Today is my birthday and there has been a lot of talk about me “knocking on 30”, “getting old” and “going grey” so as I slip ungraciously one year closer to the big THREE OH, it got me thinking about this.

I realize that your 30th birthday is supposed to be the marker for entering middle age, the benchmark for the onset of the “mid-life crisis”, the end of an era, or whatever and most my (*ahem* older) friends have approached the day with a sense of dread. With a growing apprehension that could not be articulated that apparently set in around their 27th birthday. As one friend pointed out to me you “It’s like you leave the safety zone of your “mid-twenties” and can now only wear the label “late-twenties” and it’s admitting your growing up” I have none of these fears, I can’t wait to grow old (I’m never growing up), and not just 30 old, I’m talking O.A.P old!!

My 20’s have been fun and my 30’s are definitely going to be, and I’m sure will my 40’s will be, but it’s when I turn 60 and I’m nearly grey the fun will really start. I have a whole list of things that bug the shit out of me that the older generation are guilty of now, that I can’t wait for my turn to inflict on others.

I can’t wait to receive my free bus pass and knowing full well it doesn’t come into effect until 09:30am stand at the bus stop from 09:15 arguing with the drivers who wont let me on early so delaying the bus sufficiently to make all the poor saps on their way to work late. Once on the bus I will presume its my god given right to sit on your lap if there is nowhere else to sit, and pretend I don’t notice I’m invading your personal space while I’m leaning all over you discussing the weather, or talking at the top of my voice about the “youth of today” and the “noise they make” drowning out any conversations any one else may be trying to conduct with a “noise” of my own.

I will refuse to hold doors open while in shops for anyone entering behind me, but will tut and shake my head when they are not held for me. I will talk to babies in prams who quite clearly don’t want to be talked to making their parents feel awkward about asking me to move. I will smell of mints (not piss not even I can stretch it that far) I will never say please or thank you, and I will chew food with my mouth open because I obviously forgot what manners were in my old age. I will blame my hearing lose when I chose to ignore something I didn’t really want to hear and blame my memory loss, not the fact I’m a cheapskate, when I forget to send you a birthday card.

So all this considered I can’t wait to be a rude and cantankerous ungracious O.A.P. I realise I’m guilty of most of these things already but as I grow older I can do it blame free!!

I remember the first time I had to change schools. Most kids stay in the same primary/junior school to the age of 11 when they saunter off into the big bad world of secondary education to be let loose on society, succumb to peer pressure and fall in with bad crowds. I on the other hand was a lot younger.

It was 1985 and I was 4 years old and until that point had been attending “Ashmore Park Nursery” the local nursery school, and I was happy. I had friends at school and at home I was wrapped in bubble of perfect family life with a mom, a dad and a baby sister, which lets face it is all a 4 year girl old really needs, loving parents and a baby to play dolly with. Then early one January morning I was rudely awoken while it was still dark outside whisked off to my aunts house and put back to sleep in a huge bed, bigger than the one I was used to sleeping in. I remember thinking it was some big adventure I sat awake for a while listening to the noises drifting in from outside. There was people coming and going and a hum of activity I knew something big was happening but at 4 I had no idea just quite how life changing that hive activity was for me!

At some point in the night, probably no more than a few minutes after being put there (but at that age it felt like forever) I fell back to sleep and woke the next morning to world drastically altered from the one I knew the day before.

I can’t remember much of that day except at some point my mom appeared looking disheveled, tired and wrought with emotion and I was ushered into the lounge from the kitchen/diner and told to sit down. The details of the conversation elude me but the basics of it stuck with me forever “Daddy was poorly last night, we had to take him to hospital and now he’s gone to live with the angels up in heaven.”.

I can’t remember much of the weeks that followed, unsurprisingly I can’t even remember what happened next that day. I have a vague recollection of going to stay with my Nan and Grandad, and not going home for a long time, but long in a 4 year olds terms and long now at 26 are surely 2 different things so it may have only been for a week or two rather than the months it felt, and lots of people crying. In fact I only really have 3 events that stick in my mind from that period of time 1. Having to move house, My mom didn’t want to stay in the house she’s shared with my dad as it was too tough for her to deal with the memories so we moved, 2. Going out with my Mom and “Uncle” (he doesn’t like being called uncle now I think it makes him feel old) Peter to buy bunkbeds as a bribe to convince me that it was a good idea to move house “because now you get to share a room with your baby sister and you get a cool new bed” and 3. Starting a new school closer to the new house.

