New Love 1983 - 1984 (17 - 18)

Shortly after her seventeenth birthday she moves back out to the countryside to work as a live-in mother's help and kennel maid.

By this stage she has lost touch with virtually all of the old crowd she'd grown up with - except a boyfriend she's been seeing for about nine months. She misses them all dreadfully but knows she has to move on.

She hasn't been at the kennels long when her boyfriend suggests they should consider settling down. This scares the hell out of her as she realises that, as much as she likes him, she doesn't love him. She doesn't want to hurt him but she doesn't want to lead him on when the feelings just aren't there. She isn't ready to get married or settle down so she finishes things between them, with no further ado.

Only a short while later life is on the change again...

While visiting her family one evening, she meets a man who has taken up lodgings with her old foster carers. They hit it off straight away (love at first sight) and within a few months they are engaged.

Her time at the kennels is certainly an education, with an unusual marital arrangement between her bosses and strange and open sexual practices, which she finds herself getting involved with - wild parties and no holds barred!

When she decides to settle down seriously with her new boyfriend, she makes a commitment to herself to be faithful and leave the wild life behind.

Unfortunately, that fidelity is very one sided and in the years to come her commitment is to be tried and tested over and over again...