Special Guest Blogger: Saint Perpetua

When you think of people with famous diaries you probably thinking Samuel Pepys, Virginia Woolf and Bridget Jones but i was the first diarist in recorded history, keeping a record of my hopes, dreams, and fears and how my slave Felicity and i spent the time in a Roman prison along with four other people awaiting execution for the crime of being Christians which in 2nd Century Rome made us about as popular as a floater in the public baths.
Our arrests took place as part of a larger persecution of Christians in the years 202-203 under the emperor Septimus Severus.
I was a new mother and nursed my newborn son while awaiting execution but Felicity was initially exempted from the death penalty because she was pregnant and it was against the law to kill a pregnant woman, torture was fine but you couldn't kill one, but two days before we were due to be put to death, she gave birth and so was then allowed to join in the fun and games of being executed.
At the trial, my father publicly begged me to recant my faith, he actually raised such a ruckus that he was beaten by the guards for disturbing the hearing but the governor sentenced us all to death by wild beasts.  
The men were dispatched by leopards, bear, and wild boar, but the powers that be ordained that the animal that should do for Felicitas and i, us being women, was a cow.
On the day of our execution, we were first whipped and then led into an amphitheater, where a heifer charged at us and knocked us around a bit but amidst a lot of the cow mooing and pooing, the Governor decided it was taking too long so decided to quicken proceedings by lopping off our heads instead.
I made a speech about how by executing Christians, it meant our God and his followers were victorious although to everyone else, being ripped apart by leopards and bears was more of a defeat and i'm sure some asked if your god is so great, how come you’re head is about to be rolling across the amphitheater floor?
Poor old Felicity was first and her execution went smoothly but i had the village idiot doing mine and he missed so in the time honoured tradition of it you want something doing, don't ask a man, just do it yourself, i grabbed the man’s hand and guided the sword to my own neck.
Not enough that i winded up revolutionizing literature by inventing the diary, Felicity and i are the patron saint of lesbian couples which is ironic because we were probably the women with the biggest cajones in history.