7 facts about my childhood:

1) I was convinced that I was going to be a zoologist or a vet or something biology-related for the vast majority of my life. Not that it was at all her fault, but I think it was largely because my sister had always been ‘the arty one’, whereas I was the kid who dove into the grass cuttings and played with snails and microscopes. Now she works in the government and I’m the one doing animation, which I think my six-year old self would find pretty hilarious… mostly because I do.

2) I was obsessed with dogs, and for a good few years I did a very good job of being one (until our mum folded and bought us one). I used to bark at the postman, chase squirrels in the park, and when mum was backing her car out of the drive I would whine when the coast was clear or bark when there was a car coming.

I was a strange kid.

3) I used to tell fantastic stories (aka whopping great fibs) about what had happened at school to my parents. One time I told them that I had saved a cat from a tree because my teacher was too scared to go up the ladder, and another time we had gone to the seaside for the day, but it had been closed, so we had to come back.

4) My favourite band was (and still is) the Beatles. There was a phase of liking the Spice Girls and Abba, but my number one boy band since I was nothing-years-old was always the fab four. One Christmas my dad got me a VHS of the movie “HELP!” and I watched it every day for about three weeks in a row. Needless to say my sister got a bit tired of it. I still know most of the script off by heart.

5) I inadvertently gave my mother the nickname of 'the Big Blue Mummy’ when I came home with a ginormous painting of her from nursery, which was basically a massive blue circle with a big smile and glasses and reams of curly hair. We still have it in the attic.

6) I used to be small enough to hide right up inside my mother’s coat while she was still wearing it. In the winter, when it was freezing out and she came to pick me and Emily up from school, I would go around the back and shove myself under and hug her as far as I could reach, reveling at the wondrous warm within. In retrospect this must have been one of the weirdest sights in the playground- this weedy girl disappearing up the inside of her mother’s duffle coat- but I didn’t give a fuck then and really I don’t give one now because it was awesome.

7) Whenever I played epic-adventure-time with my toys, Barbie was always the villain. She would kidnap the other toys, threaten to sacrifice them to blood-thirsty Aztec gods or just be a plain old wicked witch that was plotting to destroy them all. I also had an Ariel doll, but she was cool, so she got to be one of the good guys.