Childhood

I took the Edinburgh Two to the trampoline centre the other day and they had a good bounce. 

On the spur of the moment we went to the beach on the way back home and they played happily. We hadn't brought any sand toys but I found a teaspoon and two combs (why two?) in my bag and they "made pasta" and dug out a "pasta oven" (?) and served up delicious platefuls of pasta to imaginary customers. They're easily pleased! (Grandson has to wear gloves because of the eczema on his hands.) 

Just as we were going away, a lady from BBC Radio Scotland came along looking for people to interview about things to do in Edinburgh for free in the summer. She had a furry microphone and everything. So we told her about the beach and the Botanics and riding on buses and trams (free for Scottish pensioners and children) and drawing and painting. We'll never know if we get broadcast because we don't listen to Radio Scotland but the children were quite gratified all the same. 

Here's the lady going away. You can see that the beach isn't very busy so she was rather short of interviewees. 

Yesterday Biggest Granddaughter had a playdate so Big Grandson and I took a bus trip to Haddington. We did some culture - visited the museum - and family history - here he is in the street where my lovely granny was born. 

But we also saw some unusual traffic lights and local buses and so on. He was a happy boy and I was therefore a happy granny. 

I was also happy to get a new washing machine in place of the one that, last Thursday, suddenly made a smell of hot plastic just as it was rather noisily finishing its cycle. One needs a washing machine. People didn't on the whole have them when I was little, but they did have wringers. Squeezing sheets and towels dry with my rather arthritic hands doesn't appeal. 

I recently came across this photo of myself at, I think 4 or maybe 5. I remember the occasion. Unusually, I had been asked to play by the little girl up the street (though I thought of her as a big girl because she was six months older than I was). We were in her back garden and her father, who was a photographer, took our photos. My mother was pleased with the photos - they were good quality and he gave her several large prints - but mortified that I was wearing very scruffy play clothes, including this brown hand-knitted cardigan that was really too small for me and had a button that was broken in half. It was mid-1950s and children didn't have lots of smart clothes as they do now. I remember my mother and grandmothers unravelling jumpers with holes in them to make new jumpers with the best bits of the wool. 

My mother liked to put bows in my hair and I didn't like them because I thought they made me look silly. 

My worried expression was characteristic, I think. I was a shy child and all through my childhood, adults would ask me what was wrong because I looked anxious. I think, as a result, I developed the habit of walking around outside with a slight smile, and to this day I find people smiling at me in the street under the impression (I think) that I'm smiling at them and that they must know me.