1095 days, 26,280 hours, 1,576,800 minutes.... a lot has happened in just 3 years!

February 8th 2013

My date of sentencing in the Crown Court.
You have walked and read this journey by my side, you know my dates all too well.
There are many.
Etched in my mind, for eternity.

25th May 2012 - I walked into a police station to declare what I had done
27th May 2012 - I turned 25 years old
ON BAIL for a loooooong time, whilst my case was passed from Magistrates to Crown.

February 8th 2013 - day of sentencing, bag packed, ready to take my place in HMP Styal for up to two years....
Spared prison and handed a suspended sentence of 2 years, suspended for 18 months with mandatory probation, drug rehabilitation, mental health intervention and compulsory compensation order for nearly £10,000.00

End of March 2013 - I was sent on the Virtuous Bread baking course for 3 days by Greater Manchester Probation Service

May 12th 2013 - I got a job with the University of Manchester

May 27th 2013 - I turned 26 years old

June 21st 2013 - I had my first bread stall ever, at Levenshulme Market - we sold out in a few hours; The Barker Baker was born

August 1st 2013 - I had my first interview on the BBC after the lovely Matt White called me whilst at work, I almost dropped my spatula!

September 27th 2013 - Back on the BBC talking about bread, business and criminal justice

October 3rd 2013 - I started this blog - it got over 200 hits in the first 30 minutes of being live

I worked my little socks off baking, working at the University, whilst on probation and completing my drug rehabilitation, I attended possibly the worlds worst mental health group of my life and have since campaigned to ensure no-one else fall foul of it.

It is not something I have talked much of, but now time has passed, it seems safe to do so, I have a deep seated anger within me, which isn't always rational, and over time, my lovely Sarah has taught me to put time and space between my judgments & feelings until they settle and I know its not my sheer lunacy of a mental health problem that is what causes such emotion.
I have a tendency to feel... offended, undermined, overlooked and I have done all my life, entirely rational when you look at where I have come from and how I have lived my life, however such distorted perceptions leave me open to make the wrong choices.
In this case, I was entirely justified to feel this way from the beginning.

When I went on my baking course, I baked with a variety of other people, all exoffenders - more than that, all part of a mental health group of which I had no knowledge... my probation officer thought it a good idea for me to attend this group in lieu of our weekly probation meetings.
Cat had thus far steered me in the right direction, so I was happy to do so.
I soon realise that this group had nothing to do with mental health, it was a room full of people not making any progress, not accepting any responsibility for their actions and being soothed by people who didn't provide tangible advice, support or prospects.
When I started The Barker Baker, I was seen as selfish within this group, as I had decided to go it alone, build my own business, bake my own bread. The head honcho told me as such and asked if I would set aside my own ideas and ambitions and be part of the group, help build the exoffender bakery within the mental health group - a nice idea, but as I was the only one who had a) fallen in love with baking b) actually baked a fucking loaf since attending the course and c) gained actual funding by way of an application of O2 Thinkbig to launch my idea then really, the answer was NO.
A huge faction of my personality that I wanted to address whilst attending this mental health group was the people pleaser in me, the person who gets into trouble for saying yes, knowing full well I can't for-fill empty promises I have made, but I make them anyway for hope of being liked and loved.

What a clever way to catch me off guard, and strike my soft spot, the very thing I had been trying to change about myself. It was then I realised this group was no good for me, it was masquerading as "help" when really it was debilitating and ensuring dependence not independence. I did not fit the bill. I was a middle class, university educated, first time offender with a drug problem that was no longer a problem and a mental health issue that would require serious intervention, not horrendous cups of tea and a bit of a chit-chat. I wanted actual help. What I got almost broke me.

"People like you can't change Fran, this idea you have of The Barker Baker and all these markets and all these ideas you have - they are just that. Francesca Barker fantasies, they won't come to anything, with your condition, it's just not going to happen"

- it was the "people like you" that got me.

Who are these people like me?
It wasn't anyone I had met in that room?
Anyone I had met on my drug rehab course?

People like me : A really fucked up 20 something girl who had a pretty shitty beginning, didn't have it dealt with, got angry that it was never dealt with, lashed out at everyone who meant something to me, destroyed my relationships, lied every single day of my life to try and appear normal, liked and loved, decided that cocaine was the answer as it allowed me to be free and not care what anyone thought until I went too far and ruined my life and almost that of the only girl I have truly loved and has truly loved me.
Sounds doom and gloom - HOWEVER - people like me.... to have lived that life and come out of the other side, to have begun discovering who I am at the age of 25 and start my life a-new, to have kicked a drug addiction that almost killed me, to have got a job fresh out of the crown court and earned respect for my hard work and dedication.

