All the homes I have lived in - no. 1

1967 with nothing but fields around (the tractor is especially for Samuel )

This was my childhood home in a small village. Middle England. I went to the local infant and junior school and then the nearby comprehensive. And some of my best friends lived on the same street as me, or just across the road. It was on the corner, and we had a cherry tree in the front garden that blossomed both white and pink. I lived there until I was 18 when I headed off to university, via Australia.

First extension 1975

My parents did two extensions to the house. First they extended the kitchen and added a living room and loo downstairs. And then in 1983, they added another bathroom and bedroom upstairs.

We had the same building firm do both extensions and my parents were friendly with the builder. A few years later, he was fixing something with the house and I happened to be racing around the neighbourhood dressed up as a French Tart. I was doing a treasure hunt to raise money for Children in Need as part of a school organized thing. We were in teams and had to collect as many of the fifty things on a list that we could get, within a certain time limit. The things included a quail's egg, a fresh strawberry (this was difficult to get then in February) and lots of other weird stuff that I've forgotton. We were up against, amongst others, the Vicars and Nuns team (the boys) and spent much of the race telling the people who had helped us to not help the nuns.

We must have dashed into my house at one point to get something, and the builders were there, but I don't really remember it. But he remembers it very clearly. And would, for years afterwards, mention it to my parents - about the time their daughter was running around dressed like a French Tart.

There are two cats buried in the garden there. And lots of good memories taken away from it. My parents sold it a few years ago to someone who apparently was very pleased that there would be room for his snakes.