Ee by gum

Shut up. It still counts as this week, even though I blogged last Sunday that I would blog this past week.

So here's the list of stories I need to blog about:
Movies (January '12)
Visiting Emma (March '12)
Visiting NC (March '12)
Flying to Colorado (March '12)
Colorado (March '12)
Serbia (May '12)
Getting home from Serbia (May '12)
Exam answers (June/July '12)
The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics (July '12)
The Olympics in general (July/August '12)
My new house (August '12)
Music (January - September '12)

So with that list in mind I'll start with my visit to the dentist this week. (Leave it.)

I have had that nightmare that your teeth fall out and it is horrible because I like my teeth. When I was at summer camp, I got hit in the mouth by a tree branch that someone was moving. I know, I don't know quite how it happened either. But I do know, even today, what my first words were afterwards: 'Are my teeth all still there?' Thankfully they were. What appeared over the next hours was a bruise on my chin the size of China. (Which is not to say I've got a chin the size of China, but that the bruise was massive.)

So I like my teeth and they are surprising good for all the Coke I drink. I didn't get a filling until I was 28. Actually, I may have been 29, I can't remember, but I know it was after Singapore. I have a couple more now, but all in all they're not bad.

Up to August, I'd only ever had one dentist. My entire life only one person had ever looked at my teeth. I never needed a dentist in NC or Singapore. But she retired and closed her surgery last year. I was beyond sad because I trusted her and I liked that she knew my teeth and knew exactly what had been done. Her children were about my age, and Peter had gone to YF at the same time as me, so we used to catch up on what we were all doing. Knowing I was a teacher, she'd ask me about the Transfer Test and its merits. That's when I made it a policy never to disagree with someone who's about to mess with your teeth.

I've started going to a new dentist now and it's different. Firstly, she's young. Like younger than me. And she has a dental hygienist so rather than Ms. McVeigh just having a look in silence and then telling me what needs done, this girl talks to her dental hygienist and gets her to...pass her things that I don't know what they are. The other thing that is weird is that the seem to use my chest as some sort of tool bench for setting down these unknown instruments. Ms. McVeigh never did that. In fairness though, Ms. McVeigh never put that apron thing on me or those weird glasses (to stop 'flying debris' getting in my eyes apparently. Eh what?!)

But the thing I miss most about going to the dentist is the waiting room. Now, don't get me wrong, the waiting room in this place is lovely, very modern and clean. But there's no picture of Foggy, Clegg and Compo. You know, from Last of the Summer Wine.

There is it, in all its former glory. Also, check out the gold patterned wallpaper. Another gem.

I had to take it sideyways to stop my reflection. I hope it doesn't diminish its beauty.

Honestly, I can't tell you the hours I've spent wondering why there was a picture of the three amigos in my dentist's. So much so, the last time I was in there I had to take a photo of it.

I mean, why would you even buy it, let alone put it up in a place where other people will see it?

Tweets from celebrities

Let me first of all say: no I don't know if I'll ever blog about Tennessee and Colorado either. I really should get on it. Especially since Emma is now back. (Well she would be if her flights hadn't got delayed, rerouted and delayed some more. Reminded me somewhat of this experience of mine.)

Anyway, back to tonight. I try not to blog on Friday or Saturday nights, you know, because I have far more important things to be doing. Like watching The Voice. But tonight I got a tweet from a celebrity! And I was out so it's not like I stayed in on a Friday night so I could tweet celebrities.

I was out with Karen Photographer in town. Neither of us drove so as to open up the possibility of a cheeky glass of wine. In fact, it opened up the reality of a cheeky glass of Pimm's and wine.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I'll get the salmon when I'm out. Tonight was one of the ninety-nine.

On the train on the way home, once Karen got off I listened to a podcast (a Five Live one if you must know) on my phone. I just caught one station announcement and it hit me who it was: the PR4L! If you listen to Radio 1 you'll probably be familiar with her work. If not she's the Posh Radio 4 Lady and reads Dear Scott. In her actual job she reads the news on the Today programme. Hence, the Posh Radio 4 Lady!

