Hello and welcome to episode six of Out with Susie Ruffle. I hope you are doing really well today.

We are still in lockdown here in the UK, so again I'm coming to you from my little studio slash massive cupboard.

It's such a strange time and I'm finding it very up and down.

On the whole I've been fine, but for some reason this week felt tough. I'm really missing my family and

friends and I'm missing doing stand-up. I mean who knows when I'll be able to do

that again. I'm mentioning this because this podcast is really giving my weeks a sense of structure and achievement

so I want to thank you for listening. I'm so chuff that I'm managing to pay

out a show every week some pre-recorded before all of this and some have been recorded down the line, which

is text speak for over the internet, which I learned last week.

It's not just me, of course, it's the whole team at Keep It Like Media and especially Michael my

producer so thanks to those guys too. I've received lots of messages and email

saying this pod is helping you through lockdown so thank you for that. As ever if you'd like to get

in touch the email is hello at out with suey ruffle.com and please do rate review and

share I know I sound like a broken record but I have to say it every

week. Right on with the show. As always we start with some stories from our

wonderful listeners. The first one today is from Alex and it's just beautiful.

I grew up in a fairly liberal household in the West Midlands with a bit of a quirky family arrangement,

several divorces, remarriages as well as a few adoptions. So my family have always

been fairly open to slightly more modern ideas., I went to a very conservative independent Christian school

from the age of three to 16, which was where I was taught about morals that guided my childhood and early teens. I never really knew what gay was but

in hindsight clearly had huge crushes on my male friends at the time.

Despite the fact I was nearly always hanging around with the girls.

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