I was a wayward child II

First part here. Came across this last night and remembered that I said I might write a 2nd part about the non-school-bits. (NB I started this in December. I also realize there is nothing very wayward about most of this, but that was the title of the first part so…)

Really this was only about school, there was so much more going on, like scouts, holidays, my parents, the weekends at my father’s…

I think I should lump my attempted hobbies into one long story ending with the horses… because you see when I discovered riding, my parents had been on a many-year-long quest to find some kind of “hobby” or “extracurricular activity” for me – I’d start, get bored or hate it, and not go back. There were the following:

Scouts – as mentioned above. I didn’t go to the (Catholic) local suburb ones, but to the non-denominational FNEL, which meant I didn’t know anyone when I started.. and I didn’t really make any friends there either. I don’t remember much of it, not even at what age I went (sth like 8 to 10 maybe?), but I pretty much hated it. There was one girl in particular there that bullied me and managed to make the whole experience pretty unpleasant for me. Not sure why I went for so long actually. :)) I don’t have many memories of that (yay for repression!) – my only lingering one is of one trip where I fell on my arse after strapping on my rucksack. Everyone found that very funny. 😐

Gymnastics – this was local, pretty much all the girls in our school were in there. I was soooo clumsy! :)) And unmotivated. 😐 My only memory of this was the yearly show they did, where I took part in the “lowest” class – we all stood in a row and could randomly run forward and do a somersault, or whatever else we were able to do. I just stood in the row the whole time. =))

Music class – I did “solfège” – so basically learning to read sheet music. This was intensely boring. The idea was of course to go on to an instrument later, but I never made it that far. :)) My mum made me finish my 1st year, but I refused to go further. This is a regret of mine – I would love to know how to play an instrument. But this was definitely not the right approach for a moderately motivated 8yr old. :)) (or however old I was)

Finally: horses (this is going to be a long one!) – I got into riding through my friend Nadine from across the street. I stuck with it, she didn’t.

I could (and maybe should) write a whole separate entry about this. Horses were my life, incl. my whole social circle, from, I’d say, age 12 till I left for uni at 19. I started when I was 11 and quickly got sucked into the whole world. I spent my whole free time at that place for years. I remember the rule when I was about 16 or so was that I had to be home at 10 on school nights and midnight at the weekend. And that’s exactly what I did. Sometimes I stayed the night too. And went to countless competitions with them. And to America in 1996.

I know I’ve written about “the bastards” on here a few times. And they were, in many respects. They’ve said the most horrible things about me. But they were also my surrogate family for years – as they had been for others like me. And all my friends during that time were people I met there. Really, the only friends I still have in Luxembourg now are Martine, Gaby (father’s ex-wife), and horse people.

Ok actually I think I’ll leave it at that. As I said, maybe I’ll turn it into a separate entry some day.

Week-ends (and holidays) at my father’s. You know my father left my mum before I was born. I didn’t see him much for the first few years, but from about age 6 I think I’d go there regularly – every other weekend, and part of most school holidays. This was a great arrangement as my parents would be rid of me for a while (they’d often use this to go on non-kiddy-holidays), and my father had someone for my brother to play with (I think it all started when my father was trying to get custody of my brother & wanted to project a “happy family” image).

Anyway, for all that I hate my father this was mostly fun, as I had my brother to play with, and I also liked his wife a lot. For the first few years they lived in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, then in a prettty small village, and then in Ettelbrück, sth like the 3rd biggest town in Lux (which is still pretty tiny). Once we reached a reasonable age we were pretty much left to do what we wanted, we’d cycle or rollerblade around town (or to the next town, or across the country), (try to) do stunt tricks by bike or rollerblade, go for walks with the dog (ok, we were made to do that lol), pretend to be ninjas and climb over roofs, pretend to be Michael Jackson’s secret army and also climb over roofs…

When there was a big supermarket & appartment complex being built down the road we found a way in and had months of fun on the building site. We were very sad when it was finished. In fact I remember we still sort of had a “base” in one of the empty flats when others were already inhabited and got some strange looks :)) My brother wanted to be a clown, so whenever there was a circus in town we’d linger around there. We also had the Playmobil circus set, but I think our favourite toys were Legos. We’d build spaceships (not with the proper space kits, but much more makeshift, with random bits) and we’d wooosh around the house with them and have space adventures. 😀

My father also had loads of cats, so they were always fun too, especially trying to teach the kittens tricks. This didn’t always work so well and I’m not sure the kittens always enjoyed it. :))
When my 2nd brother was born in 1988 I did the whole proud-big-sister thing, including changing nappies etc. 😛 I stopped going at 15 or so. I just refused, I’d had enough of my father’s antics, plus I was horse-obsessed and wanted to spend all my time there. [you’ll notice that I didn’t actually say anything about my father. again, this is best left to a different entry, which I still have in draft somewhere]

Ok what else is there to tell… ah yes, I said holidays. My very first holiday ever was with my mum, to Rhodes. I was four and I don’t remember a thing. My parents regularly (well, maybe three times) took me to the French Mediterranean, to Carnon. This was close to Montpellier where my dad had studied. I don’t have that many memories of that either, I was very young. My parents always fought tho, which was pretty traumatic. Other holidays with my parents included Corsica, Tunisia, Teneriffe… they were always beach holidays. I usually made friends during these. And they took me skiing once.

My grandparents took me to the Belgian coast quite a lot, to Knokke. I did like these too, you could rent bikes and cycle up and down the promenade… you could make paper flowers and sell them on the beach in exchange for seashells (weird I know).

My most beloved holidays tho were to do with horses again. There was (still is) this poney camp in the North of Lux, I went there loads and made quite a few friends. Not really much else to tell about that I think. Well, the guy who runs it is a bit of a perve, but don’t make me testify against him. 😛

Right. I was gonna do a section on my parents as well… not sure if I can be bothered now, as it would a whole nother story, and preferably protected. So I’ll leave that for another day. 🙂