Five Things Friday

I saw this on another blog and thought it was a good idea…so let’s see how long it lasts.

When I post on a Friday (because it really would be wrong to promise to blog every Friday) I will discuss 5 things…if possible on a theme.  A bit like Julies (From Inmates to Playdates blog) ‘What I learned this week’ but different.

This week: Childhood Edition

Favourite Childhood Toy:

If we are talking my favourite toy for a finite amount of time it would have to be a little bean teddy I had when very small.  This little teddy might as well have been attached to me because it went everywhere; so much so that it needed washing regularly and the only way I would allow it to be washed was for mum to makeshift teddy cover to put the beans in so I could cuddle it’s innards while it’s skin was washed.  Even so, I sat in front of the washing machine waiting for it to be washed, or so I am told.  I wonder how she explained that the teddy stayed alive when it was essentially split in two.

I gave the teddy away for a good cause when I was 6.  After my sister had thrown it in a potty of pee and being traumatised by that, so much so that I ripped the head of her bean doggy! Though the decapitation was during a scuffle so that doesn’t count and by no means as heinous a crime as drowning my teddy in pee!  Mum and Dad told me about all the children that didn’t get birthday presents from their parents or many Christmas presents because their parents couldn’t afford to send many to Santa.  I was distraught at this and always trying to be fair and empathetic asked mum and dad to wash teddy and send it to Santa so some other child could enjoy it’s love – I know, I was cute then.

Anyhoo, said teddy lived on top of the wardrobe until I was 8 just in case I ever cried and cried for teddy to come back.

If we are talking favourite toys of all time, then that would have to be books – always has been and always will be.  If you can’t find me and come searching, you will find me with my head buried in a book (or Kindle or iPad – because you know, I am not discriminatory).  I have spent more money on books that possibly anything else; well, except shoes.

Favourite Childhood Song:

Without a shadow of a doubt this will be “Hey Mickey” by Toni – released in 1982.  Those were the days when we had tape players with a red record button and I drove my parent’s nuts singing that song.  Also the neighbours….when holding a variety concert in the front garden one summer day.  How thoughtful they must have been because I am tone deaf and who wants to listen to a 10 year old sing into a hairbrush in the front garden but there must have been 20 people there watching my sister and I bop around the garden.

Favourite Childhood Memory:

Many many of these…..

From each and every Christmas that mum and dad made so special, to rollerblading down our street on Christmas Day, to enjoying every Sunday afternoon watching Tom & Jerry while mum cooked Sunday Lunch, eating lunch, watching The Love Boat before having a bath just in time to watch The Muppets before bed.

But my favourites are our holidays to St. Ives – 6 years in a row and the best bits were leaving at midnight to drive down the country and miss most of the traffic.  Dad took the first shift and mum used to take over the driving at 3am and I used to stay awake with her sat in the front of the car to “help her stay awake” – those times were special, watching the sunrise while we drove down the quiet motorways just talking and catching up.

Favourite Childhood Crush:

I have to say even now I can be rather indiscriminate so it’s hardly surprising that I didn’t settle on one crush when I was a youngster. 

All 4 bedroom walls were covered from the ceiling to the tops of my furniture with photos of Duran Duran and Wham – Simon Le Bon and George Michael were the one’s I fancied.  Not being one to settle for things in the same place for very long, those posters were moved about the room to ‘look better’ just as much as my bedroom furniture was.

Most Afraid of in Childhood:

Dogs.  When you get bitten through the top of your nose when you are two by a HUGE sheepdog you tend to shy away from dogs after that.  In fact, the sheepdog wasn’t that big; being only 6 months old but being only 2, it was as big as me! Let’s face it everything is BIG at that age.

I had grown up with the fluff bag from the minute a friend and neighbour fetched it home. Dad was in the army so pets were a luxury amongst our friends.  When all the adults played badminton and ate the alcoholic ice-pops my dad was known for making outside the flats we lived in the dog and I became best friends.  We were ‘me and my shadow’ and I treat that dog with ‘kid gloves’ as it were.  Mum and Dad had taught me to be very gentle with the dog and that is what I was, so the day he turned round and bit me without provocation the owners put the dog down on the vet’s advice.  I know it was for the best but even now….so sad.

Anyhoo, then I wouldn’t go near dogs and would cross the street if I saw a dog, would cry if you took me near one.  When dad left the army and they bought our house (which they still live in to this day) there was opportunity to try and get me over this fear. 

They took me to a house where there were a litter of Jack Russell puppies.  Their thought process being that the breed only grows to shin height and a puppy may teach me to get over the fear of dogs.  I wanted the little girl but she was sold but then a little boy crawled up my leg and sat chewing my hair – must have liked the taste of Vosene.  That was it, my heart melted.  Mum carried him home in her coat that night with his little head poking out above the zip.

It worked, Bobby and I were inseparable from the minute we fetched him home for 14 years until he passed away.  I still crossed the road to get away from big dogs until Bobby was 6 though….

So what are your favourite 5 childhood memories?