Memories

As I get older I am starting to remember my youth with (gigantic) rose tinted glasses, how the summers lasted forever and never rained, all those lost hours playing in your garden and if you were lucky enough your dad put the sprinkler on for you and every child in the neighbourhood to run through completely ignoring the hosepipe ban. There were no concerns about health and safety or getting the cold or even getting dirty ( if you had no grass stains on your knees your were no fun)

In reality I'm sure it was more like you had 2 maybe 3 days of sunshine were you got burned to a crisp as no one ever used sun cream and the nearest we got was if your mum had a bottle of baby oil in her bedside cabinet ( we don't need to know why it was there) the only protection we had from the sun was when you started to blister your mum made you put on a t-shirt.

We had so much freedom, being allowed to go out on your bike with the only rule being "make sure you're home when it gets dark".

I'm sure it was easier to be a parent back then when if you were (allegedly) cheeky in a supermarket no one blinked an eye when you got a stinging slap round the back of the legs that meant you had to finish the shopping with a bright red hand mark that was the tell tale sign that you had been bad across both your legs, other parents actually smiled at my mum when this happened ( my mum's favourite line was "no point waiting until you get home to slap you I would have forgotten what I was slapping you for")

School holidays stretched for eternity, until the dreaded school shoe shop that always ended with a stinging slap ( again) because I didn't want the (in my opinion) shoes that make you look like you had a club foot, I always ended up with the club foot shoes anyway!

But I loved being a kid in the 80's, we had no real worries apart from the stopper on your roller boots was wearing down too quickly, or that you mum wouldn't let you rip your skirt of like the girls from Buck's Fizz or that your leg warmers has shrunk in the wash.
 It really was a simpler time, we had 1 hours of kids TV a day which was Grange Hill or Playschool and apart from that the 1 TV in the house was controlled by your Dad when he got in from work( my dad was lord and master)

I'm glad that I have those rose tinted glasses on because it makes me smug when I see kids now not being able to enjoy their imaginations like we did ( a tic tac box was the perfect walkie talkie) maybe in another 25 years I will remember how lovely the summers where in 2012!!!