To the lovely Sue, who almost broke my hope... I know the person I am, and you were right, people like me don't change - they grow, learn and live.
I know as I write this 3 years on from my day in crown court that there are streaks of who I am that I will never change, that the little girl who tells not so little lies, lives deep in my heart. I'm OK with that. I know shes there, its a case of management, support networks, hard work and love. When I am happy and secure with who I am, what I do and know that the people I have around me are the right people, silly little Fran doesn't need to be anything other than herself.
When I met you, I was exactly how I felt in that moment, a worthless, useless, convict, druggie ex prostitute who had no hope in hell of becoming anything more than a piece of paper.

I am Francesca Barker, I built my life up from the ground, from the ashes of my own burning, I am The Barker Baker, the girl who built a business off the back of a suitcase full of bread at the local market.
I am the award winner.
I am the entrepreneur.
I am the ambassador.
I am the change.
I am new. I am free. I am exactly what the judge wanted me to be when she spared me from a prison cell.

Jeeeeez, I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a while now!

I think the essence of this post is that there will always be the nay sayers, especially for those of us fighting to overcome a label, whatever it may be, but it all reality, it doesn't matter, if you strive to stay true to yourself, there is no greater reparation.

On with my timeline....

February 2014 - I was in the Manchester Evening News for the first time, a lovely piece written by a reporter who I have grown oddly fond of, she saw the beginning and has since reported on the successess that have followed

March 2014 - I speak at the National Youth Offending Conference and have the eyes of hundreds of young people watching, listening and waiting to hear how it ends. - it ends with a baking session in the kitchens and a few of them asking for work experience with me. Mind. Blown.

June 2014 - We fly away; my beautiful Sarah books us a holiday and off we go. Our first time abroad together, she holds my hand whilst I freak out about flying. All is well.

August 28th 2014 - I win a national business award, as chosen by some of the most successful people in the country. Francesca Barker - Best Female Entrepreneur 2014.

September 19th 2014 - I go to London to receive said award and meet Michelle Mone in a board room, she hugs me and tells me I'm an inspiration. I try not to focus on the fact that she is potentially one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen and actually listen to the incredible things she is saying. Sarah takes me for a glass of champagne to celebrate at and old favourite of mine from back in the days where I was a London girl. This is much better.

September - December 2014 - the press goes off the hook, with BBC, Daily Mirror, local news, national news, it's a circus, overwhelming and humbling all at the same time

December 2014 - Sarah and I drive to Littleborough to see a house, we stop into the estate agents, view the house and then pop the village bakery for a pie (she is a Wiganer!)
We take said house and move into our countryside back to back terrace. It's heaven.

January - March 2015 - we are fully booked with baking workshops, with youth offending teams across the north west, I get to spend my days teaching people how to bake and to help them start a new journey

February 11th 2015 - I win Business Newcomer of the Year 2015, as chosen by people like Hilary Devey; one of my big inspirations and one of my favourite Twitter followers, shes one hell of a woman! If I have a business soul mate (if that is a thing) then she is most definitely it.
The business pops up in The Metro and the BBC call me...!

March 3rd 2015 - I meet my sister. My actual, biological sister. The girl who's name I've read on paper and never thought I would ever meet.
There is a knock at the door and I open it - she looks like me. Thankfully she talks a lot more than me, so there wasn't an awkward silence to be had. She's pregnant and beautiful and loved. Couldn't have wished for more.

April 18th 2015 - I meet my entire biological family - IRISH! theres a 101 aunties and uncles and cousins, and I get to see, for the first time in my life, a photo of me, from before I was 4 years old - better than that - its the first ever photo I have seen of me as a baby. Something so simple, I have wanted all my life, and then a teary aunty hands it to me. Sarah loves it, she sees me in it, still. She sees our children in it.

May 2015 - We have the BBC filming in the kitchens, for The One Show with Mary Berry.
The workshop is a great success and I meet incredible people who really have the knack of baking!

June 2015 - The One Show goes out on BBC One, the press goes off the hook and the BBC have me in their sights for bigger things!

Week in week out, I get to talk to the lovely Sam Walker on BBC Radio Manchester, she called me whilst I was at work one day and asked if I could be the "real life stories" person for a few weeks, a few weeks turned into months, and we ended up speaking all year long, with the people of Manchester avidly listening to what I was doing and where I was up to, so much so, the lovely listeners now pop into my shop and say hello and see what I am up to face to face!

August 2015 - The shop.
I was walking through lovely Littleborough when I say that Warburtons Estates was for rent. Tiny space. Cute.
The very place where I signed my tenancy for the house Sarah and I chose in Littleborough before going to the village bakery for a pie.
It was a good price.
It was a nice spot.
Business woman Fran pounced.
The shop was mine.

A blank canvas and a small one at that - 200sq ft.
Two incredible builders and 2 months later, I had a fully fledged bakery shop and kitchen, exactly how I had imagined it.

November 25th 2015 - The Barker Baker launch. I open the shop with snazzy beer, free bread and great people. My sister drives all the way from London to be there with the beautiful Mya and lovely Rog (which is a miracle as she doesn't do up North')
The launch is a huge success and people from all over the place turn up to see The Barker Baker shop and indeed, me.