I wasn't sure but I knew I'd seen her on Twitter, so I wrote a tweet and mentioned her:

Am I wrong or is the automatic station announcer on Translink trains the PR4L? @Kathyclugston

But it's Friday night and she's the PR4L and has much better things to be doing than looking at her tweets, let alone replying. But she did! In a matter of minutes. She said, and I quote:

@tinaarena22 you are RIGHT!

So I did what anyone would do in that situation. I retweeted it. Well, I looked on it like a public service announcement for my followers who might have wondered the same thing on a Translink train. 

It's moments like this that make me love Twitter! And the PR4L! RT @kathyclugston: @tinaarena22 you are RIGHT!

But then I had a moment of mind panic; I had mentioned her but not actually thanked her for replying or said anything directly back to her. What's the Twitter etiquette about that, the twetiqutte if you will? So I wrote back to her:

@kathyclugston Thank you! I don't often get the train but tonight it just hit me that it was you so had to check! Have a nice weekend!

I thought that was nice, polite end befitting an encounter with the PR4L. But this is the PR4L we're talking about; of course she wrote back.

@tinaarena22 you too!

Being so encouraged by the PR4L I will now do my very best to have a nice weekend. 

I will draw the line at tweeting her about it come Sunday (or Tuesday). You know, in case she thinks I'm weird or something.

Still here, still meat free

Well thank goodness I didn't make any wild resolutions like blogging more, because just three weeks in January and I'd look silly.

So the good news is that I am still meat free. (I didn't want January posts to be all about #meatfreeJanuary but hey ho, when this is your third blog it's what I'm going to write about.) I thought I might forget and eat meat or something but it's been alright and I haven't really be hankering after meat dishes. Rebecca tweeted that she thought stir fry would be loads tastier without the vegetables. Doesn't that just leave fried meat? Where's the flavour in that?! Not to sound all vegetarian worthy or nowt, but there's a whole world of taste I've discovered when your meal is largely just vegetables. I have deduced this is because of the herbs and spices rammed into the dishes. Truthfully, garam masala? Never heard of you beforehand (except are you in tikka masala?). Heck, I even got a basil plant I was using so much those little bunches from Tesco weren't enough.

Tonight I had a lovely chickpea curry. Last week's highlight was bean bolognese. When talking beforehand about the plan with Brian he said that I shouldn't go from meat to meat substitute. Fair enough, where's the challenge in that? So I haven't had anything with Quorn. But when I was round at Karen's I had a piece of 'chicken'. Oh. My. Goodness. Maybe it was just the two weeks meat free talking, but it was so like actual chicken. Made me think it can't be too good for you. What's mycoprotein anyway? Is that something I want to eat or spread on my skin to stop wrinkles? They have an advertising campaign on at the moment and so later in the week Quorn tacos are on the menu. Good luck everybody.

The sad news is that meat free January has resulted in some injuries. Nothing serious I should add. Well aside from nearly losing the sight in my right eye. And it's probably not fair to blame meat free January; these injuries could have occurred while cooking meat dishes.

Injury 1 was a small burn on my fourth finger in an unfortunate tea-towel-not-sufficient-to-act-as-oven-gloves while I was roasting a pepper (before stuffing it with mushrooms and ricotta cheese). I think it hurt more because it was my fourth finger because it's so underused. Oh woe is me.

Injury 2 was a cut to the side of my thumb while washing the food processor blade. Turns out those things don't just cut because they go round very fast, they're also quite sharp. Who knew? Those wee cuts are beasts though, aren't they? They never stop bleeding. I had to use several sheets of kitchen roll to mop up the blood. ('Mop' might be an extreme verb there.)

Injury 3 was the worst. It's the one that made me wonder if I was going to ever be able to see out my right eye again. If you've done what I've done you'll probably have wondered the something similar...chilli in the eye. Oh glory that hurts.

I've always thought I would be quite handy in an emergency situation. I never thought thought I would flail about the place. I'm not the flailing kind. I think I'm quite calm, quite level headed and able to...do something. Well, now I know for sure.

So there I was making tea (chickpeas with tomato and spinach). The recipe said to chop the chillies finely. Obviously before the advent of meat free January I had chopped a chilli finely before. This was not a new experience for me. I knew the chilli would be on my hands, I knew to wash them, I knew not to touch my face or especially my eyes anytime soon.

