So, in late November last year, exactly more or less a month before Christmas, I trundled off by myself to Birmingham in order to meet Mick Foley.

And I have intended to write an account of it ever since.

It was bitterly cold that morning, and I was slow and arthritic navigating the icy railway bridge with my bare hands at spooky old deserted Dorchester West station.

I don't travel on trains much because it's expensive and I am broke, and I don't go to conventions and big events with crowds much. In fact, much of my life could be described as mole-like. So this was a big break from my routine, my routine of mole things, like for instance digging new mole corridors and eating worms. I was leaving my comfort zone. I was pushing my envelope. I was literally on the outside of my box.

But I felt it was worth it and had a disproportionate determination about achieving it. I had gloriously failed to meet Mick last April in London because I was stupid. That had made me cross.

But he had written me a letter mentioning he was doing this memorabilia fair.

And I wanted to meet Mick, because I wanted to meet him. I had decided that ages ago. In 2004, the year of gradually becoming engrossed with wrestling (engrossed!), Mick's books... helped to engross me. They were one of the pivotal factors. Pivotal!

Actually looking back, the three major hooks were (in chronological order):

1. SPECTACLE: The spectacle of the early 90s video colours be-tassled Hulkamania era stars and their baroque shouting (see: The Ultimate Warrior Sound Board)

2. IMAGINATION: Mick Foley's imagination as immortalised in his autobiographies, coupled with his ability to make wrestling seem a lot more warm and fun and interesting than it might otherwise have seemed.

3. SHAPE: The startling shape of the angry narcissist Randy Orton: I suspect I have discussed this enough and have nothing more to say about it at present.

But of those three things, the Mick books were... the most encouraging, I suppose. Without them I might have ultimately found the whole thing too alien and off-putting to sustain my interest for very long. I would have been less willing to cast aside my doubts. And in Mick I saw someone I could imagine being friends with. First things first: I had stuff to say to him. So I did say it. In a letter. Loads of enthusiastic candy-coloured non-cynical stuff. Back in the heady days of '04. I didn't have stuff to say to other wrestlers. Even ones I was a fan of. I didn't know what to say to them. I had barely come to terms with the idea that they were actual people and not plastic figments of hazy childhood memory. But with Mick there were potential points of contact, I felt. Of course this sort of thing is always a huge stab in the dark leap of faith type of thing.

I didn't have much indication that he got my first long letter until about six months later when he sent me a sort of a half an email, possibly leaning over his disgruntled son at the computer and demonstrating an unconventional typing style, with a maverick approach to spelling and grammar. And then very very gradually we were sort of kind of pen pals.

(I should add that in handwritten letters Mick's spelling and grammar is better than mine, I think it was typing itself that was the obstacle on that occasion.)

Just before the email, I did meet Mick, in March 2005 at an indie wrestling show in Coventry at one of those trestle tables where wrestlers write their names on things for you with a big black pen. It's a peculiar business. I took a couple of my little strange paintings in a little sad box to see if he showed any recognition or had got my letter. On this occasion the greasy and wobbly wristed wrestler man CM Punk asked me 'What's in the box, Sweet Tit?' He wanted me to draw CM Punk next time sweetie. He referred to himself in the third person. That was the most memorable thing. Then Mick defended my honour and said I was a talented lady. But that could have just been being polite, I didn't make much of that. It's best not to get one's hopes up in these matters.

And... well there were Christmas cards and he sent me the Mr. Socko from his match with Ric Flair at Vengeance 2006. That was a nice thing to be given. It is a sports sock that looks like Ric Flair. It even has a spot of Ric Flair's blood on it. The very stuff of Flair. I'm still not sure how one ought to display such a thing. It is rather inherently flaccid and lacks the ability to show pride in itself. But I was so pleased to be given it. It made me feel selected. And I was able to tell the few people in my life who understood what this meant that I had received a sock soiled with the blood of Flair in the post that morning. And between you and me, I think they were impressed.

(I will get around to photographing the Flair sock. But not tonight.)

So.... returning to the day I arrived at the NEC space station in Birmingham...

I was so frickin' tired. I hadn't slept much, not exactly out of nerves, but just because of having non-mole type stuff to do and having to get up early. But at least I was sleeping in my dad's therapy-dispensing room, packed full of books about how to not be mental, which would always see me through if mentalism struck in the night.

So I got to the NEC, which is like a giant white future star trek place. Then I saw some imperial stormtroopers in the corridor and guessed I was walking in the right direction.

And so then I was in the right hall. I asked the chaps at the wrestling figurines stall if they knew where Mick was, because I thought they might know. They sort of knew only vaguely. (Maybe they were only in the second-hand wrestling figurines business for the money.)

I wasn't sure if he'd be under 'sports' or 'TV'. Anyway, I found him, sort of waved like a nervous mole-woman... (actually I felt oddly like Paddington Bear on a particularly unsexy day), and there was a comparatively massive queue and audience for him, and he came over and hugged me in front of the large crowd. So that was kinda nice but by that time I felt like I might faint from exhaustion, and it was all a bit much for a mole out of water. I hope he won't mind me saying, Mick is a uniquely shaped individual, thus hugging him is a unique experience.

