Hello,
If you've come over from my other blog, thank you!
I want to start writing things again, as I try to oil the works in
preparation for writing a book. Or rather, to test myself to see if I
have the commitment to stick to a writing schedule. I'm challenging myself to a 365 day writing challenge, to get my writing muscles in fine fettle. It doesn't matter what I write, as long as I do.
I'm going to call this 365 challenge 'Fact of Fiction' as I will be sharing memories as well as writing short stories. Today's story is factual.
I've
always had trouble with my throat, even from a very small age. I just
saw a packet of brown sugar on the kitchen side and remembered how I
would have to suck sugar sandwiches until they completely melted as I
couldn't chew or swallow anything. I remember on several occasions that
trying to swallow my own saliva was unbearable and I'd spit it into a
tissue. I know I was taken to the doctors about my throat often when I
was a child but no one ever suggested having my tonsils taken out. To
this day I sometimes get throat infections out of the blue, and I've had
laryngitis a few times.
When I was in my late 20s and
working at Past Times (a historical gift shop) I got laryngitis so bad I
could barely talk. I sounded far worse than I felt, even though I also
had the flu. I rang into work with a progress report after a few days
(still sounding awful) I was offered more time off and turned it down
flat as I was bored. It seems funny to remind myself of the past and
times when hard work was as normal for me as breathing.
You
lose something of yourself when you're no longer a worker bee. I put my
all into any job I did, even if they were shitty jobs. There's
satisfaction in doing even the crappiest job well, and you owe it to
your colleagues too unless you're a lazy shit. Of course this blog is
like a job, except it doesn't pay, ha! If people ask what I do I usually
mysteriously say 'I'm a lady of leisure' and when they look incredulous
I make a further joke about James being loaded so we can afford it.
It's easier than explaining the whole Fibromyalgia and CFS thing. Fibromy-what?! Chronic fatigue? Yeah, I get tired a lot too.
*seethe* I feel like I should get bullet points tattooed on the inside
of my right arm so I can just whip my sleeve up and point at it. ;)
Maybe one day if I get over my fear of my own success I can proudly say 'I'm an author.'
I've never been afraid of failure, but I've been scared shitless of my own success my whole life. I have no idea why.
Thanks for tuning in for day 1 of 365.
Leah xoxo
Monday, 23 March 2015
Thursday, 12 September 2013
Rollercoaster Life - Part One
Part One - Sunday's Child
I was born on Sunday April 7th 1974 in Gravesend Hospital in Kent. I weighed 8lbs 2oz and came into the world at 7.30pm after a 4 and a half hour labour. To set the scene, 1974 went like this: Terry Jacks' Seasons in the Sun was number one the week I was born. The day before I was born ABBA had won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo. Stephen King released Carrie, Nixon resigned and the IRA were busy blowing everything up. Lord Lucan went on the run, McDonalds opened its first restaurant in the UK and the three day week was introduced to save electricity.
My mum and I came home from hospital a week after my birth. 'Home' was a tiny house crammed full of people. There was me just a babe in arms, my mum and dad, my nan and grandad, and my uncle. There were 2 and a half bedrooms. I say that because the third was a box room, barely big enough to get a bed in. From what my mum told me, times were hard back then - no one really had any money in those days and most of the year the bedbugs were the most well fed of us all. No one went on foreign holidays and people made do with what they had. My nan and grandad had 5 hungry mouths to feed, so there was no spare money. 4 of them had left home by the time I was born. My grandad worked at Blue Circle cement works in Swanscombe, and when my aunts and uncles were grown up my nan got a job in a paper sack factory. The house was damp and cold but hearts were warm. My nan was a feeder when she had the money. No matter what else lacked, she showed her love with food. I don't remember much of the first 5 years of my life, except to say at Christmas my nan put on a hell of a feast, with a roast for lunch and a buffet tea. There'd be vinegary salmon sandwiches, cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, lovely thick ham from the butcher, and proper butter in sandwiches, not margarine - my nan didn't have any truck with margarine. I remember the waves in the butter from the serrated edge knife she used. It's funny how you remember the little things.