At this point it's important to remember I had been sick. And I had to slice onions. Those things make your eyes, well more moist, that normal. I knew what not to do, but I did it, I wiped my eye. Although I don't even remember doing it.

Oh, a few moments later I knew I had alright. The burning, searing pain, around what  I believe Olay would call my delicate eye area, told me. It got worse and worse until I couldn't keep my eye open. I ran water on some kitchen roll. There was some temporary relief but it wasn't enough. I ran more water on it. Then through the pain I had an idea. I don't want to overstate it, but it was possibly the best idea I've ever had.

I put milk on the kitchen roll. That's what you're supposed to drink with a hot curry right? Why wouldn't it work with chilli in the eye? Well, I can confirm it worked! I've said it before on here, but I am not a medical practitioner. I know, but it's true. But there I was, in the actual heat of the moment, I came up with a remedy all on my own.

It was at that moment, with a milky eye patch over my eye, I knew I'm alright in emergency situations.*



*Really sorry if it turns out I'm bad in an emergency situation sometime further down the line.

Getting my veg on

It's 4th January and I finally went to the supermarket and got me some vegetables. With being sick the few days I wasn't in much eating form, so I got by on cheese and tomato paninis, baked beans and a jacket potato, and poached eggs. It hasn't been a wildly exciting start to #meatfreejanuary but it has been meat free, which I think you'll agree is the important part of the challenge. (If you click on the link you'll see there's a girl in Finland who is also tweeting using that hashtag. Umm...hiya!)

Tonight I had butternut squash curry, which was a major step up in the excitement stakes. It was really tasty, although turned a bit mushy. So far I haven't really missed eating meat or, as I like to call it, proper food. But I realise that might change. I think there's a real danger of getting bored with vegetables, especially if you're stuck in a panini-beans-eggs rut like I have been.

So I popped along to Tesco and got some supplies for the next few meals.

Tomatoes, spinach, chillies, ginger, cumin, garam masala,  Greek style yoghurt, lemon, red onion, garlic, chickpeas, refried beans, chestnut mushrooms and spring onions. Boom! As they say in veggieland.

It's like a bag from Ready Steady Cook. Well Fern, I'm going to make mushroom and chickpea burgers (thanks Karen for tweeting this idea) and chickpeas with tomatoes and spinach. The refried beans were for emergency enchiladas, you know, just incasies.

I'll let you know how it goes, but you probably already knew that.

From the drafts: old computers

This should have gone on August 17th, but I think I thought I was plaguing you with posts about my roof space tidy. So better now to post it when I'm plaguing you with posts in order to beat the deadline eh?

_________________________

Technically the tidying started last week. Dad started to throw away our old computers, like this one.

A Mackintosh PowerMac 5500. It boasted a 4GB hard drive and interweb capabilities.

This was its laptop cousin, a PowerBook 5300cs. No one in my house remembers actually buying it. Do let us know if you think it's yours.

Our very first computer, a Spectrum ZX. That's not a tape deck folks, that's where you load the games!

I found video of the screen you got when a game was loading on You Tube. There's no sound though, I remember there being a screechy kind of sound.

Our favourite games were Treasure Island and Postman Pat. Both are on You Tube, of course.



That's 128k technology right there my friend.

Then the Postman Pat game. You can click through to it here, I didn't want to post it because of the username of the person who posted it - you might be sensitive to such words. Bet you click through now though...

This game became famous in our house for the phrase 'Cup of tea Pat?'. Even now, every once in a while it's likely my parents will say it each other (neither of them are called Pat, you probably knew that though.)

Christmas activities

New Year's Eve. Ugh. Not only is Christmas over, it's followed by the most hyped two days of all. We've had a good Christmas, lots of reading (Michael Johnson's book, Gold Rush, and Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words, which made me never want to write again - I make so many mistakes), gaming (see below) and television watching. Right now I'm watching Who Do You Think You Are? Actually this one is called Who Do You Think You Are UK? because I recorded it from RTE (southerners say 'Who d'ya think ye aar? but OarTE. I know, you enjoy my deep observations on life.)

