Technically there is an introduction to this post and you can find it here.

I’m not entirely sure how many parts there will be to this – also maybe in a year or two I’ll add more parts as I continue my journey but let’s start with Part One.

April 1986

It’s getting towards the end of April and my Mum’s getting ready for her first baby to arrive on the scene. I’m not sure if Mum knew I was a girl before I arrived or whether I was a surprise – maybe I need to ask her that. So the 27th April arrives and as far as my Mum is aware I’m due in about three weeks time – around the 19th May. A chunk of the country are looking westwards to Russia to see if the cloud from Chernobyl is coming this way (which it did!)

Well clearly like a lot of things being late bugs me (I mean it really bugs me!) so contractions start and my Mum goes into labour. It’s get to mid afternoon and I arrive in the world but I’m 3 weeks premmie and so I’m parked in an incubator for a little while.

My cousin D arrives about 3 and a bit, almost four weeks after me so we had each other to get into trouble.

Around two years later, my brother arrives on the scene. I’m almost two and a half. In this picture clearly we’re a bit older than that. I think given the bits in the background we must have been camping which was a regular family thing to do. (The first time I went on a ferry I was probably about 13 or 14 and I didn’t go on a plane until I was 19 or 20).

Church was a major part of our lives from a young age and I think I was going to church pretty much every Sunday after I was born (okay I missed some through holiday and sickness but you catch my drift – it was always there).

Around the age of 4 or 5 I started going to Sunday School at Renhold Chapel. I remember being in my Grandma’s group for Sunday School and it being more fun when she taught rather than when Mr J taught. We’d meet in the “Sunday School Room” which was behind the pulpit in the chapel.

I remember loving Sunday School but questioning my sanity during some of the “grown-up” services. On the first Sunday of the month it would be family service so we might get some songs from Junior Praise, a game or a puzzle. If it was the “grown-up” services, we’d  either have songs from Mission Praise or have hymns from the Sankey Hymn book. If it was a Sankey Sunday and we got the choice, I’d always pick Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam if I got to pick one mainly because it was the only one I properly knew from the book. (Now I know a few more!)

About the same age I started at Hills Lower School, I started on half days in the EYU and then headed up through the school until Year 4. I loved gym and dance as well as playing the recorder, I think I can blame this for the future adventures.

I think I’ll leave it there for now, it was supposed to be bite size and WordPress is telling me I’m on 530ish words – oh dear!