A local lady pops in and tells me she saw me in the paper and that it was a lovely article, she buys some bread and is on her way.
She pops back in the day after with said article, which she has cut out for me, she places in my hands and says "You should put that up in your window so people can see how far you have come, you should feel very proud of yourself"
She squeezes my hands and smiles and leaves.

Thank god she does as I need a somewhat sneaky cry.

I look around. My shop. My little empire. I have done it. And it's just the beginning.

Business booms in the run up to Christmas and we have regulars popping in every day, every other day, lovely people, sharing their stories and histories with me, its exactly what I wanted.

I walk down the high street and people give me a wave, it's like something from Beauty & the Beast - 'there goes the baker' - that would be me. I try my best not to skip and sing......!

December 2015 - Sarah is at her happiest, she buys the biggest turkey in the land, free range and organic from the butchers, the turkey epitomoises her struggle, silently working away in the back ground, holding me together and somehow pulling out the most amazing degree results, landing a great job and watching her little ducks line up.
We have her family over for Christmas Day, we are exactly who we want to be, where we want to be.
Cooking a mammouth turkey in our warm and loving home, for people we care about.

The floods come to Littleborough on Boxing Day and we throw our most waterproof shoes on and head down the hill to the village, throw open the bakery doors and get the coffee machine on. I have a load of mince pies in the freezer at the bakery from Christmas so we fire them up and hit the streets making sure people eat and drink and know there's always help and support.
We wash pants, socks, charge phones and laptops, I cook enough soup to feed the 5000 and slowly the village returns to normal.
A strange way to spend our days off together over Christmas, but we realise its who we are, the weirdos who like to give back, knowing there was I time when all I did was take. She makes me a better person.

January 2016 - Business grows faster, I expected a lull, wintery woe and less pennies for spending - there is no lull, there is a boom.
We launch Pizza night - its a sell out. I get to be chef and baker - living the dream.

And now its February, closing in on the doom date of February 8th.
Will it be doom date forever? Or the bench mark I remember when life changes as much as it has.

It is February 2nd 2016. I have love. I have security. I have family and I have hope.
Every wrong decision was worth it, to know that I could work my way up to this point.

#positivesovernegatives

Thank you to the people who have helped me grow, learn and love
<3

Imagine all the people........

Littleborough, the lovely place I now call home was hit hard this week; with a flood that wiped out peoples homes and businesses; but those effected in Greater Manchester and the Calder Valley, have pulled together like something you see on a postcard or read in a history book - where community spirit drives people forward and brings everyone together.

I am no stranger to the community spirit that is rife in this village today, I have felt it over the past few weeks, in peoples kind words, hugs of support, thumbs up and of course, the insane amount of bread this lovely folk have been buying on a daily basis.

I said in an interview a few weeks ago, I was cautious, a little apprehensive that this little village of mine wouldn't be too appreciative of a criminal setting up shop and selling bread. How wrong I was. My caution was soon put to bed, as opening day came, and people literally lined to the streets to meet the girl who turned her life around.... not the girl who fucked it up. How refreshing.

2015 has been a year of ups and downs, with epic highs and dramatic lows, but it has been the year of life.

I am in a place where I never thought I could be. I am living a life I always dreamt I could, dreamt I would.

The beautifully kind and loving girlfriend, the house in the country with that idiotic and adorable cat, the dream job that makes getting up exciting not dreary, the friends who love and support me, the family, from past and present all somehow settling into their place in my life. Could it be, that I am in fact happy? After 20 years of distorted vision and expectation, I am living the life of Francesca Barker, and it is a truly blessed one.

So as I walk around the streets of the village I call home, there is destruction and loss piled high on pavements, Christmas got washed away in the mud, in the flood.
But people are smiling, because its still just... stuff, and the fact remains, no-one got hurt, everyone stayed safe, so whilst the bin men come and the electricity fades and flickers, it doesn't really matter.
Because these people have something more magical than Father Christmas, they have eachother.

I am exhausted, with a business that has sucked every ounce of energy from my bones, but I sit, I type in my little bakery non the less, on a day off, a day I would happily spend in bed, but I am better placed sat right here.
The coffee machine is on, there is soup cooking in the kitchens next door, the heating is on full blast, with my suitcase; THE suitcase stacked and overflowing with clothes of Sarah and I's past.
Yo-yo dieting epitomised as I offer jumpers in all sizes from 12 - 20, who cares, there are they are they are help, they are hope.

Why am I doing it? Why do people reach out a hand to hold anothers?
For me, its selfish.
I was so so alone once upon a time.
With a Christmas 5 years ago that landed me in the hospital, left me broken and taking step one into chaos.
The Christmas that lit the fuse to my own self destruction.
I was swooped off my halls of residence kitchen floor by a porter who didn't want to be working Christmas day, carried to the hospital in his arms, and brought back to life.

I didn't realise the value, I didn't care about the purpose. I just wanted to be gone.

5 years ago. Almost to the day. I walked out of the hospital and back home, alone.
And there she was, Sarah, the girl who saved me.
She put me to bed, lay next to me and stroked my hair.
Safety. She was then and forever will be.

