Me, my sister and I

Yo, lads... (are there any ladies who read this?)

Anyway - this is all going to be a little jumbled up so please bear with me. Firstly, tomorrow we must do brown eyes.

Again, thank you for sending in your eyes, everytime another e-mail lands in my inbox it's like a piece of little sequined magic that drops into my life. Thank you, thank you.

Secondly, I was near Manchester today to do some work and we ended up working near a cemetery.

The light was amazing and I had my mobile phone with me so I took a few snaps.

I promise that these photos are taken with a mobile phone, a Nokia N73.

Death has always fascinated me. I've lost a number of close friends and family so it's been something that's always been in my life.

It is the great equaliser. In death we are all the same. You might have a Lamborghini, I may have a sixpack and he could be a million pounds in debt.

In death, however, we are all equal. Death is also the ultimate but it is also just the beginning.

Check this gravestone out, dedicated to a child who was just two days' old.

This got me thinking a little, so I thought I'd share...

Although there is only my sister and I, I know that I am a middle child. I had an older brother.

The first I knew about him was about the time that my grandmother started to go around the twist.

We went to visit her one day and she started asking my sister and I where our brother was. We thought she'd been on the gin.

But then she started talking about this boy, 'Bobby's older brother...'

My sister and I fished, my uncle wouldn't say anything and my parents nothing.

I decided to visit a psychic in Cape Town who "guessed" my sister's name. She "guessed" where I worked and what I did. She described my first boyfriend, she told me who I was currently smitten with and she asked me about my older brother.

"I don't have an older brother", I said.
"You do.. he's coming through. He's standing next to you and he says hullo."

I have asked my mum and dad about 'my brother' on numerous occasions, when they've been drunk and when they've been sober.

Everytime I get the same answer from both of them; "I / we don't know what you're talking about..."

In my grandmother's last days alive she would talk to my sister and I about "our brother Matthew".

The psychic also said my brother's name was Matthew. All she could tell was that this Matthew had passed on and would sometimes smile down at us.

When we were in junior school my sister and I entered a competition for siblings. It was a big, important race and one of the highlights of sports day. We ran our bloody hearts out and came third.

The certificate we got read "to the elder pupil and their sibling". I held onto it because I always liked to say that it showed how much the school valued me.

Why? Because the name on the certificate, of my sister's elder sibling, was printed "Matthew". Perhaps it was just a typo.