I was happy to chance upon it earlier this week because it's the one I saw being filmed on my way home from work one day. I blogged about it here. It was being made in the autumn of 2006, and depending how well you know/remember the life of Tina, I was away in Singapore 2007 so missed it's transmission. I had looked on repeats on BBC and on Yesterday or whatever channel they appear on, but then chanced upon it this week on RTE! Delighted, I was!

As I watched the opening credits I was a bit confused because there, staring off into the distance in front of some barn/battlefield/workhouse, were celebrities whose programmes I'd seen, like Chris Moyles and Kim Cattrall. Had I actually been back and missed it? Nope, the opening moments of the programme told me OarTE had repackaged the programme, with some Irish accented man narrating. So they must have picked out the 'best' ones too. I still checked the website to be doubley sure. Sure enough, Graham's was broadcast in October 2007. Yeeeoooo.

And sure enough when I watched the programme I saw the bit I saw being filmed.

My original photograph. My phone camera didn't have zoom. But it's him.

As I think this photo from the programme shows.

I forgot when I blogged about it first time of the Graham H connection and how if I had gone to get him he could have met his namesake. I speculated at the time that this might have made the cut. Well, a funny exchange with a passer-by did so, I'm going to say, for sure I could have been on TV.

"They seem nice..."

In other Christmas activity news, we finished our jigsaw. Like I might have mentioned before we're a jigsawing kind of family. Or as I've typed each time (and then corrected) jogsaw. Our jogsaw (I'm just going to leave it) of choice this Christmas was this olde worlde shopping from the 1950s.

It doesn't look too bad, there's lots of distinctive pieces, but that's exactly the problem - they're all distinctive pieces.

When the box arrived we put it under the tree, alongside the tin of Roses (a tree just looks better with a tin of Roses underneath. You can keep your Quality Street.) Anyway, it was all looking lovely. And then Christmas Eve came when I wrapped my presents and put them under the tree.

"But oh no, what this? Oh the jogsaw box. I'll move it to make room....presents, presents, presents...I'll carry them across..."

Crunch!

I stood on the box. Not only was there a massive Tina sized foot dent, the box even ripped in the impact. Oopsy. Thankfully no pieces were harmed in this act of clumsiness.

All good jogsawers know you start with the frame.

Getting there...

And we're done! Let me just say that basket down at the  bottom was ridiculously hard.

I got to spend some time round at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Finaghy. As any good host knows, after-dinner entertainment must be planned. Thankfully Nicky knew this and laid on a great game of Mullet Power Top Trumps. Makes me want to see the Royal Wedding version ever more now.

You couldn't make it up.

We also played a good old fashioned game of Boggle. Word games like this aren't my favourite, I'm just not very good at them. My words in this game were mostly made up of three letter words, like pea, lad, gin... I got a handful of four letter word (no, not that sort) and the whole game I only got one five letter word, sings. I thank you. I wasn't allowed coo, which I thought was a travesity. People coo at babies all the time. But they very generously allowed me peed, you know, I peed, you peed, he peed.

That's why it's best to just leave me to the jogsaws.

A fair exchange

Karen Photographer and I went for lunch together today.

She gave me a gingerbread man that wasn't decorated.

And he had a broken leg.

I gave her a card with a typo.

I should also mention it was a birthday card. From last month. I forgot to bring it with me when it was her birthday, alright.

I fixed the card.

And the gingerbread man? 

Well like Doc Brown would say, 'Legs? Where's he's going, he won't need legs!'

The Christmas switch

I'm not quite ready for Christmas yet. I should be. Earlier this week, rather smugly, I thought I had all my presents when I got my last delivery this week. I didn't even open the package til the afternoon, because I knew what it was. Ha! What a fool I was! In short, the bozos messed up my order, sent me the wrong thing and now I'm a present down because of the hoops I have to jump through in order to return it and get the right thing back. Bozos.

Other things I have to do include, but are not limited to:
-Tidying my room (I think it's always nice to have a tidy room and clean bed clothes on Christmas Eve.)
-Making rocky road traybakes (Just call me Nigella.)
-Ironing (All my ironing is in the utility room, sorry, I mean dining room. That'll never do.)
-Wrap presents (Although I traditionally don't do this until Christmas Eve. See below.)