No flood took away my things, I watched them all wash away. My family, my friends, my things.
Gone.

I am sat in the warmth of my shop, MY shop, its pure insanity to think.
I look around and there is my personality in its true form, from the design to the stock, to the descriptions of bread lining the walls.

I am so so lucky, I am loved and I am safe.

For a long time, I was neither. I was homeless, I was hurt, I was... well you've all read the blog, you know.

If sitting in this shop on my day off makes someone feel a little hope, a little reassurance, then I'm spending it the best way I can.
If making a pot of soup, takes the weight of someones shoulders for an hour or two, then lets get cooking.

Having lived a life of selfishness, I've come to realise, the most beautiful thing there is, is kindness.

I've not been very good at it, but I'm giving it a bloody good try.

Together, we rise.

(no bread pun intended, but how wonderfully apt)

Hello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz4MzJTeL0c

A few weekends ago, I was sat in a room full of family.

Celebrating a birthday. Someone getting older.

Every one was happy to see me, interested in my life, my love, my business, what I was doing.

I was hugged as soon as I walked through the door, bought a drink or two, I spent my evening laughing, looking around, feeling grateful and yet somehow desperately sad.

It wasn't my family.

Whilst it is a beautiful thing to be part of Sarah's family, it always invokes a great sadness within me.

So after a lovely evening spent at some social club in the depths of St Helens, I got back to Sarah's parents house, turned the laptop on and started to write.

It's been over two weeks now, and I haven't had a response.

I wrote to my father.

Sharing much the same as this blog.

"Last night I went to Sarah's uncle's 60th birthday party in Billinge; and it was lovely.

Sarah has an incredible family, who all get together for birthdays and Christmas' and whatever excuse they can find.

Everyone was pleased to see me, they wanted to know how the business was, tell me they'd seen my on the BBC, asking about our wedding plans and what we are doing.

And I missed you. So much.

It is a strange thing to be part of a family, but that family not be mine.

This morning I woke up and had coffee with Sarah's mum and she showed me hundreds of photos of Sarah and Dan when they were younger. Holidays. Birthdays. The day Sarah was born.

I want to do that. I want to sit down with Sarah and Val and share my life with them, because despite how things turned out for us as a family, you are a huge part of my heart and you made me who I am.
I'm aware I've made 100 mistakes and told 100 more lies, that I've hurt you and disappointed you; but every part of me that's good and kind and honest, you and mummy created, somehow. I take all of this on my shoulders and I say I'm sorry at every opportunity. Are you not? We can't do this justice if its always the black sheep who broke the Barkers.

I miss you. When I find out things like jay getting engaged through bloody Facebook it breaks my heart. I am his big sister. It should have been me that found out first. Not last.
When mummy gets ill, I should know about it, not find out from uncle bill when it's too late for me to do anything about.
I'm scared that we are so far gone and so far down the road of no return that I don't know who are you all are anymore, what you do, if you are well, happy, healthy.
I worry about you all the time.
I worry I don't see you enough, don't talk to you enough and that as we grow older, I loose you.
One day you'll be old and grey and I won't be there to hold your hand and tell you you look like an old fart!

I keep kidding myself that we can find a way back, that I've changed enough for you to see me for who I am.

I'm living a life I never thought possible. I'm happy. I am loved. I am safe and I am secure.
But I don't have you.

The three of you mean more to me than anything or anyone. Not having you in my life breaks my heart every day. I think about you all the time and I wonder how to make it right.
I can't live my life in mourning or regret and I won't punish myself for things that have come to pass.
I will fight for you and try for you and hope for a way forward.
But if you could be honest with me and tell me if that's never going to happen it would be a lot easier for me to let you go.
I've spoken to counsellors and psychologists who all advise the same thing - let it go. Let you go.
I don't want to.
I love you too much.

So what do I want?

I want to have more than a half an hour coffee with my father.
I want to talk to you about my life not just my work, your work.
I want to hug you and not feel like a stranger.
I want to see mummy look at me like a person not a mistake.

Jay loves me, he tells me so, and I'm aware we have a lot of ground to cover but given time, there may be hope for us. We have time.

What I would like, whilst you mull this over, is photos.
To borrow some photo albums for a few hours, so I can show Sarah the life I had (because the memories I have are starting to feel like I've imagined the whole thing)
Photos. Of us. Of me. Of jay. So I can snap shot them on my phone and so that I have a piece of my history.
To show my children.
I don't want you to be a story I tell.
I want you to be a part of it"

Despite being hopeful of a response, it never came.

So I suppose thats an answer in itself.

I've spent the past few months pin pointing absolute turning points in my life, events that changed my course, decisions I made, that I shouldn't have.

I made a promise to myself to make as much right as I could, salvaging friendships from the ashes and reaching out to people I lost along the way.

I am 28 years old and I've broken hearts throughout my life, not in any sort of egotistical manner, through being a sheer car crash of a human being and wreaking havoc on those around me.

