My Harry Potter World

Last time we went to Florida they had done up Universal Studios (or Adventure Island.. one or the other)  to look exactly like Harry Potter world. I love Harry Potter, I wish I was at Hogwarts and I know without a doubt that I would have been in Gryffindor. And married to Ron Weasley, or either of the twins. Anyway, this place was my favourite place EVER and it was totally amazing. We went so many times...

Anyway, the ride was the best part of all of it. Obviously, I can't say what its about, because anyone that goes in the future would kill me. I went with no idea what the ride was going to be like and that probably helped as to why it was so so so good.

So I was looking at the photo on my wall, and it made me laugh, like every time I look at it. Not only because my parents legs are ridiculously small, but also because I can swear down that my expression is absolutely genuine. I nearly died on the spot.

Army men and Pornography

·       Being the children of servicemen and women meant me and my three brothers travelled to strange places like the Falkland Islands.It was amazing for wildlife, we would walk amongst thousands of penguins and nearly have a heart attack over enormous elephant seals in the absolutely freezing conditions. We went there a few times when I was younger, but there is one little episode that I seem to remember better than all of that. 

    When I was about seven, my little brother was four and my older brothers were eight and nine, we stayed with a few army guys on a heli replen - a little island in the Falklands  with refuelling pads for the helicopters. I remember us kids chilling in the lounge whilst my parents were having a drink with the army men in the kitchen.

    We found a load of magazines under the coffee table and started having a read and a look at the pictures.. but these weren't exactly the type of pictures we'd seen in our books and my Puppies and Kittens magazines. I think we realised by my dad nearly dying laughing, and my mum having a panic attack rushing around picking them all up that we clearly weren't meant to be looking at them.

   The army guys just thought it was hilarious, and slightly awkward, that us children had unknowingly spread their considerably large porn stash all over the lounge floor.

Manhunt

When we lived in Riyadh in Saudi we used to play Manhunt around the compound. It was pretty simple rules, you obviously couldn't leave the compound, there were two teams, one team hid the other team had to get you. It sounds pretty unexciting, but at night, on the sand, around the pools and the tennis courts, in the backs of people gardens and down streets it was pretty scary to be honest..

Saudi was already a pretty creepy place to be at night, especially when the Saudi prayers Salah was being sung/shouted out of speakers all around the country. And we took this game pretty seriously. There would have been at least ten of us on each team, and we used to scare ourselves to death playing it, crouching behind walls and under rocks watching the other teams run past.

I remember this truck which used to pile out thick which went all around the compound, I don't even know why it used to go round, but it did every morning and late every night. One time when I was walking down one of the empty back roads, thinking of somewhere decent to run to, I saw black silhouettes coming out of the smoke, three guys, one with a gun. Now, admittedly us kids didn't fully understand the risks of being on a British compound, but we knew what terrorists were. I don't know what made me more terrified to be honest though, the fact that three strangers were going through the smoke with a gun, or the realisation that it was some of the other team, one with a BB gun, and I had no where to run.

That's how I have scar on my left leg just above my knee, from climbing over a wall with wire on top into one of the empty houses' back garden. It was pretty intense for a dramatized version of Hide and Seek.

Friday night rollerskating

When we lived in Gloucester, we would go rollerskating every Friday night in some big hall to music and disco lights. That was where I learned to spin a semicircle "The Golden Eagle". It seemed so, so cool then. The youngest people there would have been my age (which was about eleven) the oldest were about sixteen, but it was a bit embarassing if you were that old..

I remember one boy who was fifteen asked me to be his girlfriend, and I was all excited. I think his name was Rob. Well, he never said it was, but he had a load of dark hair and dark eyes and wore a skateboarding tshirt. So if it wasn't his name then it should have been. We had never spoken before he asked me that. He then asked how old I was, and so I said "Guess.." (see I knew how to be all mysterious even at that age) and he reckoned fourteen and I was pretty chuffed looking three years older than I was so I said he was right.

However, I couldn't be his Juliet because I was already with that little Jack guy (the one who I married) and so had to gently let him down. But it was cool, cause I had rejected him so he still thought I was all cool and old and a mystery woman.

