17 again

The train now approaching Platform 17 is the 4pm Intercity from Shimelle.com.

In order to join the train, passengers should have all visa information checked - here is mine:

It's 1975 and I am 17. I live in Old Harlow in Essex. I am in the 6th form at school and having the time of my life!

My hair colour is auburn

My hair style is in a page boy bob with the sides flicked back

My favourite brand of makeup is Miners

My "fashionable" item is a black velvet jacket with diamante brooches and Brutus jeans with the embroidered panel on the back

My favourite outfit is a Laura Ashley maxi dress

I drive an Austin Allegro on my driving lessons.

On a Saturday I go shopping either to Harlow Town or Chelmsford on the bus.

On a Saturday night I either go to the free concerts at Harlow Town Park in the summer or parties

On a Sunday I do my homework

Monday-Friday I go to Mark Hall Secondary School

My best friend is Jill Spinks

My favourite place to go out is anywhere with my boyfriend

My favourite subject at school is Needlework

When I grow up I want to be a journalist

My favourite drink is Martini and lemonade

My favourite food is Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken and Spring Rolls

My favourite shop is Chelsea Girl

I want to marry David Essex

My favourite actor/actress is Robert Redford
My favourite band/singer is David Essex or anything Motown. That new band Queen aren't too bad either

My favourite TV programme is Happy Days

The one thing I want to do but can't is swim

My most used mode of transport is walking (until I pass my driving test aged 17 and 10 months)

If I had all the money in the world I would travel the world and buy a sports car - ready for when I pass my test!

I wish I could visit my penfriend in America

My favourite sport is watching other people play sports! I am so unsporty! but if made to in PE lessons, I will play volleyball

This fall/autumn I will go into the Upper 6th at school

At Halloween I didn't dress up. We don't celebrate Halloween much in England

I recently saw One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest and thought it was really good

I am reading lots of books for my English Literature A level and HATE Joseph Conrad's 'Nostromo'

The big newspaper story this year is England staying in Europe, and Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative party.

What's that? You want to check my photo? OK, well here it is -

Can I get on? Thanks! Hey you guys, great to see you, is this seat taken? OK, the whistle is blowing and we now have to get to the next stop to pick up Christy . We should get to her by about 1990, so settle down for a long journey, I'm not that good on Geography but I think we're heading over the Atlantic to North Carolina!

With apologies to Abba

Got a song going round in my head and I don't know why.
"You are the dancing queen - young and sweet, only seventeen ...."
Maybe all will be revealed at 4pm this afternoon, better pop back then .......

See you later!

Getting ready

Well I'm searching the wardrobe and getting out my platform boots ready for the trip tomorrow. Hope I get my homework done on time, I'm not allowed up late on a school night. So I have my ticket, and my bag is packed, hope you are ready too!
See you tomorrow - don't be late, it's a tight schedule and we have a long journey to make.

News just in ...

You won't be needing to check one of these: I can tell you now that the train leaves at 4pm GMT on Monday 30 December.
Don't be late!

Nativity

There's been a lot of hype recently about a new film being released called 'Nativity' and I am sure that we have all taken part in a Nativity play at school when we were young. I used to love watching Nativity plays when my kids were little and I am the embarrassing mum in tears as soon as the little angels arrive on stage and the shepherds can't sit still until they have found their mum in the audience. Someone is bound to tip the baby Jesus out of his cradle and you can always feel the anticipation in the air when Joseph knocks at the inn. Will the Innkeeper remember to say 'I'm sorry we have no room' or will he forget and change the whole storyline by inviting them in?
The only Nativity I remember being in was when I was about 10. My primary school decided to try something different that year. We had all been having French lessons (which was rather unusual in Primary school back in 1968) and our teacher decided to do the whole play in French. Pretty ambitious eh? Goodness knows what our parents thought, I'm sure they didn't understand a word of it, which could have been a blessing as I really don't think our accents were too authentic. I do remember my friend Susan Hutchin marching down the aisle of the hall towards the stage with the Kings trying to keep up with her while she was pointing up to an imaginary star in the sky and shouting 'Sweevie lay twarl' which was as close to 'suivez l'toile' as we were going to get.
I had the dubious honour of being the 2nd person on stage. Moira Payne was resplendent as Mary, dressed in a rather fetching pale blue tablecloth and I was purely angelic as the Angel Gabriel in a carefully draped white sheet. 'Je te salut Mary' is all I remember but I guess I must have then gone on to tell her she was expecting a baby. My moment in the spotlight over, I then took my place in the recorder group ready to accompany the choir in the only French carol I ever learnt 'Il est nee, le petit enfant'.
Does anyone else remember their first Nativity play?

Housework Horror

I love the David & Goliath cartoons and this one sums my attitude to housework completely.
My question for today is: Have you ever had a terrifying experience whilst doing the chores?
A simple visit to the utility room today reminded me of a dreadful experience which I thought I would share as my blog for the day.
I need to share some details first.
1. My utility room is part of an extension to the house and we get to it via the garage
2. Although I live in a large town, I am on the extreme outskirts of it and 2 gardens along from me is a large cricket pitch and then open countryside.
So ... one morning last year I went to the tumble drier to remove some towels which had been washed and dried the day before. Not normally a traumatic experience, but on this occasion I put my hand in, thought to myself 'that doesn't feel like a fluffy freshly laundered towel' and indeed it wasn't. It was a large mouse. A large dead mouse in fact. Totally stiff. And in with my clean towels. Did you hear me scream? I'm sure that anyone in a 100 mile radius might have!
What we think happened was that because I was doing the laundry in the evening, I had propped open the door between utility and garage in order to let the steam escape. In the daytime I just open up the door to the garden. So some poor, elderly, homeless mouse seeking refuge from the dark and the cold had scuttled across the fields, scampered across the cricket field, skipped towards the light coming from beneath the garage doors, edged his way carefully around my car (think 'Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible') climbed over the step, and wondered in amazement as he felt the warmth of the tumble drier. Someone (and I'm blaming Darling Husband for this) had seen the drier had finished, turned it off at the wall and just opened the door to let it cool down without taking the towels out. Imagine the glee of the poor little creature, a warm machine and a mattress of fluffy towels to lie his little head on for the night. What a way to spend his last hours. I tell you, it was the worst housework experience I have ever had! Can you equal that?!

Boys!

"It will be cold when you go to Scotland, make sure you buy a nice, warm, sensible hat"

Not quite what I expected him to buy ......