Owning a Dog: Pros and Cons

When I asked my parents should I get a dog for Christmas, their response went something like; “No Molly, dear God, no.”  This isn’t because they didn’t like dogs, (in fact, my Grandad bred them when my mum was growing up) they responded like this because if there’s anyone that knows my flaws, it’s my parents.  Me?  Be responsible for something’s life?  Oh the horror.

They said I wouldn’t be able to look after it, it’d be too hard to train, and it would be unfair on the dog.  I agreed with them at the time, but continued to research breeds anyway because I’ve never listened to a word my parents say.

I bought Barney off a man in the car park of a hotel on Boxing Day.  This, I do not recommend.  Despite being the sweetest thing I’d ever seen, Barney was not a healthy puppy.  My heart broke slightly when I had to choose between him and his brother, and to this day I regret not taking both of them.  Within five minutes of having Barney in the car, he took a poo, and I knew then that I loved him, because I wasn’t even mad.

Barney was a Christmas gift for Boyfriend, who always loved dogs.  He had no idea what I’d done and I was nervous when I heard him coming home the day after Christmas.  I put Barney in a box and put a sheet of festive wrapping paper over him.  True to form, when Boyfriend came into the living room, Barney had jumped out of the box and peed on the rug.

The first, and probably the strongest Pro to owning a dog is that they are ALWAYS happy to see you.  When you’ve had the most terrible day at work, nothing is better than being greeted by your dog when you first come through the door.  It’s as if you’ve died and have been raised again. I’m convinced he thinks the last time he sees you go out the door was the last time he’ll see you ever. If your very presence can make a dogs tail wag at lightning speed, you’re doing something right.

Con.  Dogs don’t really like dog food.  Every morning when I come home from work I go to the kitchen to make breakfast.  Every morning Barney stands beside me waiting, hoping against all hope that I drop some food on the floor.  If either Boyfriend or I are eating in the living room, Barney becomes entranced, with one eye on your plate and the other hypnotised by the chewing motion of your jaw.  It’s as though he hasn’t eaten in days, despite having a full bowl of his own food in the kitchen.  Last Christmas, I made a ham.  Once the ham was finished, we had no where to put the stock and the vegetables left in the pot, so we poured it outside.  Obviously this attracted the dog, so we put up a fence.  To this day, Barney still tries to get over the fence to eat what’s left of last year’s Christmas ham.

Pro. Dogs are great conversation starters and ice-breakers.  People are just friendlier when you have a dog.  Dogs are funny, they do funny things.  When I take Barney to the park, everyone wants to chat because he’s there.  Once, after we first got Barney, Boyfriend and I were having a fight, and it was getting pretty serious. Barney trots in and squats to take a poo, proceeding to do this weird squat-walk across the living room.  What had happened was; he had eaten some string. He’d pooed most of it out but the rest was yet to be liberated, so he was just walking around with a dangling bit of poo on the end of a string coming out of his rear.  Boyfriend and I were hysterical, the row forgotten.

Con.  Cleaning up after your dog.  I’m not just talking about string-poo, but pee, vomit, rocks he brings into the house, half eaten toilet roll holders, half eaten books, half eaten Xbox controllers, half eaten clothes (including dressing gowns, shoes, socks, pans and bras) not to mention the amount of hair he sheds.  We have a black rug, and with a white fluffy dog…  Well we need a new rug now.

Pro. Dogs enjoy the simple things.  Barney needs food, walks, water and love.  That’s it. How I wish I could be made so happy so easily.

I had more cons drafted to write about but now that I come to it, they’re not cons at all.  Of course there are little things that annoy me but there is nothing I would change about Barney.  He might be bold and extremely irritating sometimes, but that’s all part of his little personality.  I never thought I’d say this, but I am now a ‘dog person’ thanks to my little scruffy ball of joy.  If you’re considering getting a dog for Christmas, please make sure you can look after it properly. Do your research, prepare your house, but most of all, make sure you can love it as much as we love Barney.

Shit I Thought When I Was Younger.

Ever look back on your upbringing and think, “Shit, I was dumb.”

1. I thought Red Bull was alcohol.

Not just that it contained alcohol, it was alcohol.  Pure alcohol. My Dad told me this to stop me from buying it.  It was the only item in our corner shop that we weren’t, under any circumstances, allowed to purchase.  I believed this for a number of reasons – The packaging wasn’t very appealing to me as a child, only the bold boys in my neighbourhood seemed to drink it, and my dad was very convincing.  Although it dawned on me later in life that this was simply un-true, I still don’t drink Red Bull around my Dad.

