#AtoZChallenge - BLOGGERS WERE CHILDREN TOO! - C is for Cathy (Life on the Muskoka River)

Hello!

Regular followers and visitors to this site will know I'm using BLOGGERS WERE CHILDREN TOO! for my theme this year. I hope you're enjoying reading about bloggers, some you know and some you may not yet know, as they respond to some prompts I sent out. I've been so grateful for their responses as it helped me to get to know them better, admire their stunning cuteness as babes, and delighted me with random facts.

Thank you Adult Bloggers for your heartfelt responses. Thank you readers for visiting my posts. I hope you'll leave a comment and if you'd like to follow the link to my respondents' blogs they'd be delighted to meet you.

Rock on A- Z Challenge. (Click to read more posts...)

Yesterday was Laura Bambery...

Today:

C is for Cathy (Life on the Muskoka River) Olliffe-Webster

I WAS BORN IN:  Weston, Ontario, Canada. Back then, Weston was its own town but it has since been gobbled up by the megalopolis that is Toronto. I think it's now simply referred to as "the west end." My first two years in "the Big Smoke" is the only time I've lived in a city.

I GREW UP IN:  My father was a railway engineer (for the Canadian Pacific Railway) and because of his job we moved frequently. I grew up in two places, mainly - Midland, Ontario (on the shore of Georgian Bay (on Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes), about two hours north of Toronto) and then Markham, Ontario, which is only about a half hour north of T.O. 

  Midland was a rowdy northern frontier kind of a place. People either worked for the railway or for lake freighters. It was a mix of French Canadians and red-necked white folk, and they all liked nothing better than a few beers at the hotel in nearby Port McNicholl.

  Markham was "small town" in every sense of the word when I lived there. A farming community, it was conservative and straitlaced and really rather boring. Since I left it has become a bedroom community for Toronto and is now huge and unrecognizable. Like Australia, Canada is a relatively "new" country and is still being developed.

  My parents also had a cottage on Twelve Mile Lake in the Haliburton Highlands, about two-and-a-half hours north of Markham. We spent every summer there. I learned to swim, waterski, canoe and how to french kiss. It was the best place on earth.

MY FAVOURITE HOME WAS IN: The cottage. (Sigh.) I wish my parents hadn't sold it.

MY BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY IS: In Grade 4 I won first prize for poetry in a class contest. There were also prizes for essay writing and storytelling. All three winners were taken to the A &W drive-in restaurant for hamburgers - in my cool teacher's extremely cool 1967 Mustang convertible. I don't know what was sweeter, the root beer or recognition for my writing. But I'll never forget cruising with the top down on a warm summer evening in June.

MY WORST CHILDHOOD MEMORY IS: There are so many: the time my boyfriend's mother caught us necking on the couch; the time I ran away from home; one of the many, many fights with my father... but I think the worst was this - I was at my uncle's cottage, hanging around with a neighbour girl. We had fun, I think, until we got to fighting over something. God knows what it was. Anyway, I shot my mouth off to the kid, made her cry, and then marched off in an indignant, dramatic huff. I got back to my uncle's cottage and my mom said, "where's your beach robe?" I had left it at the girl's cottage. I begged my mother not to make me go back but she insisted, probably to teach me a lesson about being mean and nasty. So I slunk back with my tail between my legs, apologized to the girl and asked for my robe back. The girl's mother gave me a lecture that was so sharp that I can still feel its sting.

TODAY I LIVE IN:  Bracebridge, Ontario, on the banks of the Muskoka River. I live in a tiny log cabin built in 1880. It was one of the first homes built in this area. Bracebridge is in Muskoka, the heart of Ontario's cottage country. In the summer it's where the rich and famous come to play and it's not unheard of to spot Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, Mike Myers or Shania Twain on the quaint main street. I made a fool of myself, once, cornering Myers in a boutique. I was such an ASS. He looked scared but he didn't sue. :)

PROUDEST WRITER MOMENT:  When I finished the 50,000 word goal in NaNoWriMo. It was a spectacular feeling.

RANDOM FACT ABOUT ME: I'm shy and always nervous meeting new people. It's like I'm afraid they'll find out what I'm REALLY like...

Cathy Olliffe-Webster is a writer and graphic artist living in a 130-year-old log cabin on the banks of the Muskoka River, near Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada. She shares her life with husband Dave, sons Angus and Sam, two cats, a squirrel-sized dog and an almost-finished novel.. Visit Cathy @ http://muskokariver.blogspot.com.au/

I hope you enjoyed learning about Cathy. Now tomorrow tune in the read about Michael di Gesu's childhood along with the Insecure Writer's Group post.


If you have a moment, pop across to RomanticFridayWriters where you'll find a flash fiction story every day! Today's is a real tear jerker.