Wednesday, July 30, 2008
"July-ly-ly, July-ly-ly, Where we were free"
17.18 Three Minutes Late
Something to do with the heat maybe, but I’m thinking about sand a lot.
My Mum being a sun worshipper and my Dad being keen on an excuse for a drive we spent a lot of summer Sundays in jams on the way to the coast.
In preparation my Dad fetched the papers* and made the coffee while my Mum packed the picnic. The legendary occasion when she made the sandwiches but, inexplicably, left them behind, wrapped in bread bags sitting on the kitchen table, gave my Uncle Bill decades of fun.
In those days everybody drove right down onto the beach, making a base camp around their cars, staking out territory, meaning to put up the wind shield but always finding it too much of a faff and throwing it back in the boot.
I took a bucket, a spade and a selection of matchbox cars and spent the day constructing fortified towns with elaborate road systems. My Dad would help with tunnels and moats and fetching buckets of water from the sea.
In later years I took a book and sulked under towels.
The drive back, on a good day, would coincide with the Top Twenty and we’d stop in Bentham for ice cream.
I can feel that damp sand between my toes. It must be the heat.
*All the papers - People, Mirror, The News Of The World and The Sunday Post
Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
Something to do with the heat maybe, but I’m thinking about sand a lot.
My Mum being a sun worshipper and my Dad being keen on an excuse for a drive we spent a lot of summer Sundays in jams on the way to the coast.
In preparation my Dad fetched the papers* and made the coffee while my Mum packed the picnic. The legendary occasion when she made the sandwiches but, inexplicably, left them behind, wrapped in bread bags sitting on the kitchen table, gave my Uncle Bill decades of fun.
In those days everybody drove right down onto the beach, making a base camp around their cars, staking out territory, meaning to put up the wind shield but always finding it too much of a faff and throwing it back in the boot.
I took a bucket, a spade and a selection of matchbox cars and spent the day constructing fortified towns with elaborate road systems. My Dad would help with tunnels and moats and fetching buckets of water from the sea.
In later years I took a book and sulked under towels.
The drive back, on a good day, would coincide with the Top Twenty and we’d stop in Bentham for ice cream.
I can feel that damp sand between my toes. It must be the heat.
*All the papers - People, Mirror, The News Of The World and The Sunday Post
Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
Labels: nostalgia
