5 Random Things - getting to know me a bit more

Some of these posts you may recognise from my previous blog, which I have had to take down for a number of reasons. This blog is not controversial at all, and will be just what the title says!
1. I almost drowned when I was about eight. We were at the lake in Malawi, only it wasn’t the usual cottage we were staying at. This one was much further north up the shore, and there was a hell of an undertow. My mum and I were jumping waves and the undertow pulled me under the water and away from her. I can still see the water above my head. Luckily, she spotted a foot, and grabbed it. Once she had pulled me out and given me a cuddle, we went straight back to the waves, with her gripping on to me more tightly. It was the right thing to do as I was not left with a fear of the water at all, apart from once when a canoe I was in toppled over into the water and I had to fight to get it the right way up again! But that’d scare anyone!
2. Childhood diseases – I never had any of the normal ones as a child. When we moved back to UK and I went to schools there we had to fill in medical forms. One question was “Have you had Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps or Rubella?” Well, the answer to all of them was no. Then there was a little space where you had to write down the illnesses you had got as a child. Mine read “Malaria, Dysentery and Bilharzia”! I think the school nurses probably had to look that last one up! I have since had Chicken Pox by the way, at 26yrs old, and a very nasty experience it was too!
3. I went to one of the best private schools in Britain. And hated every single second of it. Slightly interestingly, it was the same school as both Tony Blair (our not-so-revered ex PM) and Tilda Swinton (mad-as-a-box-of-frogs actress). I went to a prep school before that, and was a weekly boarder which wasn’t too bad, but the senior school was a lot further away so I had to be a termly boarder. The reason I went to these schools was because when we first got back to Scotland, I went to the local primary school, and the teacher was thick as shit. I had to write something once about something exciting that had happened to a member of my family, so I wrote about when my mum went inside the pyramids when she was 15. The teacher scrawled across the page in bright red ink “Don’t be stupid – everyone knows you can’t go inside the pyramids”. My mum was furious, mainly because the teacher hadn’t checked her facts, so promptly withdrew me from the school. I went to boarding school with the Enid Blyton view of it. I thought it would be all midnight feasts and playing tricks on the teachers! Unfortunately, it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I would never put a child of mine through that, although, at the time my parents were trying to do the best for me. I ended up leaving the senior school before they asked me to (something to do with smoking on the roof at midnight at 14yrs old), and went to a state school in Dumfries, which was a brilliant experience, and I made most of my lifelong friends there.
4. I broke my leg two years ago. Isla had just had a pair of kittens for her birthday, and I was going to check on them before I went to bed at about 12am. They were in a small room outside for the first couple of weeks with a litter tray etc. It was dark, and I fell over a flower pot! I was totally sober, unfortunately. If I had been drunk, I may not have hurt myself. I screamed loudly. My mum, who was playing freecell on the pc at the time had the presence of mind to write down the number of the game she was on, and came running out at the same time as my dad. We phoned the SAMU (paramedics) who turned up within about 20mins – not bad for a rural area. The problem was, that at the same time as checking the cats I was going to the loo – we have an outside toilet, which serves as a swimming pool changing room. So, there I was lying on the floor, desperate for the loo, and not just a N°1 either! My mum and dad helped me to hop inside, sat me on the loo and left me to it. By the time I had finished I was close to passing out. When I injure myself, my blood pressure tends to plummet and I have in the past, passed out and had convulsions. Wanting to avoid this, they lay me down on the floor with my leg raised. The one problem with this was that the bathroom is very narrow, so the paramedics couldn’t easily get me out of there without a stretcher, so the pompiers (firemen) had to be called as they are the ones with the ambulance! My mum obviously needed to go to the hospital with me, but both she and my dad had had a couple of glasses of wine, so couldn’t drive. She phoned our friends who were there in minutes. By the time we got going in the ambulance I had managed to have a diet coke and a fag, and intraveinous painkiller, so was feeling ok. We finally got home around 6am, whereupon my dad had to go to the pharmacy and buy some crutches and get the prescription of anti-phlebitis injections which the district nurse had to give me daily.
N.B. Don’t break your leg in France – it’s an expensive occupation.
5. I cry at things on TV. All sorts of things. I like soap operas. Ok, I know that’s a bit sad, but they really are total escapism. I don’t like all of them. The mains ones I watch are Eastenders and Home and Away. I have actually found myself crying at them, but then I cry over anything remotely sad, even RSPCA adverts! I could never watch Animal Hospital because it would have had me blubbing! Some films leave me wrung out like a dish cloth! The animal ones are the worst – like Black Beauty, Lassie, Homeward Bound, especially when the old retriever limps over the hill – I need king size elephant strength Kleenex! Even a song will get to me sometimes, if it reflects how I’m feeling. I’m a real cry baby! And yet, in real life I tend to bottle emotions up, and eventually the bottle bursts and I lose my temper spectacularly, and it’s over fast. I suppose the crying at films thing releases pent up emotion better than losing my temper! There’s less shouting anyway!
NB. Photographs Not My Own Work - except my broken ankle!