When I was 3 we moved to Dartford, to a poky little house - 3 up, 2 down with a spit of a front garden and a bigger back garden with a concrete monolith in, dumped there by a lazy council worker and left for years. (We used to climb on it, until I slid down from the top and cut myself the entire length of my leg.)
We had a gas fire in the living room and a coal fire in the kitchen to heat water and that was it. Winters were brutal, and we usually got a donation of warm winter blankets from the Salvation Army as we were piss poor. My dad was around on and off for the first 5 years or so of my life, but he was too young. They both were - he was 21 when I was born and my mother 19. Exactly a year, one month and 2 weeks after me came my brother. The marriage fell into disarray and my mother - a principled woman - wanted out. It wasn't easy to divorce in those days and my dad certainly didn't make it easy. Kids can always pick up tensions and I'm not sure what was worse, having my dad there and them arguing or not having him there at all. By the time I was 7 and my brother 6 they were divorced. After that I didn't see much of my dad at all until I was 17. More on that later.
I was born on Sunday April 7th 1974 in Gravesend Hospital in Kent. I weighed 8lbs 2oz and came into the world at 7.30pm after a 4 and a half hour labour. To set the scene, 1974 went like this: Terry Jacks' Seasons in the Sun was number one the week I was born. The day before I was born ABBA had won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo. Stephen King released Carrie, Nixon resigned and the IRA were busy blowing everything up. Lord Lucan went on the run, McDonalds opened its first restaurant in the UK and the three day week was introduced to save electricity.
My mum and I came home from hospital a week after my birth. 'Home' was a tiny house crammed full of people. There was me just a babe in arms, my mum and dad, my nan and grandad, and my uncle. There were 2 and a half bedrooms. I say that because the third was a box room, barely big enough to get a bed in. From what my mum told me, times were hard back then - no one really had any money in those days and most of the year the bedbugs were the most well fed of us all. No one went on foreign holidays and people made do with what they had. My nan and grandad had 5 hungry mouths to feed, so there was no spare money. 4 of them had left home by the time I was born. My grandad worked at Blue Circle cement works in Swanscombe, and when my aunts and uncles were grown up my nan got a job in a paper sack factory. The house was damp and cold but hearts were warm. My nan was a feeder when she had the money. No matter what else lacked, she showed her love with food. I don't remember much of the first 5 years of my life, except to say at Christmas my nan put on a hell of a feast, with a roast for lunch and a buffet tea. There'd be vinegary salmon sandwiches, cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, lovely thick ham from the butcher, and proper butter in sandwiches, not margarine - my nan didn't have any truck with margarine. I remember the waves in the butter from the serrated edge knife she used. It's funny how you remember the little things.
When I was 3 we moved to Dartford, to a poky little house - 3 up, 2 down with a spit of a front garden and a bigger back garden with a concrete monolith in, dumped there by a lazy council worker and left for years. (We used to climb on it, until I slid down from the top and cut myself the entire length of my leg.)
We had a gas fire in the living room and a coal fire in the kitchen to heat water and that was it. Winters were brutal, and we usually got a donation of warm winter blankets from the Salvation Army as we were piss poor. My dad was around on and off for the first 5 years or so of my life, but he was too young. They both were - he was 21 when I was born and my mother 19. Exactly a year, one month and 2 weeks after me came my brother. The marriage fell into disarray and my mother - a principled woman - wanted out. It wasn't easy to divorce in those days and my dad certainly didn't make it easy. Kids can always pick up tensions and I'm not sure what was worse, having my dad there and them arguing or not having him there at all. By the time I was 7 and my brother 6 they were divorced. After that I didn't see much of my dad at all until I was 17. More on that later.
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