Mind games

My friend Abi, clearly not satisfied with this character assassination a few years ago, has foolishly requested that she becomes the topic of another Plog.

Well, far be it from me to disappoint my readership.  In fact, if you would like a Plog about you in the near future, let me know.  Not that I'm suffering from writers' block or anything.  Oh no.  Of course, if I don't know you, it might make it trickier, but I'm willing to give it a go.

So, Abi and I have been friends since birth.  Well, since my birth; she's a few months older than me.  Despite the history of domestic violence that has dogged our friendship (see link above), we've remained friends for the last thirty-odd years.

When Abi and I were little, we'd often spend the night at each other's houses.  As a child, I thought this was tremendous fun.  As an adult, I realise it was probably because my parents couldn't stand me any longer.  We would do all manner of exciting things.  Well, it was generally limited to five exciting things, if I'm honest:

1. Swimming at Beaumont Leys leisure centre.  They had a water slide AND a wave machine.  It was practically Wet 'N' Wild.  But with more chlorine and kiddy piss.  They also had fake palm trees, planted in some sort of wood chip, which would inevitably find its way into the pool, and look like floating turds.  At least, that's what I liked to tell myself.
2. Off to Bosworth Battlefield.  Again.  I can trace my hatred of the War of the Roses through enforced visits to this local attraction what seemed like weekly.  For anyone thinking of going, it's basically a field.  There is a gift shop though, and if you're good, you might be allowed to get some Tic-Tacs.
3. Off to Beacon Hill.  A hill.  With a beacon.  Honestly, it's not as good as it sounds.
4. Midnight feasts.  This usually involved a Sherbet Dib-Dab eaten at about 8.30 p.m. before brushing our teeth and lights out.
5. Playing the Medallion Game.

Now, the medallion game was a game we kind of made up ourselves, and had the sort of mad narrative only eight year-olds can invent.  Basically it paid homage (some would say plagiarised) to Narnia, and a long (deservedly) forgotten Spanish cartoon called The Mysterious Cities of Gold.

The basic idea was that Abi and I were twins (or something) who'd managed to find each other, and both Abi and I had half a medallion.  We had to put both halves of the medallion together into a magic wardrobe and we'd go through the wardrobe to a magic land, which we may have got to by helter-skelter (please see Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree).  I have no idea what was in this magic land.  I'm not sure we ever got that far.  Most of it revolved around putting the (imaginary) medallions together into the (imaginary) wardrobe and going down the (imaginary) helter-skelter.

And this stunning imaginative example, dear readers, is why I have never written a novel: my ideas are generally derivative, plotless, characterless and without resolution.

Still, makes a Plog, eh?  Anyone want to buy a second-hand imaginary half-medallion?