At Sarahs uncles birthday, I looked around the room, full of people who love eachother, and I realised I didn't want to get to 60 and have noone of real substance to share it with. I want a room full of friends who have been my side all the way through, I want people there who have shared my life.

So it began, the tracking down of the broken hearts and the apologies and the hopes of bringing back the people who meant most to me. And my friends, it has been with great love and success that the people I have loved most in my life, have found their way bak to me, and me back to them.

The space in my heart they once occupied, its once again theirs and will stand to be for a long time to come.

A test of true love, that no matter how much time passes or how much a wreck you have been, the people who are meant to be for life, always will be.

I have lived a long time in regret, that when I lost my family, I lost everything that meant most to me. The friends I grew up, the people I had known all my life, disappeared and I was left wondering whether I had dreamt it all.

Sometimes I still do.

I wake in the middle of the night and think it was all some dream, some ridiculous Fran-ism and that there was nothing that came before this.

I think about the family holidays, the friends in the sea, the drinks, bars, bbq's, birthdays, weddings. 

I was a bridesmaid, I was a friend.

None of it exists anymore.

Not a Barker, not a part of it.

It wasn't just family.

It was all of it.

Every person I had come to know and love, evaporated.

I had never been so alone.

And thus is the true test of time, the people who I needed and wanted, have come back, the ones I met at University, on a Warrington canal in a rowing boat, my friend from school.

I am loved.

What is it they say?

You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family?

Well thank fuck these people chose to love me.

I am blessed.

A Safe Place

For years now I have been searching for some sort of safe haven.

A place. a person, a hide out.

Somewhere I can disappear to and be allowed to unravel, in peace, private and safety.

Falling apart. feeling low, feeling lost was always something shameful growing up and despite me wishing it, forcing it, wanting it to feel like home, it never did.

When I was at university and the dreaded R day occurred that lit the fuse to my downfall, all I wanted in the world was to go home.

To see my mum and dad, sleep in my own bed, cuddle the cat and just feel familiar, safe.
Of course that is not what happened.
After getting a little merry in the local Wetherspoons in Aberystwyth with my safe person, my safest friend and love at the time, I zoomed up north and arrived home to nothingness.
Arguments. Awkwardness. And the overwhelming knowledge that I could never ever tell them what had happened and that even if I did, they wouldn't give me the response I wanted and needed. A hug. A cry. Chocolate. Bed. Safe place hideout.

I'm typing this blog from my lovely bed. The cat is sat on the chest of drawers sitting alarmingly close to a cactus, the breeze from the Yorkshire wind is floating through the window, Sarah is exploring Pinterest for the latest upcycling inspiration and I'm content.
There will always be factions of my life I can't control and I will always feel constantly overwhelmed and underprepared for what tomorrow brings, taking tablets to ease my insanity and anxiety and feeling guilty that medication is my cryptonite.

Sarah laughs at me when we food shop.
It's called the apocalypse in our house. I have a strange habit of overstocking. Not because I am a greedy monkey, but because I always want abundance. Sensibility. To know that we will be OK no matter what. I'm not sure how packets of supernoodles and tins of soup lurking in the cupboard for months on end soothes my anxiety, but it does.

There are always an excess of toilet rolls in our house. Shampoo a-plenty.
Why?
Because there have been times in my life where I have been homeless. I have been worthless. And I've wanted a shower. I've wanted a cup of tea. I've wanted a cold can of diet coke. And all of those things have been totally unattainable..
The first thing I bought when I escaped the warehouse in London, was a cold can of diet coke and to this day, it has been the best of my life.

I think this is the one.
The girl.
The house.
The job.
The cat.
The family.

It feels....close to safe.

I took a variety of photos of my little life, and I'm sharing them with you to tell you why this time, this place, is it. Finally after all this time. It is it.

Welcome to my fridge, cupboards and freezer. Stocked for the apocalypse. And for the first time in a long time, moderately healthy! I decided after a few health scares, self inflicted no doubt, and genetics not being particularly brilliant, I didn't want to be a fat fuck anymore. That this odd self loathing and self wallowing was getting old and so was I, and lo' light bulb, dieting and exercise. It's my intention and my goal to loose a total of 5 stone, on target thus far, and intended to achieve by January 2016. Happy New Year indeed.

More than the apocalypse is my pride. That I can fill my fridge. That I can be self sufficient. That I can look after myself and after Sarah. I feel normal!

Now then, these cupboards are a thing of beauty. Actual dinnerware. And a milk jug in the shape of a cow.
I've never had a cupboard full of matching dinnerware. Odds and sods from moving here there and everywhere, and now? The worlds most amazing pottery barn multicoloured pastel plates that cost me a lowly £1 and up until now, were a top secret ;)
The cow jug Sarah got me as a Christmas present because I'm a loser and thought it would be a quirky addition to our espresso cups! See??? Yuppie utopia.

Despite being a chef, and more recently, becoming a baker; up until meeting Sarah I never actually owned salt and pepper. We now have a cupboard with every spice under the sun and 3 different types of salt - THREE!

