A Decade in a Life

A Decade in a Life

Ten years. So much can happen in ten years. A life-time for some. For me.

It starts off with me being born (funny that). I am actually right now sitting in the building I was born in, in the kitchen of my third grandmother, Jo Jo. We’re in Brighton, Hove actually. In a place called Adelaide Crescent, 2^nd floor flat.

I was a home birth, something my mother firmly believed in. (Although it’s not one of her greatest passions, as she’s only done it twice).

There aren’t really any dramatic stories about my birth, but straight after I came out, JoJo banged on the door for minutes to be let in - but my dad refused.  But not much drama. (Oh, I did wee on my dad as soon as I arrived.)

We lived in Brighton for a while after that, happy as Larry until my dad got the mad idea to follow his dream of being a scuba-diving instructor meaning we would move to Dominica.

Yeah…. not a good plan. Being foolish adults my mum and dad plopped me on a plane to the West Indies. Sunshine, wonderful blue sea, delicious food, lovely people…

No. Hurricanes, local smugglers and giant rats more like it.

I must say that when I re-read this to my dad he said that was my mum’s memories of Dominica and for him it was wonderful and beautiful.

However, the hurricane was the last straw for my mum so back to rainy England we came.

This is where we live with my dad’s mum in London. Again, not my mum’s ideal home, but great fun for me. Every Friday Daddy and I would go to have swimming lessons. (For me not him). Afterwards we’d always have fish and chips – a lovely memory, even though I don’t really like them. (NB: please, in this paragraph, take note of the swimming lessons).

Of course we weren’t going to live with my Gamma for ever so my parents chose….

YORKSHIRE. I know, they were mad. These are the people who love cities and food and are rarely found tramping over moors. So why a tiny village named Ilkley, surrounded by moorland? I think they were having a mid-life crisis, early!

We bought a house to renovate. I went to my first school – a posh little girl’s school. Where, at the age of five, I had to wear a blazer and boater. I remember walking through town after school one day and bumping into my teacher, who ordered me to put my hat back on.

Within a year, the famous three became the famous four. I was pleased as my brother Jai arrived bearing a lovely purple cardigan and some sparkly shoes. And I realized why my mummy’s tummy had been so big.

His birth was a lot more exciting than mine. Very dramatic. He was also born at home, in the basement, which was our sitting room. Anyone walking by could have seen my mother giving birth, but she was more worried about ruining the towels than the sight. 

But as this is my life story, not his, I’m not going to explain his birth, as I was sleeping. I remember my dad waking me up to say I had a new baby brother. A small tear fell from my eye as I realized my days of being spoilt were over. I’m only joking, I was happy. And I was the first person he smiled at – so they say…

The best part of the birth was the fact that my mum started going into labour in the night and my dad, being a man, told her he was going back to sleep. So the modest angel I am appeared at her side and offered to run her a bath. Cold – the boiler never worked and, being only four, I couldn’t fix the heating.

You remember the swimming lessons? Well Water Babies started up in Ilkley. The whole business began with a phone resting on top of a fridge inside a building site of a house.

Water Babies is now the largest baby swimming company in the world, teaching more than 27,000 babies and toddlers each week. (PR: I learned it from my mum).

And it all exists because of moi.

Now my mum says she doesn’t change her mind. She does.

They didn’t like Yorkshire after a short while. Wanted to live by the sea again.

So we found an idyllic house in Devon – a falling down one on the edge of a cliff. We do make strange life choices… Time they put me in charge.

The views from it are amazing. And it was in fairly good order when we bought it.

I started at a tiny school in a tiny village. Here I stayed for the next two years, before moving to another school in Branscombe, where I stayed for another two years.

Have you ever heard of the Napoli? Well it crashed just off Branscombe beach and, yeah! we got three days off school.

 I do love school really.

Never one to sit tight, I moved schools again, this time to a school in Dorset.

When I first started I was a boarder and my brother was still at school in Devon. Everyone who knew me said I’d be a great boarder. They were wrong – to say the least. I really couldn’t bear it, so my parents, being the wonderful, amazing, incredible, beautiful people they are, brought a tiny cottage just up the road from school and moved there, just so I didn’t have to board any more.

My brother and I now both go to the same school, and we love it.

Life at the moment isn’t the life we always dreamed of, but one that’s working towards it.

Within a decade, I have had seven different homes, four different schools and a new baby brother. My parents have created the world’s biggest swimming company and we have lived in a different country.

It’s amazing what you can achieve in just ten years.

But, as my dad commented, people can have simple lives where every day is the same, or people can have lives like mine, with many different chapters.

My life has rounded me up to the person I am today.

Ps: And I have also, at last count, backpacked through roughly 20 countries and 48 cities. But I have yet to find my singing voice.

Water Babies had the idea for a fully clothed underwater shoot, showing how happy the babies and toddlers are underwater and I got to have a go!

Fashion as Art

I’ve had a few people comment on my profile photo, about the fact I’m wearing lipstick and look quite grown-up. Well, obviously I don’t look like that normally. The reason I chose the photo was that a. I like it but b. doing this blog, I don’t particularly want to be instantly recognizable. If you want a true representation of me writing this, I’d be wearing tracksuit bottoms, thick socks and a scarf. Not very iconic.

