Five things you don't know about me?

Well well. First post of 2007 is in response to being tagged by Mrs. O'Neill to do the "Five things ...." - so a self-indulgent New Year's morning (well, it's actually the afternoon, but the day began late) thinking about moi. Here goes - and I'd like to know if any of these things are new to Ewan!

1. I was nearly born a month prematurely - prevented, I was told, by my grandfather's not allowing my mother to attend the VE Day celebrations in George Square. And when I did appear on the scene, my newly-demobbed father called his 2 month old daughter "the Belsen baby" because (a) I was so skinny (don't things change?) and (b) the horrors of Belsen were uppermost in people's minds.

2. I had my tonsils taken out on the kitchen table of our top floor flat in Hyndland. I was seven, and I can remember it with alarming clarity. The kitchen was full of nurses and doctors - apparently observing this practice before it went completely out of fashion - and I had to sit on a fat nurse's knee while they anaesthetised me with a mask onto which something was dripped. (Aagh). I don't think I was completely unconscious, as I could hear clatterings and was aware of a bright light throughout. Afterwards, I threw up down the wrong side of the bed (the one next to the wall). The stain was still there when we left the house three years later.

3. When I was ten, I had a passion for shoes which made a noise when I walked. I persuaded my father to hammer segs into the heels of my school shoes. By the time I had my first pair of "heels" at 15, the fashion was for stilettoes and the little metal tips would ruin the lino - so none of my friends was allowed to keep their shoes on if they came to visit.

4. I always wanted to learn to abseil and rock climb. I used to draw mountaineers doing classic abseils - using only the rope rather than karabiners etc - down the inside covers of my school text books. This hurt no-one except my concentration, as I went to the kind of school where you had to buy your own text books. You could tell the boring subjects by the density of the illustrations. In the end, I learned to abseil when I was 46 and it felt exactly as I had always imagined, so I had no fear and scooshed down the cliff at Benmore on Loch Eck like the SAS.

5. When I was small - about 3, I think - I had decided views on aspects of my life. (I know - what's new about that?) One was that I didn't like being a little girl, so that if someone said kindly "And what's your name, little girl?" I'd reply "I'm not a little girl. I'm a boy and my name's Peter Pan." (Really) And I often embarrassed my mother when someone to whom she might talk came along; I would look resolutely at my feet and say "I don't talk to this lady." And I didn't. But when it came to my interview with the child psychiatrist to see if I was suitable Hillhead High School material (I was 5) I apparently took the hand of this terrifying figure with a nicotine-stained white walrus moustache, smiled sweetly and went off with him. I got into the school; the child who screamed and wept at the psychiatrist did not.

And now, having done this, I see that my whole life was mapped out with a terrible inevitability. Fascinating.

And I tag: Ruth, Kelvin, Kenny, Di - to get her blogging again - and David, who's been far too quiet these hols.