Things I've done to get ready for Christmas include, but are not limited to:
-Decorate the tree (With Christmas Day being on a Sunday ours is up for the maximum time. Eh...see below again)
-Shopping (annual shopping trip to Belfast with Father and ordering some stuff online? Done.)
-The Christmas food big shop and annual trip to M&S (it's the only time we get food from M&S, best summed up in these four words 'Wensleydale and blueberry cheese'.)

I don't know about you, but what makes it Christmas to me is a hundred million tiny things, mostly based around our own family's Christmas traditions. Everyone has these. Dave Gorman on his radio show this week got people to tweet the things listeners' families did that no one else does. They included the men of the family all sitting down to watch a spaghetti western on Christmas Eve, someone's parents putting wrapping paper across their bedroom door frame so they have to burst out on Christmas morning (genius idea!) and someone having to tidy up all the discarded wrapping paper and when they go out to the kitchen to throw it out their final big present is out there. Ah family Christmas traditions!

My family's aren't that spectacular. Like most families we get special-don't-buy-them-any-other-time-of-year foods, like the aforementioned Wensleydale and blueberry cheese, but also Primula cheese (you may know it by it's more common name of 'toothpaste cheese') and duck spring rolls (and other party food) from M&S. You might be more extravagant than ours and get those foods during the year. Like Cheryl was at CHW when she brought Wensleydale and blueberry cheese camping! I've never been more shocked. Not us though.

We don't put our tree up until two Sundays before Christmas. Mostly because we get a real tree, but also because decorating the tree has always been a Sunday afternoon activity. We could never put our tree up on any other day. Another one is that I always go Christmas shopping with my dad. This originates from when David and I were small and dad would take us shopping, in turn, to buy each other's present. Equally, I don't wrap my presents until Christmas Eve, because my dad would take us in turn to wrap them on Christmas Eve while Mum was busy cooking stuff. It genuinely doesn't feel right to me to wrap Christmas presents before Christmas Eve, you know if there's someone you need to give their present to earlier than Christmas Day.

I think for these reasons my Christmas switch take a few weeks to come on. It's more your dimmer switch. It's not just seeing the Coca-Cola holidays a-coming advert or having Elf on TV. My Christmas switch does not get flicked on on 1st December or by me playing a Christmas song on my iPod. I can't make myself feel Christmassy in November. I'm immune to Christmas adverts before December; you're wasting your money on me advertisers. Same with Christmas music. To me, it's just wrong in November (and October - Scott Mills I'm looking at you). To me, it's a feeling that builds over a couple of weeks in December. I can't help it, it's just how I was raised.

That said, I'm there now. I unleashed my Christmas jumper this week. Oh yes.

Contemporary dance

I know what you're thinking, when did I get so cultured. But hang tight. This post will again confirm that I'm horribly mainstream.

You see, I've learnt last summer that contemporary dance doesn't have be 'dancing' in a morphsuit/floaty pastel dress to clanging atonal music. Oh no. There's a subdivision I have named Mainstream Contemporary Dance. It's for dancing numpties like me.

I was watching Dancing With the Stars on Saturday morning. See, right there, mainstream. Anyway Christina Perri was on it (again with the mainstream, although I'll come back to this later). Anyway the American version of Strictly seems to have some sort of 'Sob Story Slot' (this might not be the actual name of it) and so there was a girl who'd had a brain tumour on dancing to Christina Perri's song 'Arms'. Now with all the airplay (remember, mainstream) of Jar of Hearts I hadn't heard this. It's lovely and the dance was beautiful. More ballet perhaps than contemporary dance (although in my limited understanding of contemporary dance that seems to be ok), but beautiful all the same.




Skip to 3.00 for the dance, although her story with the brain tumour is worth it for context.

Anyway that reminded me of reading Christina Perri's story and how her Jar of Hearts song was featured on the American So You Think You Can Dance last summer when she was trying to make it. She was working as a waitress, the song was used and bam, two weeks later she had a recording deal. I came across this reading another blog I dip in and out of and it had me in a loop of watching dances from the American SYTYCD (which is infinitely better than ours by the way). So in this small way, I was ahead of the curve on Christina Perri. Not mainstream. Ha!