Since I was about 10, my friends and I have been doing fashion shoots. These are some of the photos we’ve taken from the more whacky creative shoots we’ve done. I love doing them; they’re my kind of art. Not painting and drawing but coming up with an idea, setting out and creating it. The best part is like finishing a painting: seeing all the photos you’ve taken, pictures that just started out as a little idea in your head. So really I just do what an adult does. I’m not trying to be one it just happens that I have the same interests.

This was a photo shoot done in the woods. We made all the clothes by roughly sewing bits of odd material together and took over 500 photos. We were quite surprised we didn’t freeze as it was the middle of winter!

    

I got the idea for this one from the Dior advert where she has the balloons and is flying over Paris; this is a not so glamorous version of that photo. I did it by jumping really high (I was surprised by just how high I could jump). I’m joking, it was done on the trampoline. My friend and I took so many photos!

This was the most recent one I’ve done, my profile picture coming from this shoot. The theme of the shoot was dolls, we named it Broken as it was like dolls coming alive, some frozen in a lake, others breaking, some just looking slightly sinister.

This was a shoot done in the bath, wearing a dress surrounded by freshly bought apples. I had the idea of a perfume ad, not sure how it led on to this…

John Jacobs

This is a poem I wrote a year ago and it comes up quite a bit with me. I recited it for my ESB (English Speaking Board) where you have to give a speech, poem and reading.

It doesn't have much of a story I just came up with it one day and wrote it down:

John Jacobs

This is a poem for John Jacobs,

A boy that I paid no attention to in class,

The boy with the double J’s in his name,

The boy that our teacher informed us today,

Died in a fatal car crash,

I don’t know what it was,

About this boy I’d never spoken to,

When he died,

I felt like something inside of me was ripped out,

Something I didn’t know I had,

But wanted back,

So I made the decision that I’d find something out about him,

I asked his teacher,

He said he was good at Maths,

A true genius,

I asked his friends,

They said he was immense at football,

I asked his music teacher,

She said he could work magic with an instrument,

But best of all,

I asked his parents,

They said he was a great boy,

A great son,

So I wrote them all down,

And put them together in this poem,

I’m not a writer,

Or someone who likes to write poems,

I just felt like I should write this,

That’s all,

This is a poem for John Jacobs,

A boy that I paid no attention to in class,

The boy with the double J’s in his name,

The boy that our teacher informed us today,

Died in a fatal car crash,

Dreams in Clay

I wrote this poem around the time of Remembrance Day for school. We had to write war poems but I wanted to make mine slightly different. Usually they are written about the old wars so I wrote it on one we are fighting now in Afghanistan. I also wanted to express the more unusual emotions you’d feel when losing someone.

It is about a woman who loses her lover, and as a result goes slightly mad. She misses him intensely and doesn’t know how to show it so expresses it in slightly childish ways.

Within the poem, I particularly like the imagery of the clay figures because they are fragile and can be easily broken, the way she feels. They are generally something a child would take up, to make figures and create scenes. It is the imagery that I think perfectly expresses the emotions in her mind.

I described these emotions because whenever we describe the emotions of losing someone they are always to cry, to become introverted etc. However, these aren’t the only feelings one would experience and the woman in the poem feels more complex, complicated ones that torture from within. Maybe many people feel them, maybe they don’t; this is my interpretation of a different type of grief.

I also wanted to look at war and loss through a different angle. This is why the poem is slightly disjointed and written in a very simplistic way as it’s the way her mind was working. It shows the damage that war can do, not just to the people fighting, but those left at home.

Dreams in Clay

Hold my hand

Then let it go

Kiss my lips

And forget me.

There’s a wind that blows

It comes once a year

In its flow there’s a touch of winter and autumn

Why do I know this?

I’ve acquired the habit of making tea

Place a teabag in a mug

Add boiling water

And watch the colour change

Then add milk or sugar

Everyone knows how to make tea

But my mind is like a child's without you

There’s a path that wanders through a wood

It carries on for miles

Then stops

You have no option but to turn back

I still walk along it twice a day

I wonder why

I know why

But I won’t tell myself

I’ve acquired the habit of crafts

I make tiny men

Out of clay

Then dress them in hand-stitched garments

Create scenes from cardboard

Then I act out plays

I laugh with myself

Pretend I’m laughing with you

There’s one, it’s my favourite

There’s a couple

They are strolling through a wood

On a path they’ve travelled before

When it stops

He stops; the man

He turns his small grey body

And whispers:

‘Hold my hand

Then let it go

Kiss my lips

And forget me.’

The girl does not understand what he is saying

But his eyes make her cry.

Do you remember that scene?

It was our last together

And on that day it was raining

I don’t know why I remember the rain

You left me

You walked away

You never came back

Lost on the empty plains of Afghanistan

Hold my hand

Then let it go

Kiss my lips

And forget me

I will never forget you

But this is the last poem

I will write for you

I held your hand

Now I let it go.


