There go the 'Noughties'

I’m not quite sure how we’ve reached the end of the first decade of the 21st Century so quickly, but it’s certainly been one of change. So, in keeping with all the TV shows, and media articles over the last week, I’ve done my own review of the decade. It’s taken me a while to pull this together, as reflecting back ten years has taken some doing.

At the start of the year 2000, Doctor Who was an old TV show which had trailed off into a sad decline over 10 years earlier, no one knew what reality TV was, Simon Cowell was unknown and Strictly and X factor, and God forbid, even Big Brother were unheard of. So much has changed.

On a more sombre note, I will always remember where I was when I first heard about the twin towers, and the London bus and tube bombings. In a lighter vein, I will also always remember where I was when England won the Rugby World Cup, for I was in a car on the way to Harlow, singing ‘Wherever You Will Go’!

It’s been a decade when I’ve got to grips with new technology (though I know I am always at least 6-12 months behind others), using mobile internet, social networking sites and forums in a way that I couldn’t have dreamt of 10 years ago when I was just starting to get to used to sending a text message. I also started this blog nearly 4 years ago. However technology has also meant that work is ever present. Rather than having more leisure time, it means that you are always accessible.

I’ve travelled to many countries (ok, mainly Italy), but only made it out of Europe once, with a brief stop in Tunisia on my cruise, and therefore have places to go in the next decade. I went to Eurovision, and that will always be a highlight.

It's been a decade through which I have managed to work part time, and still maintain a decent lifestyle. There have been ups, and downs, with work, the most shocking being when I was made redundant with very little notice, but you come through it, and out the other side. I’m better qualified than I was 10 years ago, but am not using those qualifications, which I regret to some extent (though I’m really not sure how you do use a degree in theatre film and tv?) but I also know that what is important to me is not what I do at work, but what I do outside. Work is what pays for the good stuff.

It’s been a decade with a great deal of theatre in it, though I doubt I’d have believed you if you’d told me at the beginning that I’d have seen one show 21 times in less than 12 months. Before JCS, ‘obsessive’ meant seeing a show 3 times. I visited the Globe for the first time (and a few times afterwards), Stratford of course, particularly for the ‘Glorious Moment’ of all 8 history plays in 4 days, and for David Tennant’s Hamlet.

Music has shaped this decade more than any other, because not only did it mean that I travelled places, and did things I never thought I would, but mainly because I met the most wonderful bunch of people who amazingly I had other interests in common with. Bizarre really, I did an OU course on Shakespeare thinking I was bound to meet like minded people, and didn’t, and joined an internet Forum, and found people who love theatre, and culture, and cocktails, and clothes, and dressing up, and David Tennant and John Barrowman, just as much as I do.

It would therefore be wrong of me not to mention both Griffin, and Fox, here. If it hadn’t been for a certain reality tv show, and a forum, there is so much that I wouldn’t have done in the last ten years. My life might have been very different. I very much doubt it would have been better.

To everyone I've shared it with, thank you. There are some wonderful memories to look back on. I know that I can be high maintenance, and yes, obsessive (or, to use my word, enthusiastic) about things, but that's me, and I'm probably not going to change much now. Thank you for the laughter, for helping me through the tears, and just for being there. It means a lot.

At the start of the next decade, I do wonder what it will bring. I haven’t done as much acting as I would have liked, and my current work limits the opportunity, so that needs to change. I know I want to work nearer home, so that I can do more things outside work. I want to do more travelling, and, of course, I want to see lots and lots of theatre.

As someone once said (and there are no better words to end this) ‘Bring it On’.