The Beginning...

Excuse me while I get on the blog-wagon. Everyone's doing it, so why not me? Weeell... maybe because I don't have anything particularly inspiring to say, or particularly funny. Ahem. Anyway, you don't have to read it.

Today's weather (thunder, lightning and general storminess) is quite serendipitous given the topic of today's blog - my earliest memories.

Let's begin at the beginning - my very first memory. Until I was four years old, we lived in a white two story house at the bottom of the world's steepest driveway. Anyway, that's not important to the story really, just setting the scene... One stormy day, my sister Stacey (of KendylsPlace fame) and I decided to take our stopwatches outside (everyone had a stopwatch when they were little didn't they?) and measure the time between thunder and lightning to see how far away the storm was. Or was it the time between lightning and thunder? Either way, there we were measuring with our stopwatches, when the first drops of rain began to fall. Mum quickly opened the ranch slider door and called us in - probably worried that if she left us out there we would be struck by lightning. Most likely.

Mum says this memory never happened.

Another memory from living at this house was the first and last dog we ever owned. Spike. He looked something like this:

But maybe a bit different. One day we went to go for a walk and when we got to the top of the steepest driveway, Dad untied Spike so that he could come with us. At the top of the driveway was a road. Spike was just so excited to be coming with us, he bounded all the way up the steepest driveway, but he didn't stop. He ran right on to that road, and was promptly run over by a taxi. Or not a taxi, maybe just a regular car. We buried him under a tree in the back yard.

Maybe I made some of this up (I don't have very good information recall after all) but we did have a dog called Spike. And he definitely got run over. And something about having blood on his nose. Ask Mum.

But here's one I know is definitely true. And I know it's true, because my sister remembers it too (unintentional rhyming). We - Stacey (eight years old) and I (four years old) - were in the garage with our neighbours, a boy and a girl, doing some dancing. The boy held me by the hands and spun me round and round and round and round. So there I was, having the greatest time... and he let me go. I was spectacularly airborne. Until I wasn't anymore. SMASH. I came into direct contact with a tin of paint, right on the bridge of my honker. Ouch. This is the part of this memory Mum says never happened - I sat on the bench in the kitchen, in my denim overall dress, probably wearing my Mary-Jane's, with my hair in pigtails, crying my poor four year old eyes out, blood caking under my fingernails. It's a very traumatic experience you know. Then I went to the hospital and got about 20 stitches (okay, I concede, maybe it was five). I've got a scar now - my only one. If you were to come right up to my face and have a real good look, you'd see it. It's the reason my nose looks funny... one of the reasons.

Next time: Heartwarming Nicknames from my childhood.