back story.

quantifying a serial killer and other fun facts.

How is it Sunday already? The first of 2025 and only two days until i return to work. i am not ready.

Sunday scaries aside, a bunch of lovely folks have plumped to read my rambles and i figured it would be impolite not to offer you a proper welcome. Kind of like a first date. Or sixth, as the chronology of this post would have it.

There’s an insatiable urge to fill in your gaps, to bring you up to speed on all the twists and turns that make me, me. Spill all the life events that, most likely, have contributed to my idiosyncrasies. Added to all my sass.

i would love to unpick it all one day, stew over how much of this has led to where and who i am today. Truth be told, i suspect (let’s be honest, i know, albeit unwittingly) that all of it did. Because how could it not?

Pull up a chair, let’s go.

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So, um, hi, hello, this is me, Alyssa. It’s a name that catches most people out. If you’re stuck, it’s just regular old “ah-liss-ah,” no extra ee’s or h’s. It also happens to be the Welsh way of writing Alice (Alyss).

i kinda prefer the simplicity of Lyss, tbh.

Lyssie gets thrown in when someone is getting all cute with me, or trying to win me over.

Please never Al or Ally, i beg you. Aleeeesha, or Alisseeah are also frowned upon. Most definitely not Ailsa.

Origin story… i was born on a golf course. Almost, lol. It’s a fun fact for a dating app, or to pull out during an intro round on a work call. But, truth is, i was born at a regular maternity hospital which just so happened to be reconfigured into The Celtic Manor golf resort years later. Dad’s Welsh y’see, but Mum is English (they met on holiday and are lovebirds to this day). Mum could only handle the valleys until i was three so we soon scurried back to her corner of rural middle England. i’m still unsure quite how Welsh this makes me?

i’m scared of cows. Like, anxiety-level scared. i mostly blame my one-eyed Rural Science teacher for this fear. Actually, let's dig deeper and blame the school system. i had chosen to study Textiles but the course was unfortunately full. Instead, i was placed in a class of young farmers, and together, we headed out into the fields to count bullocks. i am still scared to this day. In my defence, they are enormous and could swat me like a fly.

Um, no dressing up this next one. There was a *serial killer in my village when i was a teenager, the one where they first used DNA to catch the bad guy. i was 9 for his first killing, 12 for the second. It sure was an unsettling way to grow up, wondering if your turn will come around when you age up to 15 (the age of both his victims).

*by definition, he’s not actually a serial killer. Apparently you need to have killed at least three times for that snazzy title. It seems he was a mere double murderer. However, with his killings three years apart, would he have killed again if he hadn’t been caught out by his own cocky lies? i suspect so. Does that make him a serial killer in progress? To me, very much so.

Either way, my blood runs cold, and my heart plummets whenever the possibility of his release hits the headlines.

Speedily moving on…

No less dramatic, sorry. My childhood friend died soon after. What we assumed was a cold, or flu, was meningitis and he died a couple of weekends before Christmas. i refused to attend his funeral and still can’t listen to this song without feeling all the feels.

Dad had a heart attack just a couple of weeks after that… i know, right!!? It was the day after Christmas and he was, without doubt, running round like a fool for a charity football match. He was only 39 and i will tell anyone who listens that medicine has held him together ever since. It’s like he was given a second act, and i am so very grateful for all the doctors that put him back together.

Can’t help but wonder if i developed a weird attachment disorder off the back of all this though. Leave before i can be left, maybe? Or, hold on and never let go?

Which leads me to… my 18th summer, which was spent road-tripping solo across the United States. Route 66 still eludes me to this day, and i seriously need to spend more time in New York, but no complaints about a couple of months being a beach bum in LA. There’s still a part of me that wants to drive a topless Defender barefoot in a bikini and, well, ankle boots with bare legs and dresses are still totally a thing, right?

After the ‘summer of Santa Monica’ came Australia, when i followed an Aussie surfer boy home. i lived and loved in Sydney for most of my twenties before eventually craving the British aesthetic (and the unconditional support of my parents). It will never not be my sliding door moment and i will forever wonder what life would have been like if i’d stayed. Also, Cherry Ripes. Just saying.

Eventually i returned home and settled in London to raise two tiny humans with a not so beardy boy i’d met at a work party (he was dressed as David Beckham, i was dressed as Wednesday Addams). The humans are not so tiny anymore and we relocated to the Cotswolds coming up on ten years ago. It’s just me and the not so tiny humans now, in a village of 41 houses, and i am really good with that.

What else? i love to sing, though my dad killed this dream by playing a recording i’d made of myself at a family event. The humiliation. Now i save it for losing my voice in the car.

Here’s a less dramatic one. i gave up sugar a couple of years ago and it was the best thing ever! It’s a lot of effort, so much cooking from scratch, but it was the most powerful catalyst to so many other things. Like a big sugar-free snowball. i need to get back on it. Let me know if you’d ever like to learn more about it.

My favourite thing in the world, my happy place, is when i’m being a human cinematic viewfinder. Taking pictures is my thing. i guess i’m known for being a straight lines girl but i also love the old and gnarly. The dichotomy of Alyssa is real.

Oh, and messy hair? Yup. It’s all part of the naughty rebel in me. i don’t do perfect. It’s an overrated pursuit anyway, right?

Also, the gentle Aussie twang remains to this day.

If you need me, i’ll be lazing in that there bed. Anyone fancy bringing me coffee?

Lyss. x