My new school, Danesmore Park, was just around the corner from us, my garden at the new house backed onto the playground it was that close and I remember being able to hear the school bells and the children playing on the playground from my bedroom. Although I can’t remember if we’d actually moved into that house or were still living at my Grandparents waiting to move in on my first day there, I do know exactly what happened in my first 10 minutes after walking through the door.

I can’t work out if the apprehension I felt about starting there was nervous or excited energy, or more likely a bit of both but I walked through the door into the entrance hall and took my coat off, my Mom hovered in the background whilst my new teacher, Mrs Whitehouse (who was also the blonde kids first teacher when he started at the same school many years later) showed me my coat peg and ushered me through the doorway and into the classroom. A sea of faces looked up at me from the book corner where they were sitting waiting for the register and I remember feeling a little out of place until I spotted one familiar face in all those expectant smiles. Hayley Foster.

Her family lived half a dozen doors away from my Grandparents and while I’d been staying there dealing with the aftermath of my fathers death we’d struck up a friendship, We would often play in her, or my grandparents gardens building castles out clothes racks and old blankets, or colouring in pictures sharing our pencil crayons and arguing over the black one. I always insisted on starting my pictures with the black first, this really frustrated Hayley as every self respecting 4 year old knows you use the black last! I homed in on that girl like a heat seeking missile and announced to my teacher, my mom and anyone else that would listen I’m going to sit by HER, pointing at Hayley.

Once registration was over I followed Hayley over to her table to start our day, sat down and in that instant set a precedent that would last a lifetime I introduced myself to everyone around that table and proceeded on to the rest of the class. Even now in any work or social situation if there is somebody I don’t know in the room/at our table I feel compelled to introduce myself and find out at least their name within the first 15 minutes of being in their company I’m sure some psychologist would point out it was some kind of defense mechanism for detracting my fears of being accepted or some such nonsense I just call it being friendly!

I have no idea what happened for the rest of that day, in fact I don’t think I even have anymore real memories of that year or the next of school. It’s funny how selective your memory can be, I didn’t even realise I remembered that much about starting at Danesmore until recently when I started talking to the blonde kid about starting his new school and it seemed to open a flood gate and it all came rushing back.

Jordan, until this summer had also been attending Danesmore Park, although he started there even younger than I was, attending the Mother and Toddler group first and then joining the nursery, where he made a group of friends that would be in every class with him for the next 5 years. He can’t remember most of this. His passage into this school wasn’t marked by anything as traumatic as a death in the family nor did we have any of the usual anxiety of “Will he make friends?, Settle in o.k?” as he already knew a good 75% of the children and was familiar with his surroundings from the Mother and Toddler group. He relished being in school using his time there as an opportunity not only to learn new skills but also to socialize and soak up all the deluge of new experiences being thrust in his direction. It was a perfect introduction into the education system. It’s a shame the council can’t see how important these foundations are when they storm in and close schools down.

So they’ve closed Danesmore and for the first time in his life Jordan has had to go into a situation that he was not 100% familiar with all by himself. He has started a new school, and It’s got me to wondering, What memories he will take away with him from this transitional period??

Luckily for him there are 4 other children in his class that he’d attended Danesmore with so he didn’t turn up on the first day all by himself with no clue to how he was going to get through the day, So I can’t see him looking back on the first day and remembering a feeling of dread of stepping into the unknown.

Maybe his only memory will be of the girl in his class who on the first day said she fancied him and “I didn’t even know her name!”. Maybe it will be of the teacher, Mr Tennant, who was rather bemused when a small blonde boy approached him on the first day and asked “Do you play Dr Who?” and replied “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to play that ask one of the others!”. Obviously he’s not update with popular television so not seeing the logic of a 7 year old putting 2 and 2 together and it being a natural assumption that when your new teacher has the same name as a the actor who at the same time is playing your most “favourite t.v character EVER” they could quite possibly be one and the same. Maybe it will be of the flowers the teachers had given all new pupils to welcome them into the school, they had quite an influx of new students with the closure of danesmore from parents who like me didn’t want to send them to the local authorities idea of an alternative.

Or maybe in 20+ years time, he’ll be keeping a blog all of his own and be recounting his first day in school in his new school in much more detail like I just have while sitting wondering what his children will remember about their first day at school.

I was going to blog about the blonde kids first few days at his new school but it seemed like a mammoth task by the time I actually sat down in front of the computer so instead you get this. You get to hear me complain about the lurgy. The pangs, the pains and general suffering of this neurotic 26 – nearly 27 *sobs* year old.