Minnie Moo

An event of me in a dress

This is one of the funniest things that has happened to me and it actually did happen! It was so strange and random at the time that I really had to write about it. I just want you to share the little joke:

Stella McCartney

Meatpacking District – New York

The dress floated on a rail. Others of the same colour lined up alongside. It was white lace. Looked perfect. Faultless.

After a little dithering, I decided to try it on. I was pretty fearless for an eleven (almost twelve) year old.

The changing room had ornaments decorating the walls: small photos, letters, birds and black and white photos. Light brown wallpaper with trees and leaves provided the backdrop.

The dress was soft and looked extremely delicate. I carefully slipped it on. It felt expensive; I could now tell why rich woman spend a fortune on clothes. Because we are a world obsessed with labels and price. Anything ridiculously expensive is instantly made cool. And I, like all other sheep, love it!

 The zip was a little stiff, but with a few hard tugs it edged its way up.

The dress was truly beautiful, a work of art. The lace had not a stain. It felt light and perfect.

Outside of my little dream world, reality knocked on the door. It said in my head “The price tag…the price” in a kind of annoying voice.

And as always it was right: $1,500.

Time to take it off.

The assistant wandered around outside waiting for someone to help. As I popped my head round the door she was giving a lady a pair of trousers.

“Excuse me.” My voice came out slightly nervous but also amused.

“Yes, how may I help?” Her voice was soft, trained to make you want to buy things.

I revealed myself; and the dress. “Well, it’s stuck.”

She began to try and prise open the zip. I smiled inwardly, back in my imaginary world of fantasy. ‘If they can’t get me out I’ll have to keep it’.

“It’s not budging.” Her voice was more apologetic then I expected. “It has happened a lot with these dresses this season. Just wait a moment.”

She came back with a man who began to copy her actions. The zip would still not move. I imagined it laughing with dragon horns, but to me it was more an angel.

He then began to try and rip it.

“It’s really not moving,” the lady said taking over the ripping. “If we cut it then she can just replace the zipper.”

I realised they were referring to Stella McCartney herself. How cool is that?! Well for me it’s very cool. Anyway.

“We are going to have to cut it.”

The scissors appeared.

They began to cut through the fabric.

My heart pounded.

And then with the last slice the dress was off.

And I could not walk away with it.

I thanked them and walked back into the changing rooms. And removed the beautiful, delicate dress. Which was in the end, pretty strong. Stella or Miss McCartney would have to do plastic surgery for it to regain its former self.

I handed the dress over to the assistant. I imagined an escape scheme. I’d grab the dress and….err… leg it.

She was saying how sorry she was. And yes she should have been for cutting me out of it. So yes sorry you should be indeed. But I said the polite words against my will:

“Oh it’s ok I’m sorry too.” Forced. I smiled and turned.

Ah, my father. “So what happened in the end?”

“They had to cut me out of it.” He laughed.

“Come on then let’s go.” He stood up from the sofa.

Boys’ ways of shopping: walk into shop, find a seat, sit and wait, smile when they can leave and hurry out of the shop before it’s too late.

The doorman smiled and wished us a nice day.

I stepped out of the shop and left the dress…the dress…

Just to be clear I didn’t really have all those feelings at the time. I was standing quite still and being very polite. My heart wasn’t really beating very fast or anything. And before you report me I wasn’t planning on stealing it. Well…

Facebook

Status update: Just got cut out of a Stella McCartney lace dress.

Looking through the comments a lot of people thought I would have to pay for it. This thought never even occurred to me - and I didn’t by the way.

It was just the fact that I had to be cut out of a Stella McCartney lace dress.

(And I know I am too young to be on Facebook, but my views on that subject I will discuss another time.)

Here is the dress, with the rip! 

 Minnie Moo

Melting Promises

So this is the first piece I will post. It's a ballad I wrote two days ago for school. I got the idea for its theme when hearing an ice cream van go by at one of my osteopath appointments, strange I know. My ballad writting didn't start off to well, but it got there in the end:

Melting Promises

Do you hear the ice cream bells?
Calling children in
Promising dreams of goodness
But the children never win

It was Miss Molly Parker
She's the one that went
She only wanted an ice cream
But the money was never spent

She left in the evening
And didn't return at night
Her parents they wern't worried
As it was still bright

But when the morning dew came
And still there was no trace
They began to worry
They had not seen her face

She appeared in the headlines
Of September, ninety-nine
People they would read it
Thinking she was fine

But you see they missed the ice cream van
Silently driving by
That stole Miss Molly Parker
For whom her parents cry

The story they don't know
Is the one of this
The man he took her
But not to promised bliss

He drove by her side
Asked her to get in
She wanted to see inside his van
But his words were words of sin

So now Miss Molly Parkers gone
And no one knows to where
No one noticed the ice cream van
That took her away from there

Do you hear the ice cream bells?
Calling children in
Promising dreams of goodness
But the children never win

Minnie Moo

Why?

I have one very simple reason for creating this blog: I want people to read my writing. That's all.  I write so much and it's just sitting in a folder in my house, so now I am sharing it with you. I hope you'll like it, but maybe you wont as it is after all a subjective thing (which is very annoying when entering competions!)

So all I ask, if you visit this blog is to read.

Minnie Moo