Sounds like Storytelling Sunday!

All of our senses are involved in making memories throughout the year but for Storytelling Sunday this month I'm going to ignore the sights of Christmas lights and Christmas trees, the smells of Christmas cakes cooking in the oven, the tastes of a freshly baked mince pie, fresh out of the oven or the touch of tinsel and wrapping paper.  My story this time is thinking about the sounds of Christmas.

Certain songs or tunes that bring back so many memories, the tunes you hear in the background at the shops while you are shopping, adverts on the tv, the songs you find yourself singing under your breath while you are cooking dinner and the old favourites that get played every year on the radio.  This is a post about musical memories and is an unashamed excuse for me adding lots of my favourites to my blog!

When I was growing up I loved the way that my favourite shows would always have a special Christmas episode, it felt like I was sharing their Christmases with them.  And who wouldn't have wanted to share Christmas with David Cassidy back in the day?

Then skip to 1973.  I was 15 in the year that my next clip relates to.  It was a catchy little tune and even though the appearance of the group on Top of the Pops prompted much 'Look at the state of him' comments from my parents, I just thought it was fun and a great happy song that went down a storm at the end of year school disco.  Little did we know how often we would hear this song in years to come!

I was married by the time my next memory was released, but it didn't stop me appreciating the sight of George Michael in the snow



But wait, Sian's suggestion for this month was along the theme of Coming Home.  So my last offering will be a memory of our daughter coming home for Christmas after her first semester at University.  She absolutely loves Christmas and it didn't feel like Christmas until she was back at home.  At the time, my husband was working for a property development company that owned some office premises in Harrogate so he was able to coincide a trip up there to detour to Sheffield to pick her up.  One of the songs that kept coming on the radio during their 3 hour drive back was this one, although it was originally released in the late 80s it's still played a lot at this time of year and whenever it comes on the TV or radio at home, they both give a shared smile of happy memories of that year, bringing her home to make our family Christmas complete -

Do any of these hold memories for you?  What are your own special songs that remind you of Christmas?  Maybe we could organised a Bloggers Special Compilation Album to compete for the Christmas Number One this year!
Now please hurry over to Sian's to see what other stories are waiting to be read this Storytelling Sunday!

It was a dark and stormy night ...

... from inside the building they could hear the torrential rain lashing against the windows and the wind howling outside.  It had been dark for some time and the temperatures had dropped considerably.  Even so, it was far, far warmer inside than out and just the sounds of the horrific weather was enough to chill you to the bone.  The trees in the area just outside of where they were sheltering creaked as the force of the gale hit them and when the noise of the gusts dropped they could hear branches snapping and falling to the ground.  Even without looking outside, they knew that there was much debris accumulating around them and in the morning the landscape would look quite different to when they had last seen it in daylight. 
A rumble of thunder in the distance was becoming noisier as the storm travelled ever closer.  The lightening increased in intensity as the storm approached.  A flicker of the lights brought a scream from the youngest of them and sent the older woman into another room to search for candles and a lighter in anticipation of an inevitable power cut.  It was bad enough being inside listening to the storm with lights on; to be plunged into darkness would heighten their anxiety and preparation was key to survival.
As the minutes clicked by on the clock, they knew that soon a decision would have to be made.  They had a mission to complete and failure would lead to consequences which none of them wished to contemplate.  Things could get very messy indeed.
But who would take responsibility for the mission?  Each had their strengths and each had their weaknesses.  This was going to have to be a stealth mission.  The deed needed to be done and then they had to return to the sanctuary of their current safe place.  They looked from one to another, each hoping that someone else would offer to take the role of leader.  They looked at the unwilling participant without whose co-operation the mission could not be completed successfully.  Their look of trepidation was mirrored in her eyes.  Was she ready for such activity?  Could she complete the mission and return unscathed?  Only time would tell.
All eyes fell on the elder man.  He knew it was time to step forward and be a hero.  He locked eyes with their co-conspirator.  They moved to the hallway where they found the protective clothing they had prepared earlier.  The man knew that his safety depended on this, without it he would be exposed to the elements and make his task much, much harder.  When he was completely covered, he turned his attention to the person responsible for this mission.  Without whom he would be comfortably seated in his armchair at home.

Yes, there are times when NO ONE wants to be responsible for the last dog walk of the day and pre-bedtime 'comfort breaks' have to be made. Neither do they want to have to be the one to clean and dry her on her return ...


Now pop on over to Sian's blog for some more Storytelling Sunday entries!

