Mum just sent me our diary of 1990, and after leafing through it for ten minutes I can conclude that I was a very social eight-year-old!
To name but a few hobbies; St John's Ambulance Badger Club, piano lessons, French lessons! Not to mention all my extra-curricular activities, which included parties, barn dances, children's festivals, theatre trips and numerous holidays with both sets of grandparents. I really ought to thank my parents for providing all these fantastic opportunities! I had a better social life then than I do now...
It was a great pleasure to flip through those memories and try to recapture my childhood. I had to ask mum to explain a few entries, things like; Did my parents have to pay for the taxi my sister and myself got to school, when we lived outside the catchment area? What was the 'Easter Eggs-hiliration' we went to on Thursday 5 April?
Many curious entries and many more to explore. I know in the holidays we were always shipped of to grandma Joan, who would usually take us away with my auntie Anita to various YMCA's around the south west. Then we'd go to Swanage at the tail-end of the holidays and stay with dad's parents. Their house was amazing, my grandpa had about four greenhouses dedicated to just about every species of cactus imaginable. He had one huge one (like the ones you see in a Hollywood movie when they're cruising through the desert) that wore comedy fake sun glasses, taking on a personality all of it's own.
Then there was the collection of random videos we watched on rainy days, (I'm presuming some were cast-offs of my dad's and his two brothers), which included; Star Wars (the old ones), Top Cat and The Sound of Music. We'd watch these repeatedly until we knew the characters and songs by heart.
Then there was Grandma's cooking. She's Danish and big on food, so she'd stuff us and then make us eat more and more puddings. But her food was absolutely irresistible! She fed my grandpa so much that he's subsequently had various heart problems resulting in a heart attack. She now over-feeds my uncle's dog. Ziggy is a lurcher and she's supposed to be agile and trim, ready to out-run a hare in a heart beat. Not Ziggy, I could out-run her at a stroll. Poor girl, she just can't resist grandma's fine cuisine. She's got dog-diabetes now. And she's on a dog-diet.
It's not grandma's fault, she comes from a country that loves food and pleasing people with it. But in this day in age it's not the sort of thing you want to promote. Having said that, I'd kill for one of her chocolate crispy bars or a spoonful of her fruit pudding...
I'm so glad my dad has taken on her culinary flare, but at least he's a bit more health conscious with it.
