Stories and songs meme

I was tagged a good while ago by the great Chic Mama for the stories and songs meme. My blogging mojo was at its lowest and I didn't do it straight away. And then I forgot who tagged me but I'm glad to say that my investigative skills are sharp enough and I managed to track it back. So here is my songs and stories.

Before anybody starts throwing up, I have to warn you that you probably heard it a million times before and you're probably sick of it. But anytime I hear the first few bars of it, I am litterally transported back in time and I am standing on Brighton Pier as a 13 year old on her first week long school trip to the UK (actually when I think of it, first and only trip the UK). So here it is:




It was our first week long school trip. It took ages to get there. A 12 hours bus drive and a couple of hours on a ferry during a storm (so bad that the ferry that left after us sank, although I don't remember if there had been any casualties). We stayed in a town called Leighton Buzzard, I think. We were paired and stayed with a host family. I don't remember anything about the town or the family. What I remember is the great laughs we had. How we found a dirty pair of knickers under one of our beds and had great fun throwing them at each other (with a stick of course!!), getting them caught on the lamp shade and trying to get them down before the lady of the house came up to get us. How she baked muffins for us and we couldn't remember or didn't know the word 'smell' to say that it smelled nice so we went downstairs sniffing like dogs and making 'Mmmmhhh' sounds to let her know that it really was smelling nice.

We visited London and Strafford upon Avon. I fell in love with the typical english cottage. I remember the boys at the back of the bus making rude signs at drivers on the motorway. One of those boys was the biology teacher's son and she had come with us and, boy, did he get into trouble with his mam! I remember visiting Madame Tussaud's.

I remember kissing one of the boys on the upper deck of the ferry, my first kiss. Nothing romantic or anything. It had been 'arranged' by one of my friends but all along it wasn't him I wanted to kiss but another boy. I avoided the poor boy for the rest of the trip (have you ever tried to avoid somebody on a bus? Well, I tell you it's not easy!). I remember kissing another boy (must have been the hormones!) and we stayed 'together' for the whole of 2 weeks after coming back. And I remember another boy who had developed feelings for me. For the whole trip (and another few years after, until I left France really), he was chasing after me. He was one of my best mates though and I wouldn't have destroyed our friendship. He offered me a teddy he'd won on Brighton Pier, a white seal. I still have it in my parent's house.

And I remember standing on Brighton Pier, clear as day, with that teddy and that song coming on. Whenever I hear it, I am back there, hormone fuelled teenagers on the bus, the smell of the sea, the seagulls above my head, first kiss and all. And my whole future ahead of me.