Storytelling Sunday - Fantastic Friendship

It's time for Storytelling Sunday over at High in the Sky!  Normally we try to have a photo to go with our stories, but by the time you finish reading mine, you will realise why there is no photo to share!  
Have I ever told you about Zolly Watson?  When I was little she was my best friend.  We played together almost every day.  We both loved a glass of Lucozade, drunk out of a plastic beaker with a straw built into the side.  Mine was yellow, hers was blue.  We both loved chocolate biscuits, and when I went round to where she lived, I would fill a small flask with Lucozade and put a few biscuits in some foil, load it into the little saddle bag on the back of my bike and cycle round to Zolly's.  

Sometimes I'd take my Sindy doll round there because although Zolly loved to play with Sindy as much as I did, she didn't have a doll of her own.  If I was very lucky, my mum would take me to the Women's Institute shop where you could buy hand knitted clothes for Sindy so she could have a new outfit.  Zolly and I would spend hours dressing Sindy in different outfits.

It wasn't far from my house to Zolly's - if I looked out of the dining room window carefully I could almost see in her window.  And although I was only about five, mum was quite happy for me to cycle round there on my own.  You see, my sister was eight years older than me and she didn't want to play with some little kid when she was already a sophisticated teenager, and there were no other children of my age near to where I lived so it was inevitable that me and Zolly would become such firm friends.  

My sister didn't quite know what to make of Zolly, even though they never met, she thought it was an odd friendship.  In fact no one other than me ever met Zolly, because apparently she only existed in my imagination.  Her house was the Wendy house in our back garden, and I can still remember cycling round the lawn to get there, unlocking the door and stepping inside where our chairs were waiting, and a table for the drinks and biscuits to be put on.  Mum and Dad had helped me build various bits of make believe furniture for Sindy in true Blue Peter fashion and that was all set up in there too.

But then the summer came and we packed up to go on our two week Summer holiday to Cornwall.  Zolly stayed at home, while I enjoyed a fortnight of sandcastles, paddling in the sea, ice cream cones, and begging to be allowed to go in amusement arcades.  The weird thing was that when we came back, Zolly had gone.  I don't remember being upset, and I don't know how I knew - but she just wasn't there any more.  I guess I had grown up that little bit and was off to school where I would go on to meet lots of new - real - friends.  But whenever I hear people talking about imaginary friends, I always think of Zolly Watson.  (Where on earth did I come up with a name like that?!  I've never heard of anyone called Zolly and knew no one with the surname Watson either)

Storytelling Sunday - An unwanted passenger.

It's September 1979.  My niece, Kirsty, is coming up for four and knows exactly what she wants for her birthday.  A shopping bag on wheels.  Like Nanny has.  It has to have 2 wheels at the back and it has to have a cover that comes right up over the top to make a lid.  And it has to have plenty of room in it to put all the kind of shopping that a four year old needs to buy. 

Aunty Deb sets off to the shops with one aim in mind.  To locate that toy trolley and buy it.  1979 Britain does not have Toys r Us.  It doesn't have Early Learning Centre.  It doesn't have internet shopping.  Tracking down a shopping trolley demands much walking around and searching.  If I'd chosen the easier option of a Barbie doll there would have been no problem.  I tried Woolworths, Debenhams and the toy section of a smaller department store.  Nothing.  I went off the main shopping trail and ended up on the outskirts of town where there was a really old fashioned toy shop.  It was musty and dusty and the shelves were full to overflowing so that you were scared to look round too much in case you knocked something over and an avalanche would begin.  Still no sign of the shopping bag.  When the shopkeeper asked if he could help, I sighed and said 'I don't suppose you have a toy shopping bag on wheels do you?' and he sighed and gave me a thoughtful look.  'I think I might have one, not on the shop floor but in the stock room' and off he went.  He was gone some time.

But when he returned he had just the thing I had been searching for, it was even the same colour as Nanny's.  I think he was surprised by how happy I was, clearly this had been in the stock room for some time and he must have thought he would never sell it!  I carried it back to the car, put it on the back seat and happily returned home.  Took it out of the car, and left it in the hallway while I went to have my dinner.  After dinner I went to go upstairs to get ready to go out and noticed the bag had been knocked over and the dog was playing with something in the hallway.  Something, small.  Something furry.  Something that was squeaking. 

It would appear that I had inadvertently been given a free gift with the bag, and that a little mouse had stowed away inside it.  Can you imagine what would have happened if that little creature had escaped in the inside of my car?  I still get shivers when I try to imagine what I would have done if I had suddenly had a mouse crawl over me while driving!  Moral to this story.  Always put your shopping in the boot - just in case!

Storytelling Sunday - H.R. Pufnstuf

I came across this picture that someone had pinned on Pinterest and it brought back such memories that I knew it would be my background picture for Storytelling Sunday.