Then on Sunday night's Strictly, who was appearing? Only Christina Perri. She sang Jar of Hearts (see aforementioned airplay) and they had Kristina and Robin dance to it in that Stricly come-on-half-way-through-the-song way. I don't really know what 'style' of dance they did, essentially they just did a lot of tricks and what not. It reminded me of the free dance the finalists do, although Christina's dress is Rumba-y. But then she's in bare feet which is the contemporary signal to me, so it's confusing to a dance novice like myself. I will say this though, those candles must have been a bally nightmare to light and keep lit. And it now seems to be important for men to dance to Christina Perri songs with their shirts unbuttoned.




You don't have to watch it, it wasn't my favourite and it's not that important to the post, but seeing as I mentioned it I thought I might as well make it easy for you.

Anyway, this is all pointing to my two favourite contemporary dances from my tour through them last summer which I thought I'd share (annoyingly, I can't embed them here, but you've stuck with this post this long, you may as well click on through).

First off, the Jar of Hearts one that discovered Christina Perri. I'm going to sound like a real contemporary dance numptyhead here, but I thought the interpretation of the lyrics was so much better than the Strictly one. You can watch it here.

This is my favourite one though. Just beautiful. And then Cat Deeley starts to speak. It's to Collide, which interestingly is song that featured on my August 2006 playlist...the same time as I was watching Travis Wall (who choreographed this routine - he's standing at the end) competing in SYTYCD. Yeah, fair enough, only interesting to me.

Much like this post. Unless you too are a fan of mainstream contemporary dance.

I got love for you if you were born in the 80s

Over a period of weeks at the end of the summer I pretty much ended up touching everything I own because of the great roof space clear out of '11.  I was supposed to do it last summer, but then I went to see Toy Story 3 and I don't think I could cope with the idea of throwing anything from my childhood away. So this summer...well, I still didn't really, but I did tidy up the stuff and put things together that had for too long been apart. Like my Guernsey doll had been missing a shoe for about fifteen years because it was carelessly strewn in another box. She was very pleased to get it back. I imagine.

Actually it turned out to be a good thing that it took me this long to post this blog. Because just this week on Twitter I was pointed towards the Flickr collections that someone had put on of a 1985 and 1986 Argos catalogue. Go on, go get lost in those for a while. I'll wait here. You'll be amazed at how much your toys cost. Like that Fisher Price garage/car park thing that everyone had. Twenty quid, which in 1985 was...well, a clean fortune. And just what the heck was this slide/plane deal. Did this pass safety standards? Oh, I see it's the reason we have safety standards! And what's going on here? Some love triangle at the home gym? Mind you, in amongst all that humour, I still look at the Mr. Frosty longingly. Never got one, but if wishing had made it so...

So, the big roof space clear out was depressing and exciting all at once. It was exciting to find things I hadn't seen in year, things I thought were long gone and, well depressing because of the things I kept. This post celebrates some of the more exciting finds!

Like Tiny Tears. Mum made her a Bunny outfit to match mine. Bless.

And here she is ready for a rainy day!

This was her when I got her. Quite the head of hair she has there. (Meanwhile David got what appears to be a underpanted Action Man.)

Sweet Secrets anyone? She was in a car and it turned into...

a brush! Not one that you could brush my hair with (see photos). I liked to think of them as Transformers for girls.

My Little Pony! The one on the right is the one I famously cut the hair of and blamed on David. Sorry again. The yellow one had glitter hair - it was a birthday party present from someone. As was the blue one's outfit. I seem to only have three leg warmers and one shoe left. Oops. You can see more My Little Pony magic here!

Etch A Sketch! Santa brought me this, then it didn't work and Mum had to send it back to him.  He rectified his elves' mistake. And you can see it still works!! Good job Santa!

As does my type writer.

Here it is in all its glory.

Anyone remember Acorn Green? I don't really know much about it except I had the postman and the nurse. The Argos catalogue has the nurse on the bike, but I always put the postman on the bike. I don't know if he came with a bike too, or maybe it was my logical child brain working out that the postman also needed a bike and the nurse would work in Acorn Green General.

