It takes seventeen muscles to smile, and forty three to frown.

So I give my face a good workout every day.


Because work is completely horrible, lets move on to another question. Well, half a question, because I've already answered the other half.


Nameless asked about Danny and about the fire at our house. So I've answered the Danny bit...now onto the other bit.


I thought it might be hard to write about, but actually, because it doesn't feel at all like it happened to me, it's not really. Feels like something I watched on TV or something.

So, I was about ten, Nicks was 8ish, Danny 5, Sam 3 and mum was heavily pregnant with Rachel. She was having a lie down, and her bloke of the moment, Chris, was cooking us dinner. I was in my room with Danny and Sam. I don't know exactly what happened but Nicky went downstairs for something and then came charging back up again and burst through the door looking terrified.

She managed to pant out something about fires so I jumped up and told her to wake Mum.

Of course, being ten and invincible I thought I'd be able to save the day.

But when I got downstairs the kitchen was well alight. Looking back it was obvious that it was a chip pan, but I didn't know that then. I just remember there being a lot of flames and choking smoke and it seemed like it was getting bigger by the second.

I ran into the sitting room and Chris was in there, asleep in a chair. I shook him awake shouting that there was a fire and he came to pretty fast, and followed me back to the kitchen. He swore a lot and tried to get close enough to grab the pan, but it was too hot. So he ran past it, sort of ducking under the flames, out into the garden. I thought maybe he'd just run and left us, but then he appeared again at the door with the garden hose.

I can imagine any of you who've watched the 'what not to do with a chip pan fire' are wincing now.

Yeah, he sprayed water at it. It exploded. I was lucky to be far enough out of the other door not to be hurt, but I ran upstairs as fast as I could and I grabbed Sam and got Nicky to hold Danny's hand and with Mum we all managed to get downstairs through all the smoke.

Someone else had called the fire brigade, but we were out in the country a bit, so when they got there the house was well alight. We were lucky to all get out. You wouldnt believe how fast it all went up.

They put it out in the end, and the firemen went in and got us a few things - clothes, shoes, everything soaked and stinking of smoke. Then we were put into emergency accommodation. A B&B, in the town nearby. It was horrible. Tiny, damp, had to share a bathroom with everyone else in there. Mum had a really hard time coping, Chris left her before Rach was even born, and once that happened we had two rooms, opposite ends of the corridor, Mum, Nicky and once Rach was born, about a month after it all happened, Rach too, all shared one room. Me, Danny, and Sam shared the other one. We had a lot of fights. The couple who owned the place told Mum they'd throw us out if we kept on. Luckily the council sorted our house out again before that happened. Or before any of us killed one another, but it was a close run thing.

We lost everything, and Mum didn't have any insurance, so it was pretty hard getting going again. A lot of charities helped us out, neighbours too. Of course, it was even harder with a new baby and for Mum trying to look after all of us on her own. I don't know how she managed.

 But she did. We did.

And on to happier times. Sherlock has just baked these for Mycroft:

We're just checking they taste nice by eating some of the ones that went more blobby than swirly. He's very excited. (About Mycroft coming home, not just about eating biscuits.)

And Danger has given me amazing hugs.