Do you remember…?

This weekend I started going back through my blog archive, for boring technical reasons which I actually DID start to write down here, but then deleted, because seriously, WHO CARES? Anyway, I discovered two things from this exercise:

1) My photos used to be really bad. Like, REALLY bad. Like, “here is a blurry photo of what may or may not be a lipstick – and you’ll never really know for sure! – which I took in the dark, when I was drunk. Also, it’s the size of a postage stamp. Enjoy!” THAT bad. I cringed to look at them, and then I cringed some more when I realised that some of them were photos I was actually quite proud of at the time, which means one day I’ll probably look back on the photos I post NOW, and cringe some more. The humanity!

2) I used to do a thing called the Friday Five, in which I (and a bunch of other bloggers), answered five questions every week, which were set by this Livejournal Community. I used to quite enjoy The Friday Five, so I had a look, and it turns out it’s still going strong (As is Livejournal, which I was ALSO surprised to discover…), so even although today isn’t Friday, I decided to do it anyway, because you all know how much I enjoy the opportunity to talk about myself. (Well, and also because I like answering questions sometimes: they can be useful writing prompts for those days when I can’t think of anything else to write about…)  

These questions are actually from last week, because the latest ones weren’t up when I wrote this…

1.
Can you remember being a very young child?

I don’t know how young counts as “very young”, but yes, I can remember quite a few things from my early childhood, and have really vivid memories of the first house I lived in (which we left when I was about 5). I have some very hazy memories which are possibly from when I was around three or four, but my earliest clear memories are from when I was five years old, and visited my uncle and aunt in Canada. It was the first time I’d been on a plane (as it took off, during those tense moments when everyone is silent, I started singing ‘We Are Flying‘ at the top of my lungs. I was quite a hit, apparently…), and I can remember quite a lot about that trip, during which we drove down into the US through the Rockies, and spent some time in a cabin in the woods in Montana, where there were giant bear traps and all kinds of things I’d never seen in my life before. Fun times, people, fun times.

2.
Do you remember the first day of school?

Much to my annoyance, no, I can’t. I can remember tons of stuff about my first year of school, but no specifics about the very first day. With that said, I’d spent the year prior to that attending a nursery class which was held in the room next door to my first classroom, and most of my classmates were in nursery with me too, so I’m guessing the first day of actual school wouldn’t have felt that much different from my usual routine. I do, however, have this photo, which I until recently (By which I mean “until this weekend”) believed to be from my first day of school, but which actually turns out to be from my SECOND day of school:

Apparently there’s no photo from Day 1 because “the camera was out of film,” so this was basically an action-replay. I KNOW! If this had happened nowadays, my parents would probably have been shunned by their peers for not posting 15 million photos on Facebook to document this momentous occasion, but times were different back then, and not only did they neglect to check the film situation in the camera (we had cameras with film in them then: imagine!), they also managed to content themselves with this photo of me standing there with my mouth half-open and my eyes screwed up. As you’ll have gathered, I was a big fan of the “double-pigtail” hairdo, which we in Scotland call “bunches”. Without fail, I would return from school with my “bunches” all askew, having attempted to re-do them myself at some point, and ending up with one side much higher than the other. I’ve never been good with hair, really.

3.
Did you love or despise your siblings, providing you had them?

Do imaginary siblings count? Because I totally had imaginary siblings. I mostly liked them, but sometimes we’d fight over who got to ride all the imaginary ponies, so that was a pain.  (Yes, I’m an only child. No, I wasn’t spoiled or lonely.)

4.
Do you remember the name of your first friend?

Yup, it was Jenny: she of “glasses” and “God, I wish I was a ballerina,” fame.

5.
Would you journey back to your childhood (as an adult) if you could?

Definitely – if only so I could see my grandparents again, and give my younger self the heads-up about some stuff. Like how the North Pole is a real place, and women are totally allowed to drive. That kind of thing.

As I said, I answered these mostly as a writing prompt, but I think this kind of thing can be a nice little “getting to know you” exercise, too, so if anyone would like to answer the questions themselves, I’d love to read your answers!