Crayola Draw 'n' Do desk! Oh the pictures I drew on this desk!

Snugglebum, which remains, to this day, a fantastic name for a toy. David got me this for Christmas one year. And I even documented in my diary the day she squeaked for the last time. I think it came from the water when I washed her hair, for I loved washing and brushing her hair. Although I really don't remember whatever the hairband thing is she has on here. Nor did I ever have her hair all crazy.

I found my Gordon the Gopher! He still squeaks. 

I also found our Edd the Ducks. CBBC kid, me.

Remember when 3D glasses looked like this?

Finders Keepers! The yellow bear was a birthday party present, the pink swan a present from my parents. I naively thought I could lock things from David in the swan. That was until he fashioned a key out of a crayon to open it up. Tight security eh?

In fact, here it is opened my birthday. Looks like I also got some Care Bears.

Probably some of these fellas. I also found my soft toy Care Bears - Bedtime Bear and one that was a reject from a factory (Sunshine Bear yellow but with a red heart Care Bears fans). Good old bargain hunt parents!

I quite liked the Care Bears. This is my Care Bear bumbag and all the things I deemed important enough to carry with me in it - my Popple, my Giggle Wiggle and my Care Bears purse and mirror. Yup, all the essentials there. These were important enough that I took them rollerstaking round the block. Oh yes.

I found my umbrella!

Clearly we weren't a superstitious lot.

Remember Trolls? I had the surgeon and the astronaut. Who knew Trolls were so keen on space exploration? (It would stand to reason they'd have to have medical experts. D'uh.)

Amongst about 92 pencil tins, I found my pen tidy. Remember these? Its exhaust is the pencil sharpener! Clever!

I had about 40 of these coloured rubbers.

Oh yes, a real Bronx cheer! Who ever called them that?!

This was David's one. Mine was red. Don't panic David, there was no money in it.

Remember these things? You could go swimming with them, although why you would was beyond me.

I'm glad I found my medal! I was one half of the team that won the 1989 P4 three legged race.

There I am with the medal, and I believe in my hands is the very tie that we used to. I look every bit the winner! While David is clearly jealous.

So that was all good fun! And then I found my Sindy and Barbie dolls. Well!

I had Crystal Barbie and My First Barbie (which genuinely was my first Barbie). I loved her white dress and her perfect little pink high heels. Sadly Crystal Barbie has only one leg now, but you can't tell in her evening gown.

It seems I got My First Barbie on my 5th birthday. Along with my bike basket.

I got the Sindy in red trousers first though. Bless her, the mid 80s Sindy had a bit of a big head. Ballerina Sindy then joined the fold. She could do all sorts of amazing ballerina moves, such flexibility! The last Sindy, in the blue dress, was a later addition. She even came with make-up, which was still smeared across her face. I wiped it off in the tidy up, let her be stored with a modicum of dignity eh?

A big head was the least of Ballerina Sindy's worries. She has a serious touch of the alopecia.

Apparently the makers of new Sindy got in trouble with the Barbie people for copying her design. I don't see it myself. Ahem.

And then there was Jem. I don't know where I got Jem from, I don't think it was my mum's style. If memory serves she was some sort of a pop star, with possibly a double life twist. While the Barbie people got into problems about the ridiculous size of Barbie's hips, or feet, or boobs, the makers of Jem were careful to avoid all unrealistic portrayals of women.

She was a bit of a heffer by comparison though. Check out those shoulders. Sturdy.

My favourite comparison comes with the shoes. Jem wasn't that much taller than Barbie, but she had majassive feet.

However, rumours that she had to have them make by Harland and Wolff are unfounded.

Look at the little tiny Barbie shoes (which include my collection of one red and one blue shoe for Crystal Barbie and her 'condition').  Jem's big boats are in the back row. Poor Sindy wasn't blessed with the prettiest of shoes either, but definitely more practical than either Barbie's or Jem's.

I don't think I really need to prove to anymore that I threw nothing out, but just incase you do question the validity of that statement, here's one more find:

my cast from when I broke my arm. In 1993. Eeew.

I found this picture of Karen and I on holiday in Majorca. Somehow the cast isn't the thing I notice about the photo.

Nice hats girls.