So here it is. My little bubble.
The garden that was an overgrown grassy monstrosity when we moved in, its now a vegetable patch, herb garden, tomatoes, strawberries, firepit sensation.
I had my 28th birthday on a sunny day, in this little garden, with the people I love most. Beautiful people. Friends.
My 28th year. True friends. Absolute love. And a safe place. How's that for an epic 2015?

The happy cat, who sleeps anywhere and everywhere. So much so that this week, he has now twice sleep creeped in the middle of the night, up my body, to stare me in the eye at 4am.
He is a weirdo.
But a beautiful, fluffy, reassuring little thing.
It's his birthday today. The cat with 9 lives. When he was a kitten he knocked himself out when pulling a bathroom cabinet ontop of him. When he was 2 he set his tail alight in the middle of dinner with friends, this year *touch wood* he hasn't caused too much carnage.

So here I am.
On a thursday night.... feeling safe.
Well, as safe as I will ever know how to be.

Overly anxious and always ridiculous; but happy.

I have love. I have a family. I have a job I love. I have friends who are beautiful human beings.
Does it get much better?

Oh yes, I have Hagen Das in the freezer - apocalypse essential.

Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder

I started this week on a low, and I could see it coming a mile off.
It began when I hit the snooze button on my alarm and ignored it again and again.
If I don't get out of bed, something bad is looming.

I call it the self for-filling prophecy. I feel it. A darkness descending.

I lulled myself into a false sense of security. That I could be normal.
I ran out of medication and felt so fine, I didn't refill my prescription. I had conquered my mental health and it was me in control, not it.

How naive.
Lack of citalopram quickly caught up with me, with extremes of emotion, from intensely happy and positive, to alarmingly worrisome and doubtful of my choices, my life, my work; me.

I fought it. Determined to be better than this "mental disorder" - there is nothing wrong with me. Everything I have achieved, I have done through sheer sense of self and sense of will. All me.
Do I really have to be dosed up to feel like a normal human being? Or do I have to take this tablet for the rest of my life just to make sure my brain doesn't get the better of me.

I spoke with the lovely Sam Walker on the radio and told her how I was optimistic, hopeful, that when it comes to family and it comes to love, there would somehow be a way back for me and my family.

Today proved that just isn't true.
And despite being back on an even keel, it has hit me hard.

I pondered whether to right this, whether admitting vulnerability and occasional instability would show flashes of weakness and that isn't what I'm about, it's not what my business is about, its about hope and hard work and therein lies the key to this blog post - there is no shame in writing about your own weaknesses, the things that make us human.
I can't be inspiration and light all of the time ;)
It's a pleasure and fascinating that some even think so.
I'm Francesca, I'm flawed, and today, I am absolutely flailing in the wind.
But I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

Since my court date, I've been on this incredible journey of optimism, challenges, hard work. successes, awards, media, television, workshops, people, friends, life.
I honestly haven't stopped.
So is it any wonder?

This isn't the old fashioned cruise control.
This morning I did a podcast interview for the BBC, with a woman I'm increasingly fond of; she is kind and honest and one of the people my heart has reached out to......
Through this journey I have had lightening bolts of emotional connection, I think she is one of them.

We cried together this morning, huddled up to a microphone, as we talked through my carcrash of a life.
It was an incredibly raw and insightful few hours. You'll soon get to hear it for yourselves.
It is essentially this blog compounded into brutally honest and emotional radio.
Beautiful.

I left her house skipping into Manchester to go about my day, and whilst wandering through the city, there she was. My mother.
Dressed in black. Like she was fresh from a funeral. What I didn't realise when I was busy bounding across the road is that the funeral she was hoping to attend, was mine.

I tricked myself, perhaps with this delusional sense of self, that with everything in my life growing greater, stronger, prouder, she would see that, and see me, for who I am. A snap shot across a pavement, the daughter she always wanted and desperately missed.

And I knew as soon as the words left my mouth there were going to be greeted with venom, with eyes looking through me and not at me, we were back in Cheshire ten years ago, and she was looking at me like a stranger, just like she did then.

"Hi, how are you? You look great" I say with a smile on my face, so so happy to see her, healthy, well, there!

"God, did you have to?" She said in response to me crossing the road to greet her
"What do you want me to say Francesca?"

I stumble, mumble, a little taken a-back "Hi Fran, how are you, are you well, how are things?"
She smirks "I was half hoping you were dead to be honest"
And she walks away.
And then I realise that I actually, physically have my hand outstretched to reach for her.
And with tears burning in my eyes, I snatch it back.
Embarassed. Devastated.

Did she just say that?

To me?
The girl who cried into a microphone about a blonde princess who saved her from a life she was terrified of?
The girl who told Sam all about the day we rowed down the Thames in Stratford upon Avon.

And so maybe it is exactly what I feared...
That my life as a daughter, is a memory book inside my head, and forever more, all I will ever know is how to turn through the pages, and look back on days that once were.
But to hold her, to touch her, to say I love you outloud.
Those days are gone.

