Friday Five

Thinking about #1 daughter a lot today as it's her first day at Uni. Strange day to start, you might think, Friday, but if I remember what it was like she'll be doing a lot of queuing. Queuing to register, queuing to join the students' union, queuing to join any of the multifarious societies that take her fancy, queuing for lunch...

And then...what? What do they expect new students, alone in a strange city for the first time to fill their time with at the weekend? Maybe they've concertina'd what used to be called "Fresher's Week" (and, as you might guess, took a whole week) into a weekend? The modern equivalent - everything has to be faster, shorter, and not get in the way of studying. I don't know, but I hope to find out later today as she will, if everything goes according to plan, be spending at least some of the weekend here. That is, of course, unless it really is "Fresher's Weekend" in which case there'll be loads of stuff to get involved with and we might only see her when it's time for bed!

And so to the famous five...

1. Have you ever run away?
No, but I used to take the bus into the city when I was a kid. I guess I'd be 12, 13, something like that. My Mum didn't find out until years later, and then had a fit when she realised she should have been worrying about me all that time. It was visiting the Victoria Centre that gave me away. One of the first large shopping malls in Britain, I used to love to hang out there as a kid and I knew exactly where all the lifts were, and which floors they served. So when my Dad parked up and they were casting around for the lifts, I just piped up "it's this way!" "How do you know that?" asked my Mum, and the game was up.

2. What is the longest you've dated someone?
Like Di, I can't figure out when dating ends and long-term commitment begins, so I'm assuming I can't count Nikki seein' as we live together. In which case the answer is about 2 years.

3. What don't you like to think about?
Leaving my kids.

4. What was your last illness?
When I was filling this in earlier in the week I couldn't remember, it was so long ago. Then on Tuesday I hurt my ankle, so the answer now is: a hurt ankle. This qualifies as an illness because it might turn out to have been a mild attack of gout.

5. Do you like to get revenge?
No. Cliche alert: I know it sounds trite but two wrongs don't make a right, you need to rise above it, don't let them drag you down to their level, etc, etc. I find being a Spiritualist helps in this respect. Because you know they will get their comeuppance in the end, even if you don't do anything about it.