Thursday, November 30, 2006

Please get voting - a bit of fun

Ok a bit of fun! Its been a long week so far and the weather is miserable. What's it like where you are?

I'd like to get an idea of what you, the reader, think of this blog of first memories so far. Specifically, what is your favourite memory from those you've read? Drop me a comment please on which are your favourite and why.

Thanks!

R

Thursday, November 23, 2006

First car accident

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.

I was up in Inverness the other weekend. Its such a nice part of Scotland but what a drive - its 3 hours for us from Edinburgh. Fortunately I wasn't driving this time. My Dad was driving three of us up - we were all going to meet the wider family for lunch as it was my Grandpa's 90th birthday. What a truely great man my Grandpa is. He's seen and done such a lot in his 90 years and still has good health.

The weather was awful. Its been raining here for what seems like two weeks straight. This day was no exception and so driving conditions were not too great. On the way back down the road my Dad was obviusly getting a little weary. We stopped for coffee and let him recharge. He refused to let one of us drive. As we approached Perth we had a very minor incident. The car almost went off the road when Dad failed to clearly see a turn off for Dunkeld. The rain was making it more difficult to see anything clearly.

It was nothing alarming of course and I thought no more about it except to recall my first car accident. It was kind of mundane and involved a stationery piller in a multi-story car park. So instead, I thought I'd share the memory of a good friend of mine and her first car accident. This one's a real shocker!

A rush of blood

“Did you know that men are always picking their nose in the car. It seems to me that they don’t even care who sees them doing it either. It’s disgusting!

I was driving along Edinburgh Road going to see a friend one Saturday afternoon. It was my fault really, I wasn’t really looking at the road ahead at full attention – too busy daydreaming about something or other. Anyway I went into the back of the car in front of me.

We’d been stopped at traffic lights, so I wasn’t going that fast – what, about ten miles an hour if that. I got out of the car and went over to the one in front. He hadn’t even moved off the road and the cars were now backing up behind us.

I got such a fright I almost jumped out of my skin! He was slumped over the wheel and there was all this blood. Blood everywhere. All over his shirt, the wheel, the windows….I kept thinking “Oh my God I’ve killed him” , then thinking “don’t be silly, you were going too slow for that”. There was a whole conversation of alarming voices in my head.

I was looking about for help and heard someone say they’d called an ambulance. I think I was in shock at this point. I couldn’t wake him up he was out for the count. I could even move him back, his hand was stuck under his face – probably wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway.

The ambulance arrived and saw to both of us. I was just wrapped up in a blanket to stop the shivers – where had they come from?! I was looking over at the other car when I heard the ambulance man reviving him with salts. The man was fine, just a sore face but they were going to take him to the hospital for a check-up.

But guess what? Absolutely hysterical really. It turns out he’d been picking his nose at the traffic lights! Men!! Don’t they eat or something – I mean if you need a snack in car, take an apple with you! I’d hit the back of his car and his finger was plugged up his nose, fishing away. The force of my car knocking his had rammed his finger right up his nose. His finger was still up there when the ambulance men arrived to check him out! He’d had a massive nose bleed from the combined finger thrust and head butt and had knocked himself out!

Serves him right really, shouldn’t pick your nose in a car anyway.. He could have seen his finger come out the top of his nose if I’d hit him at a faster speed!”

Sunday, November 19, 2006

First time on an aeroplane - another memory

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.


I heard this lovely story a while back and just had to share it. It's another recollection of the first time being on an aeroplane. As I said in a previous post, I find it amazing how many parents take their their very young kids abroad on holiday now. Times have changed! This is a memory of someone who was 11 at the time - and what a great plane to be on for a first flight - CONCORDE!

Can you hear me…

“My first time on a plane was on Concorde! My Mum was an air stewardess and got us tickets. It was a family trip. I was fascinated by the whole thing with the sound barrier being broken and my Dad took great pleasure in telling me how it all worked..the physics of it all. I was only about eleven and couldn’t get my head round all of this. They ended up teasing me to explain:

” it means that when you talk to me I won’t be able to hear it for a few seconds because we will be flying faster than the sound from your mouth”.

I think they regretted saying that after a while because I kept shouting to my Mum:

"can you hear me yet, can you hear me!"

