6 Random Things - Mostly first things as it turns out.

I got this from Echomouse and will roughly follow her format:

1. My first bike was a big three wheeler. We lived halfway down a steep 200 yard cul-de-sac. I would ride the bike to the bottom of the hill and let all the boys in the village take it in turns to ride it back up to the top. ( Not many of the children had their own bikes). I could then ride it back down again with all the boys chasing after me. All I ever had to do was to keep my feet away from the pedals. Oh, and of course, I did have to walk to the top of the hill but that was much easier than pedalling a big heavy bike.

2. My first train journey was a nightmare. My mother got off at the station with my younger brother and left me on it!

3. As the eldest child of 4, and at the age of 12, I often had to look after my siblings during the school holidays. To keep them out of trouble I organised games and activities. On one occasion, we were playing hide and seek and I couldn't find my baby sister anywhere. Suddenly I got the most terrible sense of fear, rushed out to the outhouse and threw open the lid to our large freezer. My 2 year old sister had been placed there by my youngest brother. She was okay but very very cold. Lesson learned - Always do a risk assessment before organising anything, never under estimate the stupidity or ignorance of some people and always take health and safety issues seriously.

4. My first job. I worked as a waitress in a Blackpool hotel. The wage was a pittance and the hours were long. Working in that kind of environment seems to separate you from the rest of the world and means that you practically eat, sleep and drink with all your work mates. Well no, I didn't sleep with them all as such, but you know what I mean.

5. My first home was a pokey little furnished flat in Blackpool. The landlord was very stingy but I told him I wanted a carpet in my bedroom. Eventually he agreed to carpet the room and came round to measure up. I caught him measuring round the bed and when I asked him what he was doing he replied as I expected. " No point in putting carpet under the bed, is there?" I told him that if he carpeted round my bed I would move it to the other side of the room and he would have to come back with more carpet.

6. My first car was a little orange Mini. It was forever letting me down in some way and I grew to hate it. One day I went out to discover a flat tyre which must have been the last straw, I suppose. In sheer frustration, I kicked the car, leaving a big dent in the side. I went back indoors and paced up and down. I was so ashamed and really couldn't work out how to live with myself. Eventually I put the TV on. Faulty Towers was on and it was the episode where John Cleese rips off part of a bush and thrashes his car with it. The weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. I then instructed someone to take the car away and I have never seen it since. This in not quite true - Every time I get the urge to hurt an inanimate object the orange Mini flashes through my mind.