Wednesday 2 July 2008

Homely memories!

I found this great meme over at Dirt and Rocks. It's all about those memories that you have of all the places that you've ever lived! The aim is to write down five of those memories for each place and then go and tag a bunch of others to do the same! (warning, this blog post is longer than you might expect - grab a cup of tea and put your feet up!!)

Mum and Dad's place
  • The gorgeous white flowers on the magnolia in the garden.
  • Escaping into the woods at the back of house to swing across the stream hanging on to the oldest bit of rope you ever saw!
  • Getting spooked whilst upstairs in this hundreds of years old house and being convinced that if I looked behind me at that moment I would see something I'd rather not (and then hastily running downstairs without daring to look!)
  • Having an indoor firework party with my friends when I was about ten, of course, being indoor fireworks, they weren't really very much to look at!
  • And there's all those Christmases that we had over the years!
Boarding School
  • Racing to be first in the showers in the morning as there were never enough to go around!
  • Flipping pancakes with classmates at our tutors house.
  • Tugging off the school tie just as soon as 4pm rolled around! (And then going to enjoy tea and cakes before settling down to homework, or prep as it's called at boarding schools!)
  • Being a Jet in the school production of West Side Story (even if I was a boy as there weren't enough of those to go around!! So I couldn't wear any of those great floaty dresses :-(
  • Going on a 'date' and wearing rollerskates so that he couldn't possibly do anything I didn't want him to!!
University Halls
  • That stupid fire alarm that insisted on going off in the wee hours of the morning, of course, it was usually someone trying to do cheese on toast having just come back from the nightclub!
  • Trying to write a draft of my dissertation overnight and feeling very ill in the morning with tiredness.
  • My brother once came over from his University to spend the weekend with me and he brought nothing (!) with him, and I mean nothing useful - no clean clothes, no toothbrush, no nothing!! I don't think that his wife would allow him to do anything remotely like that now!
  • Going to London on a charity fundraising jaunt (Yes, I was a chugger - sorry!) and standing there looking like a lemon trying to get people to put money in my charity pot!! (did you know that it was, probably still is, illegal to actually shake the money pot as that constitutes asking for money which you're not allowed to do!)
  • And then of course there is Graduation Day, which was a bit of an embarrassment in itself cos the guy we all had shake hands with insisted on stopping me half way across the stage and having a bit of a conversation with me!! (something to do about how well I did on my course in spite of my disability - urgh how patronising!)
University Halls on Erasumus exchange programme (Denmark)
  • Getting almost weekly post from Mum and Dad full of news from home.
  • Celebrating my birthday with fellow students at a surprise party!! (I was the only student having a birthday during this particular exchange programme)
  • Not being able to go shopping because the shops always closed early on Saturdays in this country and I never quite got used to it!
  • I remember being quite staggered that the guy in the room next door had a piano in his dorm room - I don't think that anyone in the UK would ever bring a piano to University unless they were music students, still, I suppose that did show just how different the Danish are!
  • Seeing the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen and being quite surprised at how small she is!
Shared House at First Ever Job Location
  • Rather unfriendly housemates.
  • Watching said housemates Karma Sutra video when they were away!! Teehee - it was rather educational!
  • Being locked out one Sunday evening after a weekend away, fortunately a very kindly colleague who lived locally put me up for the night.
  • Trying not to get hosed by the local garage engineer as he said that the engine in my car was clapped out and I need a whole new one! Fortunately I had the intelligence to go and speak to Mum and Dad's local garage bloke who we trusted and he said that the engine was just fine! (tch - trying to pick on a young woman who doesn't know the first thing about cars!!)
  • I remember that it was here that I very first hung washing outside on the line and getting that feeling of a good job done and how nice it was see all those clothes flapping about in the sunshine!
Studio (okay, Granny flat) still at Location of First Job
  • It had the tiniest kitchen you've ever seen, but more than compensated for with an enormous sitting room.
  • The landlords had the craziest dog - all bark but very definitely no bite!
