Not that I had a sweet sixteen in September, what with my birthday being and January and me not being in an american teen movie and all, but it is the lyric pertaining to September in calendar girl which is what this post is about…
September has been a big month for me at various points in my life. Lots of us have been thinking about September as a Big Month for one reason and another and it certainly is for us.
So, in this week 26 years ago I started school. I remember it very clearly. I wore a little pinafore with a big zip up the front, a little green tie on elastic and a big sticker with ‘Nicola’ written on it so that I could be easily identified. Unfortunately there were four other Nicola’s in the class so I quickly became not just Nicola, but Nicola Davies. I also became very aware of ways in which I was different from the other children – hair colour, height, whether or not you could read, what siblings if any you had and so on. It was all about comparing and contrasting and measuring.
This week in 1986 / 19 years ago (oh my god how did that happen?!) I started senior school. I was really dreading it as I didn’t want to go to that particular school – it had a bad reputation, was an all girls school, we had to wear red berets, most of my friends were going to a different school and I knew we were going to have stuff like homework and detentions to deal with. We were put into sets of academic streaming and sat in alphabetical order. I wore a too long skirt and shirt with dangling sleeves which I was supposed to ‘grow in to’. It was also a time of change at home as my parents had started building work at their house to turn it from a bungalow to a house.
This week in 1990 – 15 years ago I started at sixth form college. Very exciting and liberating this one. I got to decide who I was going to be and went out in advance to buy clothes to help me ‘be’ that person. I had started working evenings and weekends at B&Q and was loving it. I was very excited about my A levels.
This week in 1997 our friends Pauline and Jim got married. Their wedding day was the day of Diana’s funeral which made for an odd feeling all round. The night before the wedding Pauline and I were up for hours doing all the catering for the next day and ended up totally losing my temper with the bride to be and yelling at her – oh I’m a crap friend sometimes!
This week in 1999 – six years ago Ady and I flew to Las Vegas (six years ago tomorrow to be precise) and on 9/9/99 we got married. I wrote about that last year so if you want to read about it then go here and do so!
This week in 2000, five years ago I was very very pregnant – 8 days off giving birth with Davies but I was still actually working as I didn’t start maternity leave until the 10th. If you want to read about me having Davies then go here and I will no doubt be doing some sort of birthday post about him next week, but here is last year’s one.
This week in 2001, four years ago we were in Manchester finding somewhere to live for when we moved up there in November 2001. We found the house we ended up renting for 2.5 years and on the way home we heard about 9/11 on the radio. Our cat nearly died of poisoning from kitchen cleaner and we had a massive we’re leaving / first birthday for Davies party.
This week in 2002 – 3 years ago I was visibly pregnant with Scarlett.
This week in 2003 it was becomming clear that Dreamieland was not going to make it and we had decided that we were going to Home Educate.
This week last year we were living back here again.
This week my son didn’t start school.
We have often had our annual two week holiday in September which sort of delays that inevitable ‘let’s get on with it’ feeling that September can bring until the end of the month when we are getting back into life after our holidays. There is no point in starting new regimes when we will be away next week but I am feeling in the back of my mind that we will be doing some stuff somehow differently once we get back. Watch this space…
I love posts like that.