I can hear the old Shirley Bassey song in my head while I think back to this.

"Where do I begin to tell the story of how great love can be"

If you rewind the year back to 2002 then that is the beginning of this era for me. Working on a trading floor by day and waitressing evenings and weekends I decided there must be more out there. Reading the back of Ms London and Girl about Town on the train in to work many of the "other" job adverts caught my eye. What a different way to make money! I must earn more in one shift than a weeks worth of tips.

Over the next few weeks I decided to look into them further. My new house was in dire need of renovation all my spare money went straight back into that. I would knock off the weekend shifts early if they were quiet just to go home and demolish walls, or pull down ceilings! Yes, I am that handy!

One day I decided to take the plunge, faced with no power in the downstairs of my house and a leak through my bathroom ceiling I thought, "Why not get paid for dinner". Oh yeah, the adverts were for dinner dates.

So one day when I was sat in my office in work I plucked up the courage and rang one of the agencies. During my lunch break I made my way to their premises in West London.

I turned up in my work suit, not glam at all, but they said they just wanted to get a general idea. At this time my hair was past my shoulders and a gorgeous red colour and I had slimmed down to almost a size 10. I almost choked when they asked me to take my suit off! On the phone they led me to believe it was still just dinner. Then the agency guy asked his friend to come in the room. Something felt iffy to me so I made my excuses and fled.

I am not a prude, never have been. I have definately had my fair share of one night stands and other peoples come to think of it but I was not giving that guy a free eyefull! One night stands are great for experimenting but nothing more. I have spent most of the erm....13 yrs of having sex in long term relationships. Do your maths and you will see how naughty I really was!

Anyway, I left that apartment feeling quite shocked. I went back to their website and there was no hint of sex on their site. I decided they were not for me but to keep looking.

On to the next number I rang. Well, I almost forgot about this one. Again, back of the free magazines at the train station. Had arranged to meet someone at a designated landmark Notting Hill. YUCK! This little weedy man looked more like a flasher not someone running an alledged agency. We walked round to Starbucks and he got me a cup of tea while we talked. He got up half way through and picked up a mug and poured half of my tea into his mug. This was my second warning to get the hell out of there. What a cheap little man! Probably only wanted a free perve.

I left Starbucks feeling very annoyed and decided to put things on the back burner. Luckily a few days later the chance for overtime came through, double money for working weekends. Would have been mad not to jump at the offer.

Was training for the marathon and doing Slimming World, working around 18 hrs most weekdays and 12 hr days at the weekend, I plodded on by. My house was getting slowly done. I was still staying at my boyfriends alot so there really was no haste to move in to my house permanently.

And then late 2002 my world was turned upside down.....