Fraggles and Fiestas

My favourite things:
This was originally going to be about fan fiction: how I wrote it, what I wrote, why I wrote it. But the last part has taken over, and grown. Why? I’ve thought about this, and it comes down to what I love, I love writing, and I love many other things so I write about them.
It’s about passion, if anyone asks. Passions have flowered throughout my life: some have died away, other have been perennial. Some come and go at different times and moods. Passions, and if I admit to myself, obsessions.

When I was a little girl, I loved many things: my yellow ride-on car; my Fraggle Rock, Red puppet; my rabbit. And not always my sister. Sisters who were younger were not as much fun as cars and rabbits.

I loved other things too, and other people. I remember watching John Steed in Saturday afternoon repeats of The Avengers, on my Grandma’s television, wondering why what I was watching took place in a world that was only black and white. But even in monochrome, Steed in his bowler hat and suit captivated me. I watched close up. And I dreamed of being Emma Peel.
Then as I grew up there were other things I fell helplessly in love with, people, not always real, situations, ideas. It was like a fire inside, sometimes a magnesium flame, intense and blinding, but then dying out. Other passions burnt slow and lasted for years, still glowing.

Though I didn’t realise it at the time, I concerned my parents. They talked about this with me years later, and as they did I began to accept some of the pieces of my character. For them, the fear that I was slightly unusual started when my mother bought a new car, a red Ford Fiesta, ‘Rosso Red’ and my delight. We got it in April 1986 from Hoylake Ford, and its registration number was C710 OLV. When we were affectionate about it, we called it Olive, usually it was just the little red car. I fell in love with that car, so much so that years later when it came to getting my own car, I had a red Ford Fiesta.

I remember dropping two 10 pence pieces down the seats, and never forgot about them, to the point that I was insistent that if we ever sold it, 20p would have to be added to the price of the car. When we did finally sell it, the coinage had changed, and we sold it to my cousin, so I felt it rather churlish to ask.

I became obsessed with fiestas after we got that car. When we went for drives, I would spot them, note the different colours and registration plates, see if I could make words from any of the letters on the plates they had, and see if they were close to our number. It was a happy day when I spotted C711 OLV. It got to the point where I was seeing Ford Fiestas when I closed my eyes at night. And when I passed an exam, my present was a book about cars. I still have the book. And even today, I can recognise the sound of a Ford Fiesta engine blindfold which will come in useful one day. One day.