My Name Is Ella Noel

chapter 1 the early years

You could hear the light in the middle of the room humming and buzzing to
itself between the loud and clearly excruciatingly painful screams coming from
what seemed to be all around. The raindrops on the windows were drowned out
by the puffing and panting of the brunette lady on the metal bed in the middle of
the room, dressed in a loose baby pink nightgown wet with sweat, her long hair
pulled back into a loose ponytail. Who every few minutes would grab her
stomach and scream in pain.
That poor woman is my mum Sue Noel and she is just about to have me.
Closer and closer the screams became and faster and louder became the
puffing and panting as the birth grew nearer, this was it the moment before I
entered the world, take my first breath, start out on my journey of life.
I’m not sure who noticed I was breach or how long they knew but I think it
was pretty sudden, the midwives started running about prepping Sue for an
epidural, an injection in the back which numbs you from the waist down.
The series of events that followed were like a dream for sue who still to this
day struggles to remember the day her first daughter was born.
“Push” the midwife said watching the contractions on the monitor, Sue was
totally numb from the waist down and was relying fully on this short, thin lady
with pink hair and A pointy nose, who looked way to young to be delivering
babies.
Sue could hear her words of encouragement saying “Sue, we need you to
push” but it was like Sue was no longer there, instead she was floating above
the situation watching it all unfold.
“Ok Sue one more big push for me” the midwife said.
“Ready 1, 2, 3 and push”.
In what seemed like hours but was probably more like minutes I was born.
I should imagine this was a very happy and proud moment for my parents and
they would never have imagined what was yet to come.
I don’t know how long they kept us in the hospital but by all accounts, I was
happy, healthy and full of life from the moment I opened my eye’s, A normal
little girl. I took to feeding with no issues and was more than content with a snuggle or
two all in all a very happy baby girl.
When we were allowed to go home, we went back to the bungalow my parents
had. Now I was obviously too young to remember this home but I do seem to
remember the village being very pretty, A small place called River Falls.
My mum and dad had a small but homely one bedroom bungalow with
original features and beams.
My mum must have taken to motherhood like A duck to water as by all
accounts my father was as good as useless when it came to helping with me or
the house. My mum did all the shopping and cleaning for the house.
She ws always spending time with me playing, if not she was doing chores or
running errands. She never seemed to stop, she always had something to be
doing.
My dad on the other hand had 4 things that filled most of his time these were
cooking, working, making home brew and then drinkig it. As you can imagine
that made him pretty useless as a house husband but great fun some days as a
father. He would give me little bits of home brew in my beaker but I mainly
remember him cooking.
He did spend time with me but it was always the easy stuff like watching tv,
playing or sometimes feed me dinner.
I can’t complain though I was given so much love as A baby, there was
always people popping in to visit or my mum and dad would have dinner parties
or bbq parties in the summer. I do wish I could remember it as I know it was a
very happy time and very family orientated.
My younger years were very happy and joyful and full of people and love.
For the next three years it was just me my mum and my dad, obviously I was
to young to have many memories from those first few years of my life but
judging by the home movies I’ve seen we were A normal, happy, loving family.
It was also around this time I formed an almost unbreakable bond with my dad,
even to this day I’m still pretty much a daddies girl. I will always forgive him he
can get away with pretty much anything.
It was a very regular occurance that my dad would get his train sets out and
play trains with me, they were fascinating he had some amazing sets.
I remember one time I had asked for a train set in the clouds so my dad soent
the entire night using multiple sets to build a track around the top of the room. He also made clouds hanging from string, it was amazing, I still have no idea to
this day how he got the tracks to stay up there.
I was so happy the next day and we spent most of the day with a little orange
steam train with a number 9 on the side and 3 coal trucks that hooked on the
back chug, chug, chugging around the track. It was a perfect day. Then when
the track was on the floor as the little train and coaches would make their way
around the track I would be there trying to stop the train by sitting on the track,
or moving the tunnels or bridges.
My mum never really joined in with the trains when we played, she would play
outside a lot, that or she would often lay a plastic table cloth on the kitchen
floor and have messy play with me. We would do painting and papier mache, we
had all sorts of kits like plaster of paris to make and paint little figures. I had
quite a few of them over the years. Basically, anything messy my mum was
normally the one who was responsible, the same went for the water play or the
sand pit I had in the garden. The plaster of paris kits are the most memorable
though standing them in cups to dry then painting them the next day.
I remember doing a lot of paint by numbers as A young child we would make
pictures out of pasta and shells from the beach and I loved the potato stamps
she would make.
It’s a pretty safe bet to assume I was always busy doing or making something
I really never just did nothing I as always finding ways to enjoy the things
around me.
I vaguely remember a swing in the garden, also a goal post and a little tiny
paddling pool we had for the summer.
We used to go on A lot of days out to we would go to the zoo or the beach. We
also went on holidays together and stay in a caravan, They were always at the
coast or quite often down in Corwall. I can’t remember my holidays until I was
a bit older but I do remember one year we had buried my dad completely in the
sand. I never seemed to be to far from my dad which makes sense being the
daddies girl that I was.
Some of the other people I remember being around a lot when I was small
were my nanny Jane and my grandad Carl, these are my mum’s parents and I
have loads of amazing memories with them and I have always adored them
both.
I have many joyful memories of both sets of grandparents that we can maybe
look into later. Another two frequent visitors were my mum’s brother Clive and his wife my
auntie Becca. They were so much fun uncle Clive used to give me pony rides on
his back while he was crawling on all fours it was great fun.
The last thing I have a slight memory of from very early on is going on a car
journey and we would go through this giant never-ending tunnel, this soon
became my favourite part of the journey. The tunnel was infact Dartford tunnel
I would realise as I got older.
We used to go through it to get to my nana Ruth and my gramps Jeff, my dad’s
parents. I would go and stay with them often, they would take me to the beach
and to their beach hut and we would swim in the sea. We would also go
together to church and sunday school which I sometimes found quite boring.
So here we are at the end of chapter 1 and so far so good, happy loving
parents and a fun filled joyful household.
A normal content baby going on to a toddler and growing well surrounded by
a loving family with everything I could ever need, so what could possibly go
wrong