2.  I thought my parents were always right.

They weren’t.  They were young and I was their second child.  I think they had barely gotten to grips with having one sprog before I came along. It took me years to realise that it was OK for me to disagree with them, because that’s what makes you an individual. I can see infinite differences between how my little sisters have been raised and how I was.  For Sonny (the youngest) it was: “Go sit on the naughty stair!” For me it was; “You’re gonna have a sore arse when you get home.” I love my parents with all my heart, but God, they really were shit sometimes.

3.  I believed that if you continuously picked your nose it would grow bigger.

Another Papa Dobbin classic here.  He doesn’t have a big nose per-sé, but it is generously proportioned to be larger than the average hooter.  I picked my nose a lot when I was younger, and every time he caught me doing it he would point to his own and say “This is what you’ll get!” in a cheerful voice.

4.  I was convinced that if I made a face and the wind changed, it would stay like that.

Despite having no idea what this means now, when I was a child I thought it was true.  I literally thought a gust of wind would come and keep my face stuck on ugly mode.  That I’d be walking around with squinty eyes and my tongue stuck out for the rest of my life.

5.  I thought The Simpsons was a regular cartoon.

Honestly, I find The Simpsons FAR funnier now that I’m older, because I actually understand the jokes.  When I was a child I watched it because it was a cartoon on at 6PM.  The last cartoon of the day before all hell broke loose and the News came on. In a recent episode I watched on the constant repeats offered by Sky, Homer says; “If you pray to the wrong god, you might just make the right one madder and madder” Would I have got this as a child?  Hell no!  Satire is not for the mind of a child.  I regularly watch old episodes and have my mind blown by how niave I was.

6. I thought the News was the worst thing ever.

Remember how pissed off you were when your parents turned on the News?  Not that there was anything else on the other channels, but you would watch literally anything but the News.  I even remember trying to be interested in it when I was in my early teens, but even then I just didn’t get it.  I was so oblivious to current events, that I thought Sinn Fein was a person till I was about 14.  I’m pretty well informed now, but there’s still no way I could sit and watch BBC News 24 like some older people do.

7.  I thought Santa was real.

Yeah, until I was around ten.  My cousin told me it was just my Mum and Dad.  I pretended I knew but I didn’t.  I was heartbroken.  I still think back to all those letters I had sent to the North Pole and the steps my parents took to convince me.  My Dad threw rocks on the roof.  My Mum wrote a letter in tiny hand-writing pretending it was from the elves. I also think back to the times it was glaringly obvious; once my Dad told me Santa prefers a nice cold beer instead of milk.  Once I woke up from a nightmare and went downstairs, Mum freaked out when she saw me and started shouting “BACK TO BED!  SANTA HASN’T HAD TIME YET!”  I always wondered why they were so tired in the mornings and didn’t want to experience the Christmas joy.

8.  I thought I’d be a pioneer.

One night on the way home from my Granny Dobbin’s house, my Dad and I stopped for chicken burgers.  While we were waiting, my Dad noticed something in the doorway of an old building.  I’ve never seen my Dad scared, apart from this night.  He turned on the van and drove forward a bit.  As an intuitive child (aka nosey as fuck) I realized something was wrong.  He said he had to phone the ambulance, because he had seen a body in the doorway (sometimes my Dad could be blunt).  He got out of the van to make the call but all I had to do was put down the window to hear him talking.  He said he didn’t want to approach the body because his daughter was with him, but he was pretty sure that he/she wasn’t breathing.  While we were waiting, to distract me (maybe more himself) we went to collect our burgers.  I was eating mine when the ambulance arrived, which on reflection is strange, because I should have been too worried about the dead body to eat.  The paramedics approached the body and knelt down.  The body groaned, rolled over and said; “Pete?”

It was just a man who had drunk too much, sat down and fallen asleep.  My Dad let me get out of the van and I remember standing there in awe that alcohol could do this to a person.  I stood there, chicken burger in one hand and said “I’ll never drink alcohol, Dad.” This was actually a load of crap because 9 years later he was picking me up from the Square Peg and cleaning my drunk-sick from the back of the car.

Although I look back at these times with a twinge of embarrassment, I’m positive I had a very normal, joyful childhood.  If I have kids and they turn out to be as happy as I was growing up, I think I’ll have done a pretty remarkable job.  My parents don’t read this, but they should be proud of themselves.

50 Facts About Me.

Despite having written around eleven posts, there still some basic things I would like to share.  Some are funny, some are sad.  Some are missing, but they might be for another time.

