More pre-school stuff

My sister was born when I was 2. Apparently, I wasn't jealous, except when Watch with Mother came on, and that was my time to sit with Mummy. I remember one time, we had got home from shopping and Mum had put us in the lounge. I put all the cushions from the sofa in a circle around my sister, who was sitting up, and threw Wotsits (a cheesey corn snack) at her, as she then ate them. I have never much liked Wotsits, although my sister does.

We moved again before I started school, although this time within the same town. I got the smallest bedroom in the house (something which I did resent, since I was the older child) but I got to choose the colour my parents painted it. For some reason, I chose a golden sand colour, and was quite insistent. So I got it. The next house we moved too, my parents painted it the same colour, of which I wasn't very happy. Still, that is jumping ahead.

I went to playgroup and had a fairly good time. I was silly and found some piece of junk which I played with for ages, put a coin in it, and then tipping it up into my mouth, promptly swallowed the coin - in front of my parents and sister. Dad took me to the hospital and I got to see an X-Ray of my tummy, with the coin plumb in the middle of it. I was fascinated by the picture, but they wouldn't let me keep it.

During this time, I was diagnosed with Asthma. Unlike today, where the doctors seem very quick to hand out an inhaler, it was not that common to actually get this diagnosis. But the Doctor was one of two brothers who both picked that as a speciality during training, and I'm glad they did.

My first inhaler was an Intal Spinhaler. It was very tricky for me at 4 to use this properly. I kept blowing instead of sucking, so never got any of it. My mum had made a friend, whose son was the same age as me, and had been using one for a while. We went over one afternoon, he showed me how to use it, and gave me a whistle attachement, which whistled only if you sucked in. I picked it up in no time. Dean went on to become my best friend for quite a few years, even though we didn't end up in the same class at school.

We had moved to a new build, in a cul-de-sac, where many families like ours moved to. This was great. We had the couple of older kids who led us all, and had the fancy stuff to play with. A few younger kids who followed us around, and then a few my age. We did everything. Skateboards, football, go-karts, hide and seek. As it was a new build, some bits weren't quite finished, and we once destroyed an edging slab between the what was to be a pavement and a grass verge, in order to have a tunnel to drive our cars through. Happy times.

I remember the first time I truly scared myself. It came over really black and the rain absolutely pelted down. The next door neighbours cousin and I decided we were going to stay out in the rain (everyone else had gone inside). After a few minutes, we had some thunder, which slowly got louder and louder. Then, CRASH. A bolt of streak lightening came out of the sky, not very close to us, but when you are 5, it seems worse than it probably was, and we jumped out of our skins, and ran inside our houses.
I've never deliberately stayed out in the rain again, but thunder and lightening have never bothered me.

Then I went to school.

tbc...