Then my oldest brother came along and told him to clear off cause I was only ten (I was eleven :| ) and the boy called me a liar and laughed in my face.

I don't know why I remember that. Guess it was pretty difficult times for me.

Chilling with the jellyfish

A few years ago we were in Port Douglas in Australia and the time of the year meant people were meant to be extra careful swimming in the sea, only swimming in the parts which were netted off. This was because of these jellyfish which were smaller than the size of the nail on your little finger.

The signs around the place said not to even dip your feet in the sea because they could kill or seriously injure you, but considering they were so ridiculously small and I thought it was so unlikely that I would get stung,  and figured I was pretty safe. Besides, the signs about alligators freaked me out way more. And to be honest, I have a feeling I'm pretty lucky in general when it comes to dangerous things happening...

So me and mum (wild cards us...) needed cooling off as it was so boiling and so went into the water. My dad and the boys were freaking out shouting at us to get out and we just laughed at them.

Later that day as we were walking back up to the beach, there was everyone crowding around some woman on the floor, and some guy in a full body suit was carrying around a jar of water. The woman had to get taken to A&E and stayed in hospital for days as she had got stung when she was inside the netting.

I'd love to say I was wrong to go in, but really its just maintained the fact that I'm lucky.

Connie and Maisie.

I've got two collies called Connie and Maisie. They're totally gorgeous. Well Connie is, Maisie's pretty ugly to be honest. But she's cute and tries to talk like a human, so I love her.

When Connie was a puppy she was a right little bugger, once when everyone was out she managed to open the kitchen door and the lounge door and chew up a book and try to eat one of my mum's Lilli Put Lane houses. We had to put locks on the all the kitchen doors after that.

Maisie brought the whole bad dog thing to a new level. We got her when Connie was 18 months and she's a right little ledge! But one morning when me and my mum came downstairs we nearly had a heart attack. She'd somehow worked out how to open the top drawers in the kitchen and had eaten everything in it. She'd always eaten weird things. Especially spiders. And rocks. But this time she'd taken the plastic wrapper off an ink cartridge, and actually ate all of the ink. And an entire packet of blue tac, eaten some shoe cleaner and spread the rest of it over the floor, batteries, three packets of tissues and several pairs of sunglasses.

And she seemed to have enjoyed it.

New York Naughties.

Me and my family went to New York in the summer of 2010, and it ended up a being quite a cringefest. But a funny cringefest.

In Times Square we noticed a naked man with a guitar and a cowboy hat wondering around taking pictures with people, called the Naked Cowboy. Richard, my environmentalist, hippy, rather camp homosexualist brother, got  all excited straight away, but it was my mum who suddenly turned into a flirtatious teenager. Me and her grabbed him for a photo (he was proper sweaty) and my mum was giggling away, he was loving it.

Madame Tussauds in New York is amazing, but if anyones ever met any members of my family, they'll know we were hardly going to go in there and just have nice smiley pictures. We have some pretty awkward photos of John feeling up Marilyn Monroe, trying to escape the Pope from touching him up, looking up various waxworks skirts and licking Barack Obama. My mum has a photo slapping Bill Clinton who has his hand positioned on her boobs, Richard spent quite a while camping it up with Elton John, and then almost pushing Angelina Jolie out of the way to get to Brad Pitt. Mike went for a more sick route by staring at an underage Miley Cyrus like a perv, and the rest are apparently too inappropriate to write down.

On the way back, New Yorkers aren't mad for being so nice as they are when you first get there. They've got your money, and now they want you out... one of the guards working there was being a right dick, shouting at everyone and trying to make us queue up millimeters away from each other so my mum said a few choice words to him, and he said "Raaaiight maam, will you come this way with me?" Everyone was looking now, so my mum laughed proper loud in his face and said "What are you gonna do - arrest me?" He didn't enjoy that all, but the rest of the British tourists did, who gave her a clap for making him look a knob. I was actually concerned they were going to arrest her, but in the end we just got to go through quicker than everyone else for making a scene.