1. I was born with jet black hair.  My Mum said if it wasn’t so fine, she could have put it in pig-tails.
2. My first pet was a dog, called Texas.  We had to give him away because we were moving house.  He came back from two different families, because he  snapped at their children. The third time he went to an older man who was planning on breeding him.  My Dad promised we could go see the puppies if there ever was any, but we didn’t hear from the man again.
3. My second pet was a hamster given to me from my swimming instructor.  He was also my Dads friend, so it’s not as strange as it sounds.  I don’t remember its name, but we only had it for a week until it died.  My Mum had cleaned out it’s cage with bleach and I think it suffocated.  My Brother and I thought it was frozen, so when he woke me up to show me it wasn’t moving, I put it under my pillow in an attempt to heat it up and bring it back to life. I’m not sure how long we did this for (a hot water bottle was also included), but I wasn’t upset when Mum tied him in a plastic bag and put him in the outside bin.
4. I’ve kept a diary intermittently my whole life.  Since 2009 I’ve had one every year.  It’s not really ‘Dear Diary’ type thing though. I use it to write down notable events and work things, appointments… General stuff I wouldn’t want to forget.  I stick receipts in there too, because they help me remember what I did that day.  I do this because I used to work with people with mental health and memory problems, and to me, losing the mind or forgetting your past is one of the saddest things that can happen to a body.
5. My first job was in Easons.  I don’t think I was very good at it, because I was only there for a few months on a Christmas contract.  My favorite task was filling out the sweets.  I had a major crush on the bosses nephew.
6. I adore reading, but my favorite books are undoubtedly, unashamedly and eternally the Harry Potter series.  I recently finished re-reading them, but I’ve lost count how many times I’ve finished them. I will read them to my children one day and they will fall in love with magic like I did.  True works of art are timeless, and for me, Harry Potter is just that.
7. Due to my love of all things Potter, my third pet was a guinea-pig called Ron.  He was jet black, but had a single ginger stripe across the middle of his back.  He lived for about 14 years, which is strange because they’re only supposed to live half that.  My mum cried the day he died.
8. I’ve lived in six different houses in my life.  My favorite was the second.  I have the best memories in that house.
9. When I was 9 my Mum and Dad were hit by a drunk driver walking down to one of my primary school plays.  My little brother Harry, who was around 7 at the time, had just ran ahead to catch up with some friends.  My Mum’s leg was shattered, and my Dad damaged his back.  Mum was in hospital for a long time, but I remember she got out on Christmas Eve.  We think if Harry hadn’t have run ahead, we would have been cancelling Christmas altogether.  On a brighter note, my little sister who was in Nursery at the time, heard the news and hardly reacted.  The lady who informed us had said “Your mum and dad were hit by a car”, but my sister thought she said “Your mum and dad were hit by a chair.” – She didn’t see what the big deal was.
10. Every girl in my class in Primary Four got into the choir except me.  I used to sit with the boys and play Lego.  Until my Granny complained the system was unfair.  I appreciate what she did, but I wouldn’t have let me into a choir either.
11. I cried once because I didn’t know what zero minus zero was.  (It’s zero.)
12. The first makeup I ever wore was eyeliner, and I thought I looked phenomenal.  I was about 10, and my Mum made me take it off straight away.  I think she could see how much I liked it, didn’t want me to get hooked.  Alas, to this day I adore make-up, and most of all a smokey eye.
13. My Mum cut me a fringe in first year of secondary school.  If ever there’s a time to DRASTICALLY change your hair style, do not do it when you are in the beginnings of puberty.  Maybe it’s a right of passage.  On the first day of my new ‘do’ my form teacher said I looked like Cleopatra, never did I feel such regret.  Another thing too, TO THIS DAY, I am still trying to grow out that bloody fringe.  It’s been a side fringe for the last 10 years, and I don’t know how to get rid of it without looking like a member of Hanson.
14. I did English Literature, Geography, History and Sociology for A Level.  My A Level years were the best two years of my life so far.  I met the people that shaped the person I am now and experienced so much freedom.  Summer 2009 hold some of my happiest memories, when I started to be confident and find myself as a person.
15. I had braces.  I should have got them when I was 12 or 13, but my orthodontist died and I was put in the back of the queue, meaning I didn’t get them till I was 15.  I didn’t smile with my teeth in photos for about three years.
16. I’ve had two best friends called Katie.
17. My fourth and fifth pets were cats.  Meena was an all black kitten, I rescued her when I was around 8 from under the butchers car.  We had to keep her at home overnight because the cattery was closed when I took her home.  I fell in love with her immediately, even though the next day she climbed up the back of the boiler; when we tried to chase her out she hid in the engine of the car.  It must have been warm in there, Mum and Dad were afraid to drive, so the car was stationary for about a week before we had to flush her out with the watering can.  She settled into and became part of the family after a bit of pampering, but never liked to go outside.  We got another cat, Ally, which my Mum found (stole) in a garden beside my Granny’s house.  Meena and Ally were best friends.  We moved a few years after that, and one night Meena didn’t come home.  My older brother and I found her squished on the road not far from the house.  Sad and ironic how she hated to go outside, and the one time she decided to be a little adventurous was the last.  Ally sat on the windowsill for weeks looking out for her. It was sad. Ally still lives with my parents in Camlough, I still love her very much.  She must be nearly 18 now.  She’s senile and not allowed in the house anymore, because she kept coming in and pissing on the towels in the hot-press.
