(Snapshot) Hello, I'm Annie

Hi Les and all,

OK, so here is my intro. It's hard to know what to write without it reading something like a CV! (I guess that in itself gives you a bit of insight into my personality) Anyway, the facts. I'm Annie (currently Johnson, soon to become Irvine), I live in York (England) with my boyfriend Jon, work as a researcher in social policy at the University of York and I'm 28 years old.

Les has been my big brother for all of these years, but it is only in the last two that we have been able to make contact with each other. Reasons for this are hazy, and may stay that way forever, but meeting Les this year was probably the most amazing and overwhelming experience of my life and I can honestly say that I don't care about digging up the past. I am just delighted that we are now a part of each other's lives.

I have always been close to the family that I have known in England, but the experience of meeting Les and beginning to open up the book/window/door on the family in Africa and the USA who I knew very little about has caused an emotional change in me. Family has become a much bigger thing and has taken on a greater meaning, which has at the same time put some of the other things I held as important (work, study, structure, routine) into better perspective. So I want to thank Les and Onie and the girls, and whoever oversees the general course of our lives, for giving me this.