1:18am

Around 9:30 this evening I decided it was time to design a blog template from scratch. It's something I have wanted to do for ages and tonight I got round to it. It's pretty simple and I still want to play around with it a bunch but we'll see when that happens. It didn't take 4 hours to do, I watched some t.v. and talked to Andy for a while in there too.

Above I kind of explain the new title a bit. I've grown up in a pretty big city and not in the safest area so freedom to roam was highly sought. Contrary to the belief of some readers of my blog on te other side of the pond, I did not grow up with the liberty to roam free among castles and expanses of English countryside.

I like my street, there were lots of children and not many cars so playing out was fun. Most the kids were older than me though and I can still remember what it felt like when they would all disappear for 5 minutes to ride around the block and I wasn't allowed yet.

I remember the first time I was allowed. I remember sitting on my bike by the open garage door begging my Mum to let me, who told me to ask my Dad, who told me to talk to my Mum. I was finally allowed after my Mum made the older children promise to keep an eye on me. After that the trip around the block became quite a frequent excursion although it was a while before I could just go without having to shout through the letterbox, into the house, when I left and when I got back.

It seems funny to think that such a small freedom was so liberating back then.

When I was 5 I had taken the liberty of granting myself the freedom to go beyond the block and received my first grounding (one of 3 I ever received in total.) When I was 5 I wanted a pet so badly (I was later to get my dog Barney for my 6th birthday) so one day, my friend Heather (who lived across the road) and I came up with a master plan.....

A little while earlier my oldest brother Mark had moved out leaving me a big glass jar full of 1p and 2p copper coins and change he'd had. I remember sitting in the corner of my room with heather whilst my Mum drank tea with her friend down stairs. We loaded (what we believed to be a fortune) into a bag and set off for the pet shop (about 5 blocks away) to buy my a bunny, no cage, no food, just a bunny rabbit. As we went to leave our street the other children asked us where we were going and we told them, cool-ley "The Airport!" I can't even begin to explain to you why Heather and I could have imagined this was an even almost believable alibi...we just did.

It turned out the pet shop was closed, I guess I hadn't figured out thing close on a Sunday. Disappointed we headed towards home and in the distance I saw my Mum, stood at the end of our street, hands on hips.

She says she had realised I was missing, asked the other children, heard the airport story, gone in the direction they pointed and from a distance she saw us walking back. She said she spotted me instantly because I was dressed in my turquoise sweat pants and sweat shirt from Benneton (it had a fluffy teddy on the front.)

I remember sitting on the little chair in the kitchen crying and saying sorry. I was grounded for 2 days, Heather was grounded for the week. It never seemed fair as I masterminded the plat but I guess it was because she was 3 years older than me.

So there is a glimpse into Amie as a child and a rare occurrence I was naughty.

What I was trying to say in this blog was....... I don't remember, something about why I re-titled it 'Beyond the Block' but I think, by now, you probably get the gist.

goodnight
x