18. I’ve had around seven jobs.  My favorite was in a bar in Carlingford. I met a lot of cool people and drank a lot of cool drinks.  This was where I accidentally experienced my first ‘cigarette butt in beer’ cocktail.
19. If you asked me what my favorite food was, I’d say an apple.  If I’m hungover, it’s crisps.  I’d rather have five snacks than a meal.
20. I really hate coriander and celery.  I used to hate tomatoes, but I can just about stand them now.
21. I’ve had four boyfriends which I would regard as worth mentioning.  They weren’t serious, but I spent enough time with them that they impacted my life in certain ways, good and bad.
22. I’m sure the relationship I’m in now is the one.
23. Before I go to sleep at night, or if I’m really relaxed, I tap my foot against the other one, so that my leg moves slightly. It sort of rocks me off to sleep and indicates I’m truly content.  It’ll annoy the life out of you if you’re sharing a bed with me though.
24. My dreams are vivid, and I generally remember them easily.  I once told my little Sister about one of my dreams as a story before bed.  It ended as a dream does – with no conclusion – but she begged me to go to sleep and dream some more so she could find out what happened.  I never dream the same dream twice, so we never found out what happened to Harry Styles and the underwater people.
25. I was 11 when I had my first kiss.
26. I’m 5’10.
27. I’ve been to two funerals and three wakes in my life.  Both my Grandads are dead, I was 3 when my Mum’s Dad died.  I remember him lying there in one of the spare rooms during the wake, everyone was crying but I kept asking my mum “Why isn’t Granda getting up?” Way to rub it in, Molly, jeeze.
28. When my Mum announced she was pregnant with my brother Harry, I replied “Can’t we have a puppy instead?”
29. When I met my current Boyfriend, I told him I was a naturally clean and tidy person.  I don’t know why I said this, as this is not true.  I am as messy as they come.  I do go through little ‘bursts’ of wanting to have everything in the right place, but ultimately, sometimes the right place for everything is the floor of the bedroom.
30. Halloween is my favorite time of year.
31. I destroyed my first bike by crashing into a bush.  I was going downhill, the brakes were broken and I didn’t want to go onto the main road and get hit by a car.  I steered into a bush and sat their crying while my Brother went and fetched my Dad.
32. I learned to drive when I was 21, and passed my test on the third attempt.
33. My first (and current) car is a red 2008 Seat Ibiza.  I saved up and paid for it myself.
34. I am STILL obsessed with the videos Chandelier and Elastic Heart by Sia.  I think Maddie Zeigler is absolutely astounding, and if I start watching either video I cannot take my eyes off it until it’s finished.  She makes me want to be a professional dancer, despite not even bunny-hop-with-a-twist in P.E when I was in school.
35. I generally don’t like TV shows, but love and appreciate a great movie.  I’ve never seen a good book-to-movie adaption.  Perhaps surprisingly, I would say my favorite movie is 300.  It blew my mind the first time I watched it, so I watched it twice again that day.  Each time was better than the last.
36. My sixth and seventh pets were Irish wolfhounds named Meena (in memory of cat Meena) and Monkey.  We got Meena as a puppy, but Monkey was a gift from a rich client of my Dads’.  We live in the country beside a mountain, and one of the first times dad took Meena and Monkey out for a walk together, Monkey jumped over a fence and broke his front paws.  My Dad and Brother had to carry him back down the mountain.  If you don’t know what male Irish Wolfhounds look like… Well, it was like carrying a small pony down the side of a mountain.  Monkey’s paws healed, but he always walked funny.  He died last year.  Writing that made me sad, which is strange, because I never paid him much attention when we had him.  Meena is still alive, but she’s getting old and I think the end is nigh.
37. My favorite way of relaxing is on the sofa with a blanket.  Bonus points if it’s dark and cold outside.
38. I’d rather be too hot than too cold.
39. My feet are size 6.
40. My favorite restaurant is Wetherspoons.  Cheap and cheerful.  Not like me at all.
41. I do not and have never liked Primark.  I have bought things from there, only to regret it later.
42. I have an addiction to cooking programmes.  The Hairy Bikers are my favorite.  They’re probably the only celebrities I wouldn’t be intimidated to meet.
43. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, but I just can’t think of a story to write.
44. I bruise like a peach.  I wake up with new bruises on my legs almost every week with no idea how they got there.
45. My ninth and tenth pets were fish called Kep and Roger.  Boyfriend and I bought them last summer, but they only lived for three days until Roger ate Kep and somehow they both died.
46. There was a point in my life when My Chemical Romance was my favorite band.
47. When I was around 6, I stuck a pin in an apple hoping my brother would eat it.  My granny found out and hit me with a wooden spoon.
48. I used to have three elderly neighbors growing up; Billy, his wife Winnie, and her brother Tommy.  They all lived together next door. I don’t remember meeting them, but I do remember they were my best friends from around the age of 5 till 10.  They bought me my first bike, my Holy Communion dress, and kept a tin of sweets stocked up for when I came over.  They didn’t have their own kids, and I recently found out everyone else in the village though they were grumpy old people with a chip on their shoulder.  My mum said I brought out the very best in them, and they died happy; First Billy, then Tommy, and finally Winnie.
49. Barney is my eleventh pet.  A Parson Russel, you had best not confuse him with a Jack Russel, as he is far more handsome. The other day in the park I let him off his lead so he could run on a bit while I bent down to tie my shoe.  He came back covered in shit and we had to go home early.  His farts are the worst.  He is the best.
50. I am happy.