So then I was offered a position at the Foley desk, so I sat next to Mick and watched people get their stuff signed for money and tell him all nice things about him. It was quite fascinating actually. But I was rather inert, rather uncharismatic for one reason and another. In some ways it was a strange circumstance in which to meet a person. And yet it was representative of his life as an already famous person, with the privilege of having people regard him as a sort of birthday treat of a father christmas of an action muppet of a person, worth at least a month's pocket money. But together with that went the responsibility of never not being famous, and always being patient and polite with everyone. As far as I can tell, not all famoes keep this side of the bargain, but Mick was quite principled about it... not only that, he made people feel included and made it fun, which is quite awe inspiringly skilful to a mere mole.

This is what Mick basically looked like from where I was sitting.

His nose is quite strikingly unique in real life, both in its shape and its relative scale.

At one point Mick fed me a protein bar, which was some kind of sweetened stick of stuff with peanuts glued to it, rather agreeable actually, especially to a hungry person with low blood sugar and anaemia. It also had the advantage of being a non-messy food, so I was able to maintain my ladylike demeanour.

Indeed the times we went to the green room for lunch type breaks, I only felt able to consume satsumas, for fear that the cast of Red Dwarf might otherwise witness me squirting mashed tuna across the room. Also because my stomach didn't feel normal and I don't like tuna sandwiches much in the first place.

Here is a minimalist illustration of the satsuma such as the ones I favoured in the green room.

I was concerned also that I'd shunned Craig Charles, as I never went and got the free photo that I'd been offered by him, due to my general terror at seeing myself in photographs, smiling for photographs, and generally the advent of photography.

Mick was one of the most popular 'exhibits' at the whole blasted place, if not literally the most popular. Over at the Dr. Who stand, by contrast, national icon Roger Lloyd Pack was exclaiming 'I'll sign anything!'

Whereas even more treasured and iconic national icon treasure Leslie Philips looked rather small at his little table, hoping to sign copies of his autobiography, 'Hello!'.

I got a bit worried at various points that Mick found me disappointing in comparison to my myspace picture. He said I looked or was different than it. 'Softer' or something. I didn't know if that was in a good or a bad way. I wondered if he had expected some kind of sturdy warrior art goddess, rather than an arthritic pale paddington bear mole. His face is decidedly difficult to read. When I arrived, I didn't quite imagine I'd be given such a privileged spot and be looked after in the way I was. I can't remember now what I had expected. I felt guilty for not being more amazing.

Mick's fans were a jolly nice bunch. They were a jolly diverse bunch, too. It was very nice to sit and watch them all be a bit starstruck and happy. Some ladies in the late autumn of their lives were avid followers of WWE's Attitude Era, it turns out. And some little children who weren't born when Mick was in his peak wrestling years were aficionados of his career through the miracle of the DVD. One lady who chose the bloodiest of the the available photographs to be autographed turned out to be a 'gorelesque' performer, mixing burlesque and blood and bloodyness and general blooding. Mick sad he often wondered about the fans who chose the bloody picture. Then again, he was the person doing the original and iconically copious bleeding.

My friend Scott, who has ME, wanted me to try to get a signed picture of Joe Frazier for him. He gave me some money for the purpose. I found Joe Frazier a bit less than approachable-seeming. He was wearing a gold suit and a crazy face and charging quite a lot for his signed pictures. I dithered. I was feeling quite shy. Mick noticed how shy I was in real life. In the end he helped me out with the Frazier situation. He sent a note to Joe explaining that Scott was ill and mentioning magic secret celebrity codewords. The upshot was that we scored a free quite large signed picture of Joe Frazier, and it even said 'Get well soon Scott' on it. When I did give the picture to Scott at his house later that day, he was quite pleased with it. In fact he behaved as though it was the best thing anyone had ever been given in the history of gift giving.

Here's the Joe Frazier picture in pride of place above Scott's bed.

I guess that incident was pretty unremarkable from Mick's point of view among the rich anecdote-bearing tapestry of his life in show-business. But it did mean so much to us.

I took some photos but my sister might have deleted them. It doesn't matter, because I've probably got enough of the point across in words and drawings. Also I went to meet Mick, not to take photos.

So this is me recreating the time Superman posed for me. (Somewhere near the great sky-satsuma, evidently.)

When I had to finally leave on the second day, Mick walked me to the escalator, following a mooch round a quite disappointing Christmas Fayre with Sandra the playboy lady but without mulled wine or much that was Christmassy. I had mentioned something about people hanging intestines up on trees in Pagan times. Mick thought I was making it up. I'm sure I heard that somewhere. That was a little burst of improbable disgustingness that broke my general pattern of shy cautiousness in the conversations we'd managed. Mick was constantly being stopped to pose for photographs, so conversations were interrupted. I wasn't accustomed to this. In fact this happened at the very moment I ascended the escalator, possibly with my arse too much on display.

Maybe I'll think of other stories from this adventure which are suitable for mass consumption, but I've written enough for now.