So.
I'm sat on the sofa, in my little house in the country, with mascara on my face, waiting for the Chinese delivery to get here, because the thought of cooking makes me ache.
Sarah's got me locked in a cuddle, the cat won't leave me alone with concerned cuddles, and I'm just typing, and writing and exorcising the pain.
Because I honestly don't know what to do.

I lost her.
Or she lost me.

I don't know.

All we will have is a graveyard and thats something that breaks my heart

Brutal

I had the worst nights sleep for a long time last night.
Caught between nightmare after nightmare, it would have been easier to have stayed awake.

And so this morning, I'm left with the devastation and destruction my own mind has caused.

There's a tower block somewhere in Manchester that I try to avoid like the plague. When I enter the city, I choose my path wisely and make sure it stays out of my view.
Strange to live in a place that invokes such fear. Such memory.

Sarah's dad took a wrong turn with me sat in the back of the car. We parked practically outside where it happened and I had to wind down the window so as not to be sick.
I was filled with such anger.
My hand squeezed the door handle and I shut my eyes. I can't bare to look at it.

And yet, with my eyes closed its more vivid than it ever was. I retrace my steps, the lift, metal clanging, creaking to the dreaded floor, take a left and there's the door. Bright red, number x and it will forever be the door that closed behind me. Locked behind me. The door that wouldn't let me out.

My dreams last night were like rewinding time, seeing it all through fresh eyes, like my brain was telling me not to forget.
So vivid. Sounds. Smells. Reliving history.

The door closes and I see the look in his eyes change, to danger, to smugness, and I realise I'm in trouble, make my excuses to go back to my friends, his friends, and put my hand on the door. He puts his hand on the door and says with a laugh “I don't think so”

So then I know what's about to happen and my brain overloads looking at windows, doors, weapons?
We are so high up even if I tried I wouldn't be able to.

It's strange how dreams can take you back in time, sometimes it's a blessing. Last night was a curse.

I have to exorcise this. I woke feeling sick this morning. With tears on my cheek. My fingernails imprinted on my own palms. The fear rocked through from subconscious to conscious and I'm having a wobble.

That day destroyed any chance of me understanding who I was. Thankfully enough time has passed for the wounds to heal and for me to piece my life back together.
But that day set in motion my destructive choices.

I loved those jeans. My brother had the same pair.
River Island, with a woman's silhouette painted down one leg.
In the days of being a size 12, I went out in those jeans and a blazer with just a bra.
Feeling pretty fucking hot. Hitting up the gay bars with my friends.

Ive never been able to feel that way since.
Certainly never strived to look that way again.
I gave up.

I can't even look at myself today, I feel like I could burst into tears from searing memories.
For days I had grazes on my cheek, burnt against the carpet, made to look at it all take place.
The day after my jeans were so torn they were barely worth clinging onto, blood, knees bleeding, elbows, barely able to stand.
I saw myself in the smashed mirror that had been my front row seat the night before, beaten, bloodied but set free.
I stared at myself in that mirror last night.

I sat in a bath and the colour changing to red and I washed.

And that was the end of it.

My dreams shifted last night from one horror to another.

From the monster to the pretender; a girl I thought I loved, my cocaine partner in crime, a relationship fuelled on fantasy and white powder.
She was angry. Frustrated with me for saying no to her latest flight of fancy. One hit. Two hits. Three. I hit the floor, wiping the blood from my lips.

And it became apparent, these destructions are part of who I am. From day one. To now.

Love?
No.

Dragged to the bathroom to “clean myself up” – she said I was s mess and as I reached for the cloth my face smashed against the toilet bowl, on my knees again, blood pouring. Tears pouring. I lay on the bathroom floor and closed the door.

So this is who I am
This is all my worth.
This is what I am to become.

I can't let you close. Because You're too delicate
You might break.

I wake.
Feeling sick.
Feeling loss.

I didn't realise how much I needed you until just now.

Are you proud?

Today will be a day I remember for the rest of my life.....

My work and my vision will be shared with more people than I ever thought possible as the BBC air a film about my workshops and the work I do.

Sometimes I have to sit back and pinch myself.

On February 8th 2013 as you know, I was convicted of Fraud in the Crown Court in Manchester.

The most damning and demoralising day of my life. Where I stood in a room full of people, in the dock, bag packed, next to my feet, looking the judge in the eyes as she read out what my fate was to be.

I almost ruined my life. Not to mention the damage I caused along the way, with lies and bullshit a plenty, drugs and prostitution and a life of shame that leaves me wondering whether I dreamt it all as it is a million miles away from the life I have today, from the person I am today.

I have grown. I have learned. It's a work in progress and always will be. Rehabilitation is a lifetimes work, undoing the bad habits, undoing the things you did wrong, and trying to piece yourself and your mistakes back together.

I could make it my life's work to right every wrong I did but I fear it would be a task that would take me forever, as there is only so many times you can say your sorry, only so hard you can work to make things better.

