The Runaway Child

Pretty much everyone has a story of when they ran away from home. One of my friends made it all the way to the end of the street with a loaf of bread and a pair of pants, my own run away mission was not even that successful. I made it to the back garden with a scarf full of socks, which I vividly remember trying to tie onto the end of a toy golf club since I didn’t have a stick to hand. Then I hid under a hedge until I was cold enough to go back inside. In my mind, my Mum would have been feeling so bad for telling me off in the first place she’d probably learnt her lesson by now, but honestly I can’t remember what it was I’d been told off for that led me to this drastic action.

It didn’t quite go to plan. Nobody had noticed I was gone, mostly because I’d been gone ten minutes, max. What’s more, my genius plan to climb out of the kitchen window somewhat backfired. In my hurried departure, I’d pushed a chair up to the kitchen window, climbed up and over the window sill and taken a plunge about twice my height into the garden. Which now, looking up at the window from the other side with was impossible to climb back up. I made the decision to go round to the front of the house, knock on the door and wait patiently to make my speech. It was something along the lines of “yes Mum I ran away but it was for your own good, you needed to know how sorry you’d be if I was gone, but I’m back now so you can stop your crying, I forgive you.” (I still practice important ‘speeches’ to this day – awkward revelation). It has to be said, she hid her pain extremely well. She didn’t ask me where I’d been or why I was locked out of the house, or even ask about my sad little scarf of socks. My theory is she was in shock. It was absolutely not because she’d been watching my great escape to the hedge and back again from the window. Solid parenting advice to my future self, tantrums don’t really work when you smile in the face of them.

- A slightly random post but I just had a flash back and giggled to myself at how hopelessly ridiculous I was as a kid, well I say 'as a kid', I still am hopelessly ridiculous in my own way. I used to cry in front of the mirror to check I was still cute enough to make people feel sorry for me.That's awkward revelation number 2. Why do I do this to myself? Anyway sweet dreams all. I'm not setting an alarm as I made the mistake of asking a friend to wake me in the morning, she's a 9 til 5 girl, this will not be pleasant.