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

First pet (and how it died) - Budgies

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.
For more "first pets" memories click here and here.

How many of us had budgies as a pet do you think? I doubt it was as popular a pet as a hamster - I mean its not something that you'd cuddle or play with much. In fact, I'm not really that sure I'd give a budgie to a child as a pet. All you can do really is watch them in the cage, or inevitably, when the wee devil inside wants to play, let them out to fly about the house.....

Bingo

“Have you ever had your parents try to disguise the fact your pet is dead?” It happened to me when I was little. I had a budgie called “Bingo”. He was yellowish green and lived in his cage in the livingroom. I used to talk to him every day and he’d tweet back to me quite the thing.

When I came home from school one day I was devastated to find Bingo dead at the bottom of his cage.

“Mum, oh Mum, Bingo’s dead!”.

Well I must have caught her at a bad moment – she was in the middle of a phone call to my Gran and I‘d interrupted her:

“Don’t be silly Julie, Bingo died three weeks ago”!

Then I think she realised what she’d said when she saw the look on my face. She came off the phone pronto and looked over at me.

”Julie, Bingo died three weeks ago and we got a replacement for him because your Dad and I knew how upset you’d be. Really, it’s Bingo2 that’s died”.

Well I couldn’t take it. I stomped off to my room and cried, I couldn’t believe them and what they’d done.

I couldn’t get another Budgie after that could I. I was so upset that Bingo 1 would hate me for it.”

Friday, November 10, 2006

Another First Memory of Sleep Walking

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.

First time you slept walked

I got some people talking this week about their sleep walking memories. This one is from a brother's perspective. Sleepwalking stories are best recalled by another party that was there to witness the act. After all, the sleep walker will only remember part of the story – usually not the best bits!

Into the night

“I haven’t slept walked to my knowledge but my brother did when we were young and I shared a room with him. I remember that I heard the commotion out in the hall from my Mum and Dad. I woke up properly and noticed that Paul was not in his bed. I got up and opened the door. Dad was in the hall in his pyjamas and my Mum had the front door open and was out in the drive with her dressing gown on. The draft through the door was nippy on my feet. What a thing to remember.

“What’s all the noise about? Where’s Paul?”. “He’s sleep walking” my Dad said. Well, I thought this was great. At that time I never knew people sleep walked really. I couldn’t understand why they were reluctant to wake him up.

Paul had gone for a walk down the drive and was walking down the pavement away from the house. He had on his boxer shorts and a pair of shoes. At least he’d stopped to put on his shoes!! My Mum ran after him and fortunately the cold must have half woken him up because he appeared to stop a little way down the road and turn round. He looked a bit puzzled to see my Mum. She steered him back into the house, by which time he was fully awake.

My Mum and Dad were really worried about him. He’d catch such a cold going out like that. He got over it without scratch and he laughs now when reminded that the house alarm code was changed after that!”

Saturday, November 04, 2006

First time you slept walked

For the inspiration behind this blog click here.

Are you a sleep walker? Were you one once, when you were young and now you've grown out of it? Do you still sleep walk?

Hiding

“I think I’ve only slept-walked the once. I was quite young – must have been under eight years old. I don’t remember it myself but I was told enough times about it!

To set the scene a bit, I should let you know that my parents house, the one I grew up in, has two sets of stairs, one at either end. They both go to the same level, and it means you can literally run a circuit up one set along the upstairs level and down the second set and along the ground floor – used to be great fun! My parents room was integral to the circuit in that you actually had to go through it to get from one stair to the other.

Anyway, apparently my parents woke up to find me at the other end of the house, wandering along the hall in my pyjamas. To be found there, meant I had gone out of my room, down the stairs, through the living-room, kitchen and dining room, then back up the other set of stairs. I was in the hall outside their bedroom. I have no recollection of it, and they determined I was sleepwalking.

The next night I was put to bed and couldn’t find my pillow. Dad couldn’t find it anywhere and had to give me one from the spare room. We wondered for couple of days where the pillow could have gone! Then, Mum was turning out the laundry basket in the hall outside their room, when it showed up. It turns out when I was sleepwalking, I’d taken all the laundry out of the basket, stuffed my pillow into the bottom, then piled all the laundry back in on top. No wonder we couldn’t find it!”