So instead?

I put my effort, my heart, my passion and my mind into something much more worthwhile. Helping other people, just like me, who don't know how to make the change and to make it better.

It's simple.

Just but a little selfish. Put all your effort into fixing you. Into understand you. Into working hard to be the best you can be. No-one can fault you for that.

Feel pride. Feel hope. See a future. Build a future. Then you can give back what you took, through every positive step that you take, by promising to make good, to do good. That is the punishment, that is the life lesson, that is the rehabilitation.

My rehabilitation has spanned from drugs to lies, to paying back thousands of pounds, to not having a pot to piss in and living with nothing and still feeling like I have everything.

Why?

Because I'm loved.

I feel love. I deserve love and that's something I've never been able to understand.

Years spent lashing out at a world I didn't think understood me, that wouldn't love me, want me, need me. That all I was good for was a price on my head, in my bed or up my nose. Always wanting to have value but being completely without worth.

There is a fine line.

I am reborn. I am Francesca. I am proud. I am work in progress and very very OK with that.

I have a job that brings people I would never normally meet, never normally interact with, right into my life, into my kitchen, into my work and I love it.

You will never find more honesty than in the faces of people who are desperate to be...better.

You will never find more disappointment in the faces of people who are desperate to be.. someone else.

My star baker, as you will see tonight, is a woman called Michelle. I looked into her eyes and saw me, two years ago.

Wondering what the hell she is doing in a kitchen, baking bread.

Why bother?

What the bloody hell is making a loaf of bread going to do for me?

Well tonight you will see exactly what making that loaf of bread does for people.

We find ourselves a little lost and in a room full of lost people, we put our hands in bowls of flour, together, skin on skin, and we bake, and we laugh, and its disastorous, it messy, its funny, its pure.

We break down boundaries and share our stories of where we come from, why we are there, what we did, how we feel, and we bake.

We knead, we shape, we proof, we drink tea, we smoke cigerettes, we laugh.

We bake together. We clean together, For a day, for an hour or five, we are a team and we are not lost. We are great.

I put my hand on Michelle's shoulder when she was making her white dough and I lent over and said "Michelle, that looks great, really proud of you, you are doing a great job"

The workshop carried on, as they always do, different places, different people. all the same.

Tea break, Michelle comes over to me and says "Did you mean it Francesca?" 

I say "Did I mean what?"

"That you are proud of me?"

I looked this woman in the face and said "It honestly doesn't matter if I say I'm proud of you, even though I am, all that matters is that you are proud of yourself, are you?"

She laughed with a tear in her eye and said "Yeah, I am actually, I really am"

That my friends is mission accomplished and that is why as my star baker of the day I decided to change things up a little and invite Michelle to come and do work experience with me, because sometimes all we need is someone to say what we can't see - that you are doing a great job, you are working hard, you are tenacious and brave and facing your demons and your past, present and future alone is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but you can, and you will.

And if she needs reminding, I will have my foot firmly up her arse to make sure she believes it!

There will always be people who don't believe, you will always be the boy who cried wolf, because you put your own noose around your neck with the choices you made, the lies that you told. Thats the burden of bad decisions.

For me, there was a day, sat in a room with my probation officer, where she looked me in the eye and said that Greater Manchester Probation Service weren't going to print the article they had written about how much I had enjoyed my bread course and how I wanted to start my own business.

Why?

Because I was liability. I was a liar and that nobody believed I would actually do it.

A woman from a mental health group who almost derailed all of my progress, looked me in the eye and said "Fran, you are the boy who cried wolf, documented in court case files that say you are a compulsive liar. This bakery business is a fantasy of yours, nothing more. Nothing will come of it. You know that and I know that. Now stop it with this silliness. It's boring. Just accept what you are"

I'll never forget it. I walked out of that place right there and then, screaming with rage and a broken heart. Was that my fate? To be branded? To be doubted? To be left to fend for myself in fantasy land? With no help or hope to nurture the good in me?

So I ran with those words burning in my mind, and I built this beautiful vehicle for change, with the mantra of #positivesovernegatives

Because no-one is a lost cause. No-one is without HOPE (read between the lines my friends)

Because everyone has the ability to do good, to be good and to build a better life.

Welcome to my world, I am The Barker Baker, and I will remember that until the day I die, everything I have done to this day and until my last, I will feel proud for, proud of.

I am a strong, intelligent HONEST woman and nothing will stand in the way of my dreams and my hopes to bring about a dramatic upheaval in offender rehabilitation.

To that woman, you are a fool. The people you are supposed to save, you let wallow, let slip away, through the cracks in the system. I could have thrown it all away that day. So thank you, for making me see exactly what I feared most, that narrow minded fools are the most dangerous people in this world. Not the criminals. The foolish.

So, I am blessed.

With a job I love.

With the people I meet.

With the friends I have.

With the girl I adore.

I hope tonight's film shows you all of that <3

Thank you guys, you've made me..... me.