Hurl, Interrupted.

Although I barely remember the actual event itself I can regale this tale of a precocious five year old me as if I were watching it from the many times my mother has told it to my friends whilst trying to humiliate me. Little does she know, being the dramatic character that I am, that I actually revel in this story.

It was an ordinary school day, I was five years old and my mother had arrived at the school gates to pick me up. I have no doubt my mothers outfit was something hellish which disturbed the other mothers and PTA members. She once turned up in purple snakeskin trousers with matching top and a mass of hair that resembled Kate Bush. As she stood there chain smoking my head teacher ran out to the gates shouting my mothers name with an urgency that deeply worried my mother. She followed my head teacher inside and to her delight saw me putting on a most wonderful rendition of 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' I was prancing and flailing upon a table with an audience. Very out of the character for the shy child who only performed such hits when undertaking the dusting at home with mother as we so often did.

I wasn’t always a cynical depressive with a dry sense of humour. Although an image of my five year old self speaking and acting the way I do now greatly amuses me.

So here is a little background information. I was born into an army family, for the first three years of my life I travelled up and down although I do not recall any of this nomadic lifestyle. Finally at around age four we settled in one place, mostly so I didn’t have to repeat my mothers education of 15 plus schools. I had a wonderful countryside childhood, with doting parents and a loving family. It was when we settled that I met my best friend. It wont spoil anything to let you know that 20 years later she is still my best friend and will no doubt pop up in many of my stories.

Throughout my time at school I was known as the class ‘skiver’ This was in large part due to my eccentric grandmother. An absolute snob, i distinctly remember her pronunciation of the word vegetables in the correct manner, veg-e-tables. She implored the use of correct cutlery which I would later thank her for. Particularly as on the many days she plucked me from school she would take me to expensive hotels for afternoon tea, it was here I would marvel at the shining silver, the huge chandeliers, racks of tiny sandwiches and cemented my adoration for chocolate fudge cake. As well as being taken out for afternoons of fine dining my Nanna would often appear early in the morning insisting we go to national trust properties and stately homes as they were far more educational than school. Its no surprise I enjoyed history when I eventually did turn up to classes. Enough about Nanna, she will appear again I am sure of it. But for your imagination and the time being i will say she was not dissimilar to Joan Collins.

At secondary school I floated through fairly unnoticed. Frizzy hair and a gap tooth but all my friends were farmers I had known since I was four so there wasn’t too much judgement from them. I was a good student and enjoyed school. At age 15 I became very ill and after months of blood tests and cat scans it was determined I had depression. Quite literally the last thing I could have imagined at the time. The majority of my symptoms were physical, I had a loving family, enjoyed my time at school and had lots of wonderful friends. It just didn’t add up. But more about that later.

After this, came boys.