In an attempt to lighten the mood in Blogland, I thought I would blog a little about childhood. Whether our childhoods were good, bad, happy, stressed or whatever, they have a huge impact on the sort of people we become.

This is why I get so annoyed when people talk about wrapping children in cotton wool. THere is a huge different between taking knives off the little buggers and teaching them to bounce on a trampoline ;)

Where I live, happily, children still appear to be children. Yes, some of them are more pleasant than others, but by and large they still play together and go in large groups up the park to play in the woods and on the mountainside. They also build bogeys and gambos.

For the uninitiated, a bogey or gambo is a wheeled vehicle of sorts, often in the old days it had a converted pram for its base. Down in the city it was called a bogey, up in the valleys it was a gambo (which is Welsh for Hay cart). The really advanced ones had a primitive steering method that relied heavily on thick string. Few had brakes - you either had to run out of steam or crash.

Of course, these makeshift vehicles were not much fun on flat ground. Where I live everything is on a steep hill, which makes them great fun but potentially lethal. So you can imagine my horror a few nights ago when I heard one of these things whizzing past my house (it's a very quiet road) at full speed.

And then there was the inevitable crash. Wood splintered. Wheels jangled, spun endlessly and finally landed. I waited for the scream. There wasn't one. Just a stunned, horrible silence that was somehow even worse. I had visions that they must have knocked themselves out.

And then, just as I was making for the gate to see if they were all right, I heard this childish giggle and a little Welsh voice crying 'Wooooow! That was cooooooool!'

Kids. ;)

I'd love to hear your happy memories of childhood. :yes: