Tag Archives: memories

My any year diary

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On a horrible, rainy, cold, early Autumn Sunday, I’ve had a right old cringe-chuckle diving into the box of diaries and old letters we found in the recent loft clear out. There is so much evidence of the laugh riot I was growing up, but in case you still had doubts, a couple of tasty morsels from my any year diary;

April 6th, 1978

Woke up. Sam had to do all the washing up. Started my school needlework (what a mess). Sarnies for lunch. Had my haircut. It’s really short. Ugh. Washed my hair, looks nicer. Read. Peeled spuds. Dad did some of our rockery. Mash, liver, bacon, peas, jelly. Watched TV. Patchwork. Read in bed. A lovely sunny day but rather windy.

The same day, a year later, I went to the Tennis Club Disco with the two Mandys and Claire. Sparing you the ‘woke up’ and what I ate routine, the disco took an exciting turn;

It was quite good. This boy danced with Mandy three times. His name is Peter. She gave us a lift home. Bed.

I (I think I) started to mix it up a bit, the third year. For example; a formal declaration of my diet intentions glued to the inside cover;

Hilarious. With a bucketful of cringe. And nosh of course.

“Dear Wilbur…”

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Rosie and Owen said they’d sort out the clutter in the loft today. They pulled everything out of cupboards into a huge mess of stuff (and more stuff). When I got back from work we sorted through it.

Well.

What a load of rubbish. And memories.

A few (of so many) highlights; my Kate Bush fan club card, 500 francs from the Central African Republic, a load of charcoal life drawings, my autograph book (including Arthur Askey and Daley Thompson), old school textbooks covered in waxed paper and an old laptop we decided to keep for comedy value. The LOL Laptop as it was renamed.

Then there was my battered old case of birthday cards and letters. We chucked the cards. Well apart from 18th and 21st birthdays. And handmade ones from the kids.

Various diaries also turned up spanning several years. Didn’t realise I was such a diarist to be honest.

“OMG Mum, you’re so lame..” muttered Rosie, leafing through them. “Woke up. Washed my hair. Walked to school…Watched Angels, went to bed…”

1982 quickly became the favourite. From March 2nd, I started writing it as though I was writing to a mate from my old school.  I’ll save the details for another day other than to say this shift meant there were a lot of exclamation marks and I signed off entries “TTFN, Sara!”  On May 5th I switched to writing to an imaginary person, ‘Wilbur’, ending each entry with “Well that’s about it for now! Sara.” By the end of May, I reverted back to type. Thank goodness.

Rosie read out several entries, howling with laughter. Then we got back on with the job. Head first in dirty boxes.

“OMG Mum. Stamps!!! You.were.a.stamp collector?????”

Nuff said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching up with Good Debbie

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Good Debbie and I met up in London today.  For the first time in about five years, 23 years after the overland trip. It took a while to actually meet, as she waited outside the English National Opera while I was outside the National Opera House, but eventually we met up.

It was a lovely, lovely early Autumn day. Covent Garden was bustling with people making the most of a sneaky bit of sunshine. We wandered about, chatted, noshed on Mexican food in Wahaca, chatted and laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed. A lot of chat was remembering the truck adventures.

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Harry Potter and the Dumbledouble* scandal

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Ok, starting with a hands up that I ain’t read any of the HP books or seen any of the films. I am surrounded by people who have and have (Richy Rich excluded).  Anyway this (for me) very topical post came about because during a big lunchtime discussion about HP yesterday, I mentioned that one of the Hometowny ‘burb characters (see Chicken bone man) was in the first HP film. Rosie had met him ten years ago when he opened their new primary school building.

This caused some considerable disbelief around the table and led to one person, in particular, lets call him Adam, questioning the veracity of the tales I tell more generally. I’ll let a section of the long facebook discussion that followed fill in the next bit of the story;

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