Sticky tapey trees (Childhood Memories)

Member Name: helmet

Product:	Childhood Memories
Date:	28/07/02 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's nice to reminisce

Disadvantages: Some things you would rather forget

I have trouble remembering anything much, especially things that are important; like knowing there was something I was supposed to be doing on this particular day only to find out later that I'd missed the rehearsal for my brother's wedding and I was the Best Man.

Thinking back though there are a few things spring to mind, for anyone who cares to know them. They're not all happy ones, though...

My Grandfather was a shepherd and we loved going visiting so we could see 'our' lamb; a poor wee thing whose mother had rejected it. We felt that unless we were there, the beast would starve and we would bottle-feed it every time we went. We never guessed for a moment it was a different lamb every season; it was ours and we loved it. It was at my Grampa's where I first got a 'go' of driving, too. My Dad would sit me on his knee and we would drive up and down the farm roads with me at the wheel, me believing I was so clever 'cause I never hit the verge like my brother or wandered from side to side like my wee sister did.

Since I was obviously too wee to learn to drive, my parents bought me a bicycle. It was a brilliant blue and yellow affair with white tyres and my Dad took me to the Tank Landing Strip (a great expanse of concrete at the shore with a ramp down into the river used during the war) to teach me how to cycle. Holding the saddle he ran behind me while I peddled in glee until I asked him something and he didn't answer; I turned my head to see him standing in the distance, waving. Needless to say, I fell off but Dad persuaded me to try again and it wasn't that long before I could do it unassisted. I even managed to go 'no-hands' eventually :)

Ha, there was a bit of pond there, too! We used to get tadpoles from it. I mind one time standing beside it with a handful of pebbles, chucking them in one by one only to forget to let go of the last one. Numpty. I didn't think my Dad coul
d move so fast! I think they fenced it off after that.

Now, I have a thing about clocks, don't know why but I've always loved them; my Mum calls my flat 'The House of Tick' because I have so many. One time in Primary 2 we were asked to paint a wallpaper design that we would have on our bedroom wall if we could. I painted a brilliant, multi-coloured clock, imagining my bedroom with this image repeated forever on all four walls and the ceiling too! This is also my first memory of humiliation; the teacher gave me such a telling off in front of the whole class. They had all painted squiggles and patterns and boring stuff. I had done what was asked of me but it was wrong? I still don't understand it.

I remember getting such a row when I was around about 10 or 11, too. The light under the stairs wasn't working so I decided I was going to fix it when my parents were out; a nice surprise for them to come back to. Only, they came back early to find me with bits of light fittings in my hands and I think my backside stung for a week!

I was always trying to fix things, not always successfully though. Once when my brother and sister were fighting in the front garden, one of them broke the top off the wee spruce tree that Dad had not long ago planted there. They both stopped in their tracks terrified of what Dad might say on finding out so, in my infinite wisdom, I nipped into the house, retrieved the ideal remedy and proceeded to Sellotape the top back on. He didn't notice either and I only admitted it to him a couple of years ago when he wondered why it had grown so bushy.

There are other daft memories like being totally amazed at my Uncle Frank's thumb that seemed to bend backwards forever when he was pushing the button to open the car boot.
I remember being so hurt when my best friend in primary school told me Santa didn't exist. I punched him in the stomach because he was lying and he told on me and
then he wasn't my best friend any more. (Sorry, Peter Wilson, you were right, I was wrong - again).

Waving 'cheerio' to the garden shed when Dad sold it :)

Or the log that Dad put on the fire one Christmas that was still burning at New Year!

However, I think the most confusing memory is one of my Dad telling the family of Grampa's passing. I would have been about 5 or 6 and the way I remember, everyone was in floods of tears bar me. It was as if I was isolated from it. Perhaps I was too young but I always thought I should have been more upset because of how much I loved him. To think that last year I was so distraught when one of the family cats died; a grown man blubbering on the kitchen floor so much so I couldn't be understood when I spoke. As a child again. Strange.

Anyway... if you got this far thanks for reading. It was nice to reminisce.

*Changed the last bit 'cause it was maybe a bit too much*

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