Tracey

This week I have done nothing new (apart from notching up my weight loss to 12½llbs!) I have marked millions of assessments, entered tracking data until it has made me dizzy, battled with a dying computer network at work, inducted new trainees and conducted an intensive non-stop 3 hour parents evening. Roll on half term like never before!

So I'm looking to the past for something to blog about.

When I was at primary school, I was painfully shy. At first I used to cling to the midday assistants because I had nobody to play with. Then one day a girl called Tracey came up to me and pulled my hair. I told my mum, who worked in the school canteen. She had a chat with Tracey's mum after school. From that point on, Tracey and I became really good friends and so did our mothers. So much so that Tracey's mum, whom I always called Aunty Joan (and still do) got a job working alongside my mum, serving school dinners. Quite an advantage in the days when you had to clear your plate (or wait until Dinner Ogre Extraordinaire, Mrs Gaunt was looking the other way and you could scrape your plate.) It also helped in the quest for extra large portions of apple crumble and custard, and extra small helpings of that school fish that went through the taste extracting machine before finding its way to our plates.

Tracey's dad was the groundsman of the field behind our house and their house was in the top corner of the field. Having so much ground to play in, our lives were a bit "Little House on the Praire". We had many happy hours exploring until dusk and also had free reign of the football pavilion. Tracey had a cute little sister called Kay, who had a heart of gold, and an older brother called Steve who was very tolerant of us.

Tracey and I kept in contact by letter. A couple of days after Dad died, an envelope landed on my doormat in Tracey's distinctive handwriting. My first thought was, "How could she have heard so soon?" I opened the letter to read that her lovely sister Kay had died of breast cancer. On the very same day that my Dad died! Sadly she also lost her brother Steve to brain cancer last year.

But Tracey is amazing, she's such a positive, upbeat person. And I was delighted when she contacted me to say that she was now online and we can facebook eachother. That's how she came to send me these photos of us taken on her field after one of our Saturday morning ballet and tap classes. Tracey and I are at the back with Kay in front of Tracey and her neighbour, Jill in front of me:

We won a medal for dancing to Sugar, Sugar waving chiffon scarves. We went through Brownies, Guides and Rangers together, camping in Wales, the Isle of Man, Germany and Belgium. I have so many happy memories with her. Well ~in the half term hols we're meeting up, with our mums, as a surprise for them. Can't wait to see their faces!