ECC meetings are places in the UK where I can go and be ‘me’: grumpy, funny, serious, lunatic me! Among people who I can trust to contribute to my happiness and whom I need not fear ridicule or embarrassment. A group of people who are my friends, family, confidants and without whom I would be that much more lost and forgotten. A chance to rejoin old friends and to welcome the new friends I haven’t yet met.

Though I still have not found a tree or want, or feel moved, to hug yet.