This is a still shot from the TV programme H.R. Pufnstuf that was on the television between about 1969/70.  I loved it.  Partly because it had Jack Wild as one of the main characters and I had really fallen for him when he was the Artful Dodger in the film 'Oliver'. 

At the time of my story I was 12.  I had been on a school trip during the day and had come home with raging stomach ache.  I was really ill all evening, and got even worse overnight.  My mum rang the doctor in the morning (even though it was a Saturday and she didn't like to bother him at the weekend) and he came round.  Mum was convinced I had eaten other people's sandwiches on the school trip and something had disagreed with me.  I knew I hadn't but she wouldn't believe me.   The doctor took my temperature, poked my stomach a bit and suggested that mum and dad rang for an ambulance - immediately.  Why had they left it so long before calling?  he asked.  The 'we didn't like to bother you at night time' comment was received with a stern look and raised eyebrows.  Dr Booth told them that I was not making a fuss over nothing, that it wasn't anything to do with food, that I had been really brave putting up with the pain overnight (Dr Booth was by now my most favourite doctor in the whole wide world.  Well, apart from Dr Who of course) and that he thought I had appendicitis and we needed to go to hospital fast as if it had gone on overnight, it may be close to rupturing.  I'm pretty sure that if I had felt a bit stronger I would have pulled my 'See - I told you I hadn't been eating anyone else's food' face.

So into hospital I went, an emergency appendectomy was performed, mum felt suitably guilty and I felt better.  But this was back in the olden days when an appendectomy took 10 days recovery time in hospital, a 4" incision and a whole bunch of stitches.  What made it even worse was that I was going to be in hospital when H.R. Pufnstuf was on and there was no TV in the wards.  Told you it was the olden days didn't I?  When mum and dad came to visit the next day, they brought in a tape recorder on which they had recorded the whole episode for me.  Although I couldn't see it, I could get the gist of the episode from what I heard.  Poor old dad had to sit right up close in front of the television for half an hour holding a microphone up to the speaker so it would record.  Of course being such a long time ago, video recorders had yet to be invented!  I sat in my hospital bed for hours on end listening to that recording and imagining what was happening, and it was the absolute best Get Well Soon present anyone could have brought me.

Storytelling Sunday - Say Cheese!

I was sorting through the box of old photos looking for inspiration for Storytelling Sunday and I came across these:

And it really made me smile because I can so clearly remember how much I loved going into photo booths when I was little.  I wasn't often allowed in alone so the middle strip is a bit of a speciality!  When I was growing up, we would always go on holiday with my Aunt and Uncle and my two cousins and the lady in the first strip here is my Auntie Babs.  I suspect that on this occasion everyone else ignored my pleas to go into the booth 'just one more time'.  I really was a Daddy's girl and the strip on the right is a rarity as I must have really pestered him as he HATED having his photo taken and going in a photo booth would have been bottom of his list of things he wanted to do!  I really love the memories that these three silly strips of photos have brought back to me.  

Storytelling Sunday.  The perfect opportunity for a trip down memory lane.    

Storytelling Sunday A Fishy Tale

This will have been the first year for ages that we haven't done anything on New Year's Eve.  We used to celebrate lots when we were first married, then the children came along and it was an effort to stay awake up until midnight let alone go out partying.  But then when they were school age we made a group of friends who became our close social circle.  First the mums befriended each other in the school playground while waiting to pick up the children at the end of the day, then our children became friends, then we introduced the husbands to one another and we just all gelled.  We hosted Murder Mystery parties, summer barbecues, went away on holiday together and always, always celebrated New Year, taking it in turns to be the venue.  Adults downstairs, kids running amok and playing together upstairs, no babysitters required!  Then one year we decided to ring the changes and ask grandparents to have the children to stay overnight and we went to a hotel for a New Year Dinner and staying there until the next day.

It had gone well past midnight, we were all slightly merry, not to mention tired and we moved from disco floor to the hotel reception to chat.  Somehow or the other the conversation turned to bodily scars.  I know, weird!  My husband's scarred knee from where he had got gravel in it in a childhood bike related incident started the ball rolling.  I countered that with a not very neatly sewn appendix scar (don't worry, I didn't reveal it to all, they had to use their imagination), someone else had a shoulder scar following an op to fix a dislocated shoulder and so on and so on.  Some random guy walked past and happened to pick up on the conversation and asked if he could join in.  Of course - sit down, show us what you have to share.  At which point he lifted up the leg of his trousers, detached a prosthetic part of his calf and showed us where he had been bitten by a shark whilst scuba diving.  

That lumpy bumpy knee and unattractive appendix didn't seem so ugly after all! What's the weirdest conversation you have overheard?