Strange, Strange Child...

I was having one of those nights where you think of completely random moments in your life, when it struck me just how weird my childhood was. Not in the sense that I was brought up any different than anyone else, in fact I'd say my mum did a pretty fantastic job of bringing me up. But more in the sense that some of the things I did as a child were pretty strange.

Me, my brother and sister had pretty wild imaginations. There's one particular memory I have of when me and my brother were in the back of my mum's car, during a 7 hour drive to Cornwall. Most other children our age would have slept, or read a book, or just watch the other cars go by. Us? We'd pretend that we were sat in the back of a limo, being driven to our mansions. Our water bottles were glasses of champagne, and the pouch in the back of the front seats were actually letter-boxes. Because it's completely possible to receive mail through the front seat of a moving vehicle...

As a child, I was always fascinated with fashion models, and the how they could make inanimate objects like clothes, look so beautiful. I used to doodle women in clothes for fun, and there's one memory in particular that always makes me laugh. My lovely Nan lives in Manchester, so I only get to see her about once a year. There was a running joke in my family that because of my fascination, it was inevitable that I would end up being a model myself (major LOLs). One summer, my Nan came to visit, and I remember her sat at the end of my garden, while I strutted up and down the path in whatever random items I could find. I specifically remember walking round with a scarf tied around my arm...

Me and my sister had these games that we would play together, creating characters for ourselves and putting them in different situations. One of them was a wedding. One of us would pretend that we were getting married, and would walk along the "aisle" (it was really a little walkway we made my clearing the floor of our bedroom...), and kiss thin air... Although the games we played were awesome, I think the best thing about them has to be the many names we came up with. Humans, People and Fumans were some of the best names for each situation and their different characters. Again, strange children we were...

Me and my brother used to love playing in the garden during the summer. We'd get into our swimming costumes and throw water down the slide we had at the end of our garden, then slide down it, pretending that we were in a water park. We had a sandpit filled with buckets, spades, and moulds, and a swing that we'd play with. But no matter how much fun we were having, the sight of a bee or wasp, and we would run straight for the back door, lock it, and refuse to go outside for the rest of the day...

My mum told me a story about when I was about 3 or 4. She'd be clearing up the house, and find random bits of half-eaten food that I'd apparently hidden to save for later...

One of my ultimate favourite childhood memories was this one situation that me, my brother and sister would act out. It NEVER got old. The Restaurant Scene. We had a play kitchen set that we'd put in the hall, and set up a table in the living room. We would take it in turns being the customer, the waiter and the chef (my favourite by far was the customer). We'd play out a scene of ordering the food, but instead of pretending to enjoy it, I loved to play the spoilt brat and would throw things on the floor and demand a refund, then storm out telling the waiter that they had lost a customer.

I'm realising now that the majority of these things won't be found funny by anyone but my family, but thinking about these memories makes me so nostalgic! I couldn't have asked for a better childhood, although I'm starting to wonder why my siblings and I aren't actors or something...