joining in

I thought I would join in the "posting old pictures" movement as I have enjoyed everyone else's.

So, we have here - as background a card an old man (who I have never met) sent my parents when I was born. It has a silver thruppenny (sp?!) bit in it and it says that, as long as I keep it, I will never want for money. Well, that seems to hold true - there's always been enough. Sometimes it was only just but who needs more anyway?
Next up, the locket that I got given by my parents on my first Christmas. I was only a few months old so they decided to give me something special as I wouldn't be playing with toys yet. I wear it every Christmas and never in between. No idea why but that's how it was when I was a child and I've never quite dared to do otherwise.

And then the photo - taken, I guessing, when I was about three, in the yard of the second farm I ever lived on. My love of long socks and mini-dresses already apparent. The ball was a great favourite of mine and I remember well how sad I was when it finally turned into a deflated, grey thing that not even the dog would play with. My shyness as a little one is also apparent, I guess I still have it in some ways, I just don't express it by shoving my dress into my knickers anymore. In the background is the grey van that belonged to Alan Barrington who did the milking at the weekends, wore a blue beret and whistled "I did it my way" when he got the cows in. I liked him and probably followed him around a lot chatting to him because that's what I did if I liked people (still do). He gave me a battery powered mini vacuum cleaner for Christmas one year and it had little styropore beads to hoover up. I thought it was very nearly the best thing ever and played with it til it broke. I suspect that my brother probably took it to pieces then and used the bits of it to make something else. If I remember rightly, my sister got her Sindy doll that year too. And it was probably the last Christmas we had before my Dad got so ill and we moved away. I used to think of Alan Barrington a lot when we moved and I missed him. Not having grandparents near-by meant that I had a perfect "old person" shaped hole that needed filling and I generally adopt a granny where ever I go, even now I can often be found chatting to ancient people :-)

What you can also see in the photo is my wonky right leg. At this time I was having to do physiotherapy exercises every day to straighten my leg as having a wonky leg was considered to be a Bad Thing. The main reason for this seemed to be that I would wear out my shoes crookedly. Which doesn't sound like a great bit of reasoning to me. My leg did end up more or less straight but, unfortunately, the straightness where it shouldn't be led to my ankle becoming more and more painful as the joint froze into position. This was joined with massive pains in my hip and a messed up back. Somewhere along the line my left shoulder joined in the fun and gave me terrible headaches. All so that my shoes would wear out in a more socially acceptable way!! Two years of pilates has sorted me out and I am proud to say that I have a wonky leg again and walk with my right foot slightly turned in. My right shoe wears out in a way that can only be described as an disgrace to the nation and I'm not in pain anymore. I did it my way :-)