The Problem with Unidentified Sadness.

Why is it that there’s times in life when you can’t be happy?  I’m not talking about those who suffer from a mental health issues like manic depression or bipolar disorder.  I’m talking about the inexplicable times where you sit back and admit to yourself that you’re just sad.

I have read and laughed at a number of articles online that have highlighted the differences between men and women.  One of my personal favourites is the picture of a man and woman in bed, obviously a couple, lying with their backs to each other.  They’re both awake and look deep in thought.  The woman is thinking something along the lines of; 

“Why doesn’t he love me anymore?  Why hasn’t he spoken to me in days?  Did I do something?  Should I change for him? Is it because I put on 2lbs?”

At the same time he’s staring into the distance thinking, “Why wouldn’t the car start last Thursday?”

I am not saying that men are emotionally vacant, which this article implied.  I am questioning why I am emotionally plagued.  This might be an entry I do not want my boyfriend to read after what I’m about to admit, but sometimes, I am downright insane.  

My boyfriend is my best friend, and we get along pretty much all of the time. I do feel sorry for him however, when I get the dreaded ‘unidentified sad’. There’s been a time where he’s come home from work and went into the kitchen instead of coming in and saying hello to me first.  This has upset me.  

He’s good at telling if I’m distressed because he asks, “Why you wee sourpuss face?” Which makes me laugh, then become more annoyed because he’s not taking my feelings seriously.  I become increasingly pugnacious with every word he says.  I’m a wee sourpuss face because I feel like being a wee sourpuss face.  Why won’t he leave me alone?  But he better not DARE leave me alone, not without fixing my non-existent problem of ‘unidentified sad’. He better sit there under my baleful stare.  But he better not look me in the eye. Or use a certain tone of voice.  Or sit less than six inches away from me. Or hug me for more than 10 seconds. Or stand up.  Or sit down.  Or breathe.

Let’s face it, when I have ‘unidentified sad’, that poor man is fucked.

When I was younger and my parents used to fight, they would bitch behind each other’s back to my siblings and me.  My mum would complain my dad never listened or took hints, and my dad would complain my mum should see a brain doctor.  I told myself when I was in a serious relationship I would just TELL my partner what was wrong rather than have them guess.  I was good at this at the start, but there came to be a point in our relationship where I just felt he should know.  He should know things, like I know that he’s looking for his keys.  He should know I’m mad that he didn’t text me first, like I know he’s mad because he’s hungry.  He should know what to get me in the shop even when I don’t know what I want.

