen The saying is ‘When in Rome…’ But when in Venice, there’s…

Send us your stories and photos, including all names and ages, a daytime phone number and full address. E-mailpickmeup@ti-media.com CALL 020 3148 6460 WRITE TO Pick Me Up!, 161 Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP FACEBOOK facebook.com/pickmeupmag SEE OUR WEBSITE lifedeathprizes.com TI Media Limited reserves the right to reuse any submission sent to Pick Me Up! magazine, in any format or medium. Unfortunately, we can’t return photos without a stampedSAE. Letters/photos must not be sent to any other publication.…

Finding out I’d failed yet another test at school, I screwed up the paper, doodled on my desk. Looking up, I saw my teacher watching me, concerned. At the end of the lesson, she pulled me aside. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, gently. ‘You’re so bright, you could go far if you’d just knuckle down, you know.’ But I wasn’t really listening. It was 2012 and, aged 12, school work was the last thing on my mind. He was a world away from boys my age, with their acne I’d had a tough upbringing, and no real childhood to speak of. Mum had left not long after my second birthday. Then Dad had struggled to look after me on his own. By the age of 11, I’d been living in…

Going back to my friend’s house, I told her mum I’d missed a period and asked for help. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said, leaving the house. She returned with a bag from the pharmacy. ‘You need to take this,’ she said, handing me a pregnancy test. Locking the bathroom door behind me, I prayed the result would be negative. I could see now that Robert had exploited me But as the minutes passed, I looked down and saw a positive sign. That afternoon, I broke the news to my shocked foster parents. ‘Who’s the father?’ they asked. But I refused to say. Ringing Robert that evening, in secret, my voice shook. I waited for him to say that everything was going to be OK. Instead, he sounded…

Washing my hands in the bathroom, I yawned. It was 2 August 2018 and I’d had a lovely day, relaxing in the sunshine in our garden. But now it was getting late. Time for bed, I thought. As I turned to leave the bathroom, I heard a whooshing sound. The room filled with the fresh scent of lilies. I’d placed an automatic room freshener spray on the bathroom cabinet. Every few minutes, it dispensed fragrance. And now it’d just happened to spray all over my grey shirt! ‘Never mind,’ I sighed, using my hand to smooth it over the loose fabric. I’d be getting into my pyjamas soon anyway. Just time for one last cheeky ciggie before bed. I never smoked in the house - didn’t like the smell. So,…