Will I ever take Mum out for scampi in a basket in a Pink Porsche?

A montage of my journey so far.

"Your first dog was called Fanny....?"

"Yes, but when she went missing and Dad had to ask the neighbours if they had seen his Fanny, that was when we had to move, our reputation was tarnished!"

"You recommended 50 Shades of Grey to your Boyfriend's Mums book group....?"

"Yes, but I can explain, all I knew was that it was a popular book and lots of people were reading it. The trouble is now she thinks that's what I am into....whoops"

Recently, during several networking events, the most unusual thoughts seem into come to my mind, I have no idea why these end up popping in conversation! But it has made me think that perhaps I should explain and shed some light on some of the other bizarre experiences in my life.

It was only when I had to submit an Autobiography for my GCSE coursework and it had been marked by the teacher with "Entertaining to the point of eccentric!" 

One of my earliest memories was when our house was flooded on New Years Eve, which also happens to be my Mum's birthday! My brother was always the "playful child" so as water began to come up through the floor he ran upstairs... I thought maybe he was going to be helpful and get some towels...!?

But no, my brother came downstairs with his boats and started to play ships on the rising water, it’s fair to say this didn't help anything...! It was a very upsetting evening to say the least, we were living in a rural farm house and the farmer had filled the dykes so the water had nowhere to run away....apart from into our house...well that was just the begining...

We decided to book a family holiday so we had something to look forward to after the disastrous festive season, we were all very excited..

We arrived at our destination and my brother and I had enthusiastically packed our new backpacks full of toys that we couldn't live without for two weeks...this is where our "nightmare family" reputation began...We were guided through the hotel and being shown all of the facilities. The tall white buildings were bigger than we had ever seen before...My brother looked up at the tallest building and asked "if the top one would be ours...” Then horror struck as he said it, he lost his balance and fell backwards into the swimming pool, due to the sheer amount of toys he had packed in his backpack, he fell immediately to the bottom...My dad shot off like Super Dad and dived in after him, my Mum was crying "Its my boy..." I was thinking "How can this be happening its not even lunch time.." Needless to say my brother was fine...

After that great start my Mum wanted to continue with a peaceful, relaxed holiday...But things just seemed to happen to us, it wasn't our fault....Our aeroplane was sent to the Gulf War so we were sent to a transit hotel, which made Fawlty Towers feel like the Ritz. People were everywhere, with confusion and heated conversations; no one knew what was happening. I was very young and was interested in the man who was filming, I knew from an early age this was what I wanted to get into. But perhaps this was not the example I should follow...he was filming the terrible conditions, this led to a terrible argument with the owner and then he was taken away by the Police....

Perhaps another story not to mention at networking.....

Me and the car I helped to wire.

My Dad was extremely passionate about cars and while other children were playing with Barbies, my Dad would ask if I would mind helping him in the garage. I, of course said this would be no problem, but I was still only very small. He wanted me to do the wiring of the Westfield car, which involved him holding my legs as he told me what colour wires to join together.....I knew from moments like this that I enjoyed practical work. Often we could take the cars and go away for weekends for Dad to race, we were the only family "team" and the only ones where the "daughter  and mother" were the pitcrew!

On one occasion we travelled from Kent to Wales for a race, so we decided to make a "holiday" of it, as it was a long seven hour drive. We found a campsite and with the car on the trailer it was difficult to manoeuvre onto the allocated pitch. My Mum guided us in, but the steep hill location was not ideal for us and the wheels began to spin, this was so powerful that the grass actually set fire...It’s fair to say we won't be invited back there! We left the car at the campsite and decided to go for a walk after such a long journey...this is where I thought my first TV appearance would be on "999 Life Savers". We walked along the beach and found a beautiful pub with live music and BBQ food and time seemed to fly by. I began to feel quite pensive about how we were going to get home, as I looked out to find that the tide seemed to have hidden the path we had used to get to the campsite. We had no choice but to wade through the water, and to cut a long story short, we arrived back at the campsite, to the burnt grass pitch, wet and covered in sand....

I guess it's been a rather varied childhood..

We had a big move from Kent to Lincolnshire, my Mum got to the Dartford Tunnel during the move with the lawnmower on a trailer behind...she threw the £1 in the basket, the barrier came up then down, she had forgotten the lawnmower was there and the barrier crashed down on it...whoops....

Well, these are just a few of the stories I can re-tell at dinner parties- not networking events, I feel they have created and shaped the person I am today. I always promised I would take my Mum out for scampi in a basket, in my own pink Porsche, when I am a “grown up”. I wonder when that will be...