I’m ill. It’s after 3pm on a lovely sunny afternoon and I’ve just (well 20 minutes ago) got back out of bed, I’ve slept, taken pills and then slept some more…

It started when I woke yesterday morning with a dizzy incoherent sickly spaced out feeling, accompanied by a headache which kind of improved over the course of the day. It progressed overnight so I woke this morning with a full family of wood peckers inside my head, pecking away at my eyes from the inside trying to find an escape route. My head felt like my brain was trying to force it’s way through my sinuses. My body aches and is alternating between wanting to expel my stomache through the nearest available orifice and feeling weak and sick with hunger. Not that I’m actually hungry – I have eaten my body just doesn’t feel like it has!

So I’m off work. I was yesterday and again today and the only plus side I can find is I got to supervise the construction of my new blog. It’s something I’ve been wanting to get around to doing for ages and Jamhead (that’s James to everyone else) promised to help me with the move from the old site to here. Mainly because he’s better at these things than me and in part because I was too damn lazy to do it myself.

So yesterday in my weakened state from a chair by his side he worked hard to import all my old posts while I sat and bitched and whined about it not working right ( not that I’d actually tried it out at that point) it not looking right (my own fault for choosing a theme that needed lots of tinkering) and it not being fair that I felt ill (something he really had no control over) but bless his heart. He sat and listened and placated and cajoled me into a better place and build my blog, all the while striving to complete his own work at the same time.

So this is our home for the foreseeable future. What do you think? I will redecorate at some point with a new banner all of my own making – or maybe  using this one as a base. I will get round to adding all my links and working on my “about” page, but for now “it’ll do” as all my energy needs to be spent getting well again!!

For six weeks every summer there is a little know species that takes over the streets of the U.K. they roam in packs hunting food, friends and fun like wolves in the wild. The survival of the fittest is the way of the world with those with superior personalities
having the greater impact on the social circle of these wondering things. They come in all different shapes and sizes. Any age boundaries built up during the course of the rest of the year are broken down as they mingle freely….the name of this species “Humanous Youngous”.

They are built to be omnivores although some at the insistence of there family groups do become herbivore and forgo the delights of meat and it seems for the last 3 weeks of this 6 week period a good proportion of these beings could be found frequenting my house……

I think I fell asleep one night and awoke in a youth club. In any one 24hour period we could have had anything from 1 to 12 little people through our front door, sometimes in the company of responsible adults but more often than not just just in the company of even more little people.

The most consistent visitors being the 3 vagrants from across the road, Shannon, Jordan and Conner and the blonde kids best friend from 5 doors down Craig.

Then in addition to this motley crew there was Chloe, Leah and their baby sister Keira from round the corner. Josh and his sister Grace from just down road. Then yesterday we also had Thomas (my nephew) Sophia (our cousin) some skater punk called Harry and a girl (I secretly think Jordan has a crush on) Nicole who recently play Joseph in her school play (see previous blog) and is very excited to be starting senior school today (definitely better stay a secret crush she’s way too old for him!)

We had lots of fun in the holiday and in the gaps in his diary between visiting family (he spent 3 weeks with his Dad) and his busy social calender we also managed to….

Decorate the blonde kids room…

Plenty of trampolining…

Dinners out with friends…

(Trust Jordan to find the best looking woman in the resturant to fall asleep on!)

Trips to Brighton….

Trips to Ikea

Also we had a trip to Silverstone, BBQs with friend (20 of the damn things in my back garden 23 if you count us, 25, if, as Jordan insists, you include the rabbit and the cat) build new bookcases, move in new office furniture, redecorate the bathroom, visit James parents and my parents, help Stat move house, go to gigs, shop for new school uniform for a brand new school and in amongst all this found time to do the normal mundane everyday stuff like WORK!So not much really.

The kids (well my kid) went back to school today and for the first time since, well since it feels like forever the house is quiet. There is no one running up/down the stairs. Nobody knocking the door, shouting in the garden, jumping on the trampoline, arguing over the Playstation/Wii/football/particular chair/T.V channel/what game to play or piece of fluff on the floor because “I was there/saw it first”.

Nobody asking “Can I stay for dinner?” or “Can I come and play again tomorrow?”. Nobody laughing or giggling, nobody shouting or crying, just the sounds of the world drifting in from outside and “The New Amsterdams” playing on Itunes…

…Roll on 3:20 when I can fetch him from school, I miss them all already!!