Second Hand Rose...

From Bringing Up Charlie, The Darling Dotterel

1. your second boy/girlfriend?

The adorable 6' 3", "Tiny." Otherwise known as Stephen, he was my first love, really, but was my second boyfriend before he tootled off away from home to Uni in the days before t'Internet, mobile telecommunications and me being able to drive... He came back to our home town at some point that term, recovering from pneumonia of all things, by which time I was going out with the boyfriend I can only refer to as The Rotten Sod for all his treatment of me then...

Tiny picked me up (stout, sturdy Fhina!) in his arms and walked down the High Street with me one evening... I've been longing for that warm, all-embracing, feeling ever since, but The Rotten Sod was not best pleased.



I worked with Tiny's sister much later in life. I always admired her. She was strong and wild and survived tragedy in her love-life to raise four beautiful daughters... I learned all about his life since me. He had three sons... I wonder how my life might have been different if we had had the opportunity to be more 'together'... But, well, there's no regrets. What's the point?

2. your second day at school?

I really can't remember - My earliest memories are of tapping a pine coloured wooden tambourine with silver jangling circlets and playing in a large (to me!) Playhouse in the school gym... I must have been drawn to be like Stevie Nicks from a very early age.

3. who your second best-friend was?

I liked Linda a lot... She was a proper brain-box and boys loved her when we were teens... She succeeded in going out with two of the boys that I fancied from afar... I never begrudged her 'getting there first,' as it were with them... One of them, Andrew, a talented artist, was to tragically commit suicide a year or so after they'd broken up. His mother found his body. We never learned why he chose to go, but it broke both our hearts.

Linda didn't do so well in our exams, nerves getting to her. This was a real surprise to all of us, and I think she chose to go into Nursing. I hope she is having a blissful life.

4. the second LP that you bought?



I think it was probably Abba: Arrival... I was a big fan of ABBA before The Police took their crown and their poster-place on my bedroom wall... I thought they were the height of sophistication in this image, and I grew up with their amazing music. Magical. I had a particularly soft spot for Bjorn!

5. the second house you lived in?

As a child, I probably lived a lot in my maternal grand-parents' home, when not at home with my parents. My grandparents were Jack and Nellie. Their home was full of love, piano playing, my nanna's home-baking, and my granddad drawing and testing out the grandchildren's mental arithmetic - I still get goose-bumps now thinking about those tests - I never did very well!

6. the second car you drove?



That would be my tiny Nissan Micra, which shrank to the size of a match-box when Grizz was born and I tried to fit the baby-buggy in the boot - I never managed it, so we had to sell it thereafter! We also moved house in the end, as the baby's things filled every room in our adorable, 'though tiny, Highland bungalow. We overlooked the wonderful Dovecote adjoining famous Culloden House.

7. your second-favourite band?

Lordy-lord... Probably Calexico...



8. the second-best book you ever read?

Back to books... Definitely Persuasion after my beloved Jane Eyre. Bit of a cliche, aren't I?!

9. your second-favourite film?



I really love Little Miss Sunshine, and it's got even better with subsequent watchings. I love practically everything Toni Collette has been in.

10. your second-favourite blog?

Ooh, that's a difficult one - I guess it would be my Second Home, here at Mad Manic Mamas - Have you been there yet?

Feel free to have a go, mes bloggy loves... Courtesy of the Darling Dotterel!

Don't be shy now that Fhina's spilled the beans!