My literary effusions are in jest, but in the past I have been in a very dark place.  I worry when ‘unidentified sad’ lingers with me throughout the day like a gloomy dark cloud.  I have found the best way to extinguish this feeling is by embracing it.  I let it get to its worst, and then I let it go.  Sometimes I need to be sad.  It’s wrong for me to labour myself with the delusion that everything is consistently rosy, because periodically (and realistically), it isn’t.

There are things that keep ‘unidentified sad’ away – spending quality time with my boyfriend (phones away and wine poured), my dog when he’s being a good boy, talking to my dad on the phone (mum too when she’s in a good mood), seeing my brother and sisters, food, knitting, exercise, painting my nails or doing my make-up, writing, breakfast in bed (despite crumbs), reading, watching cooking programs, or just sitting thinking.  

What helps me most is realizing that I am not alone.  I had a comment about my last post from a girl I haven’t spoken to in years, who told me she agreed with everything I had written and really enjoyed my blog so far.  I’m always solicitous to cultivate opinions so I was touched, her small act of appreciation brought a golf-ball shaped lump of emotion into my throat.  Just to know someone can identify with me as a person, makes fighting my own ‘unidentified sad’ seem perfectly perfunctory. 

Story Time: The Blender.

 

When I decided to ignore my monster of insecurity and write this blog, I found I was constantly reminding myself not to write about mundane topics and to stay away from a ‘woe is me’ style of writing.  I’ve kept journals and diaries intermittently my whole life; I thought I would look back on them fondly with rose tinted glasses and a warm sense of nostalgia, however, as most journals will be, they’re extremely embarrassing.  Despite this, I have chosen to share one, which could be regarded as a little mundane as it was a ‘woe is me’ diary entry, but I feel it’s entertaining nonetheless.

It’s one of my oldest ones, when I was 7 or 8.  This is now a classic Dobbin dinner time story in my house. You know the scene; for once everyone is in a great mood, laughing and joking, poking fun of silly things we did when we were cute(r), trying to out-do each other with embarrassing stories of our shared past.  Seven out of ten times my mum or sister will mention ‘Molly’s Diary Entry’ and everyone will roll around the floor laughing.

I remember what actually happened very vividly, and I should provide some insight so we can all be fair about this whole escapade. I had watched an episode of Finger Tips, wherein Fearne Cotton guided me happily through how to make banana milkshakes (she was totally on that program with Stephen Mulherne).  I need to emphasize the gravitas of how delicious this milkshake looked.  I didn’t even really like bananas, but it was so elementary it practically made itself.  Bananas, milk, sugar – blend.  We had milk and sugar of course, but did we have bananas, and more importantly did we have the fundamental blender?!

We did.  WE DID!

JOY.  I would finally get to recreate something I had seen on TV.  None of this ostentatious Art Attack shit where I needed acrylic paints, glitter and PVA Glue (and talent – you lied to us Neil Buchanan).  I didn’t need to ask a grown up to help me. I didn’t even need to pull a chair over to the sink.  This was as easy as tying my shoe (which I had recently mastered).

So with the milk on the island, the sugar out and bananas peeled, I’m almost ready.  I go into the pantry to haul out this blender.  It’s roughly 1997 so the blender is literally the Titanic.  I onerously take Titanic and plug her in.  Almost there.  I can practically taste that sweet potassium dairy goodness.

Disaster strikes.  My mum walks into the kitchen and my dream collapses.  Tells me to ‘Put away the blender’, shouting that she doesn’t want to clean up after me again, ‘not after last time’, whatever that means.  As a very irascible child I naturally protest, I implore my mother to understand, I desperately try to convey my convulsive need for milk blended with banana, I cry… I end inevitably sulking in my room.

I felt like a Prisoner of War. There I was, set to have my first ever illustrious banana milkshake and the experience is over before it could begin.  Beleaguered in my bedroom, I release my anger by screaming into a pillow for 30 seconds straight, then take my little red face over to my little lilac desk and write in my little flowery diary.  Having only just mastered the basics of the English language I write something along the lines of “I hate my life.  I want to die.  Mum won’t even let me use the blender”

I know that despite how ludicrous this was, there is something sweet to this story.  I know that others will have similar experiences, although they are not cause for feelings of discomfort or embarrassment. I feel these memories should remind us of how innocent we all once were.  It makes me feel an ambivalence which is synonymous with childhood.  That bittersweet, rueful quality of life whereby you feel like you lost an old friend, but gained something very important along the way.