Blim Blim Innocence

One of Daughter's presents for her recent tenth birthday was a very decent Ministry Of Sound CD player.

Another was a compilation CD of chart hits.

I'd forgotten a huge chunk of childhood.

I'd forgotten that every girl gets to a stage in life where she enthusiastically locks herself away in the bedroom to spend hours playing her favourite track(s) over and over, section by section, until she has written down all the words.

Here are the rules:

• If you don't entirely understand a bit (frequently the case) you just guess.
• You are not bothered about best handwriting, proper punctuation or best spelling.
• The whole point of the exercise is to end up with a scrawl that allows you to sing the track all the way through with some air of confidence; as if this guarantees entry into some secret elite.

I found Daughter's exercise book today. She left it out here in the living room and it flops open naturally at the words to her most favourite song.

I adore her innocence - all things are pure, still.

I adore her stabs at missing words, the guesses she has used to fill the gaps.

I find, against my conscious preference that I have spent half of this afternoon quietly muttering the song to myself, specifically including the errors in the chorus. I honestly don't know why, but they bring such a lump to my throat and make me so proud.

From paris to blim blim every Disco I go in, my heart is pumping for love....