Sellotape, space and Goldfish bowls.

So Tim Peake has headed off into space and I can't help but think that it should have been me.

I always fancied the idea of being an astronaut, to be able to view Earth as a globe must be amazing. If I had made a couple of different life choices it could be me up there now. Just minor changes in the decisions I made such as; studying Engineering instead of Psychology, learning to fly a plane instead of buying a house and joining the services instead of working in civilian street. So as you can see it could so easily have been me heading off into space. Of course I'd have also needed different eyes as astronauts are required to have excellent eyesight, I'd need to be a lot fitter and be about twenty years younger. Infact Tim and my almost parallel lives can be summed up perfectly in the words of John Bradford,

" There but for the grace of God go I".

So instead of heading off into space, this week I have mostly been wrapping presents. I have bought this brilliant new sellotape dispenser that fits onto the back of my hand. This means that you can cut the sticky tape one handed, essential when one hand is busy trying to hold the wrapping paper together. Earlier in the week, before I had the dispenser,  I instead cut lots of strips of sellotape and stuck them onto the edge of the coffee table. Then it was just a matter of trying to unstick the tape from the table edge, pulling it off Billy dogs ears, which just happen to be the same height as the table and trying to pull the tape apart when it curls back on itself. Now that I have my amazing new dispenser wrapping presents is a sinch, especially as the wrapping paper I've bought has lines on the back so I don't even struggle to cut straight lines. The only difficulty I have now is that Billy insists on "helping" by sitting in the middle of each piece of paper that I cut.

So OK I haven't gone into space this week and don't get to look out of my rocket window to see the Earth as a sphere. And I won't be a national hero, with the media tracking my progress, but I'm not bitter.  At least I don't have to go to work with a goldfish bowl on my head; my name doesn't sound like a 90's TV show (Tim Peake/Twin Peaks) and I won't be eating my Christmas dinner in tablet form. No I'm not jealous at all.