  • Getting "caught out" half way between home and work and making the split-second decision to go back home and dash for the loo instead of attempting to carry on to work!!
  • I attempted to stencil wisteria on my bedroom walls but got rather bored with it and left it looking a bit straggly and in need of some good fertiliser!
  • I remember that I was nearly always late for work because I could never quite work out what time to get up in order to catch the traffic just right for the half hour journey to work!!
Bedsit near Second Job
  • A very strange landlady who spent most of the year in hospital with some fictitious ailment.
  • The same landlady wouldn't change the lightbulb over the stairs and was very impressed that I did so without flinching!
  • Landlady grew stranger still and told me to tidy my bedroom! WTF - you're not my mother!
  • Going to a party hosted by the landlady, this wouldn't normally be a striking memory, but said landlady and her friends were all black and I was the only white person in the room - it was quite an eye opener as to how it felt to be the odd person out.
  • Oh.....the heating in the house!? Even in the height of summer, she had to have the heating on full blast - it drove me crazy and I wonder just how expensive her bills were!
Shared House near Third Job
  • Painting my bedroom purple and sleeping on a mattress until I could afford a proper bed!
  • Getting my bed - a flat-pack jobbie and then putting it together all by myself!! I seem to have a knack for putting together flatpack stuff without too much hassle!
  • Getting all annoyed with a housemate for doing things like leaving the fridge door open, or leaving the milk on the side - that kind of thing still bugs me!!
  • Volunteering with the local Brownie pack and being ever so nervous on my first evening with them as I had no idea what the girls would be like or whether they'd even like me! ;-)
  • Putting in an offer on a house nearby and then ever so gently withdrawing my offer when I discovered that the house was quite rotten and didn't have planning permission for the extension! And it's a good job too as I think that I would have had quite the albatross on my hands even now, about six years later!
First House near Third Job
  • The sheer pleasure of owning my very own house, even though the bank actually owns most of it!! ;-)
  • Watching a horror film (can't even remember the title now) on my own and having to stop the video about three times so that I could get my equilibrium back before watching the rest of it!!
  • Struggling to mow the lawn as I'd left it to grow far too long because I hate mowing the lawn! (which why I got rid of the lawn in my present house and now have a gorgeous patio!)
  • Enjoying evenings at home with my bestest friend M, whilst eating pizza, drinking wine and watching chick films! (no, not that kind - I mean stuff like "How to lose a guy in ten days")
  • Oh...here's one...I remember sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of money as I tried to work out the Brownie subs and expenses and which bit should get put where in the accounting book - it was a nightmare!! (especially as I could never keep the receipts all neat and tidy like accountants would!)
Second (and present) Home near Fourth Job
  • Practically deciding to buy the house about five minutes after walking in the door and wondering what the hell I'd just done!!
  • Loving the feel of a brand new house that no-one else has ever lived in before and knowing that there are no surprises behind the cooker or anywhere else!
  • Getting a cat and then when she disappears overnight a few weeks later, I remember I was so distraught and worried that she'd been run over!! (of course, she just sauntered in in the morning meowing for some food!)
  • Staying in bed on Saturdays when there's no earthly reason to have to get up before midday.
  • And then there's the time that Dad shut the door early and locked us out (I don't think that he'd ever heard me say those particular words before!) and it took a van and a ladder and a torn t-shirt to get us back into the house through a window that was open (luckily!) upstairs.

And that's is - a potted history of the places that I've lived and what memories I can manage to dredge up about them all! (and it took rather longer than I expected!) I don't know who to tag for this, but if you fancy doing it, just let me know so that I can be incredibly nosy and see what you have to say!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I feel I know you much better now!

Brigindo said...

Oh I love yours...isn't it a fun meme to do? I'm still coming up with new memories for a lot of my old homes.

Nic said...

Wow! some memories!!! I was just this minute telling DH about my childhood wish to live on a tiny island and camp, a La Famous Five, and there you go!