time-travelling tuesday (part 1)

Here is the first installment of my new weekly feature, Time-Travelling Tuesday!  

I mentioned that I found a diary from 1988 when I was clearing out stuff from my mum and dad's house recently.  I was seven/eight when I wrote it.  This week I've spent a lot of time reading and re-reading entries and laughing my head off (as my eight-year-old self would have said) at the random things that were obviously highlights to me, my funny way of thinking about things and the snapshots of eighties' culture, or what passed as culture to someone of limited years.  

I've decided to share the whole diary, unedited and in chronological order, a week at a time every Tuesday.  The entries are short, so seven in a post should be a nice readable amount and hopefully there will be something amusing in each weekly installment.  

I'll do my best to leave the spelling and punctuation as they are in the original and will try to give you a flavour of the layout (I was quite an adventurous typographer, you know) where appropriate.  

I probably won't have photos to go with a lot of the posts, but the words (oh, the words) should be enough.  

I'm going to resist commenting from my 34-year-old perspective if I can (I don't want to run the risk of getting all maudlin on your asses!) but might add the odd note to explain the context if something is unlikely to make sense or if I really can't resist commenting.  I'll leave notes from the present day in square brackets [like this].

The diary was written in a notebook and so doesn't run for a whole year as it runs out of pages somewhere in July, but there's over six months of entries in there.  If you were a child in the late eighties, I'm sure some of it will bring back happy (?) memories.  Enjoy!

18th January 1988

I woke up at quarter past 7. At 10.45 I got the bus to go swimming.  I learnt the back stroke properly.  I did a whole breadth on my back.  I thought I was only halfway then bang I bashed my head on the bar.

19th January 1988

Today I went to singing.  I got to play the chimebars for a song.  It goes AA DD CC A three times in certain places. Then AA GGGG CCCC A.  I wrote this under my bed.

20th January 1988

Today I saw Bigfoot and The Hendersons.  The end was very sad.  The Bigfoot walked off with his wife and his little boy.

21st January 1988

e e e e

Today at school we made soup and cheese pastry.  Everyone wanted second helpings even Jacquline.  At brownies I got my Hostess and booklovers badge.  I asked Jana if I could do my computer badge and she said, Yes I've been waiting for somebody to ask for that.  I am the first Gartly brownie to do it.

22nd January 1988

Today at about 7.00pm my cousin Lynsay was born she looks like Finlay OH NO. I made a card for Finlay, Flora and Lynsay with a baby hitting a bear with a rattle and the bear saying ow and the the rabbit and cat laughing.

23rd January 1988

Today I went outside to play.  Then I went to see Lynsay in hospital.  After that we went to Gateway.  When I came I had tea.  At night we played pictoinary.  Kerry and dad won the game.

24th January 1988

Today I went out in the puddles and got soaked to the skin.  It was raining all day.  For lunch --> Chicken roast tatties and brandy snaps.  Then I loaded soemthing in the computer. It said hello stinky.  Press a key please stinky.  Then it went blank and after a few seconds it said Ha ha did I full you.  You thought I was broken.