31 Things: Day 25

Day 25 of Ali’s latest class at BPC ~ 31 Things.  Ali describes the class thus: 31 Things is about capturing life right now but will be much more in-depth on a single daily subject than the documentation you might be used to with projects like Week in the Life or Project Life. This workshop is an opportunity to get specific pieces of your story told with the simple goal of telling more.   
Day 25 | Outside:
A large amount of my childhood was spent outside.  Our back garden wasn’t very big so we played “in the front”.  Like all the neighbourhood children, we played outside on the streets.  There weren’t many cars in the road; only old Mr S. and Mr M. had cars.  The mums kept an eye on all the children, not just their own.
We played hide and seek, hopscotch (chalked on the pavement and washed away when we’d finished), hit tennis balls against garden walls, we played marbles, we held running races.
Mum and Dad didn’t own a car until long after I’d left home.  This meant we walked everywhere.  Half an hour across the Docks to see Gran and Auntie B, (and then hours playing on X Hill), twenty five minutes to school, all uphill (and twenty five minutes home again).  Summer holidays were spent outside, with day trips to the nearby cities of X & Y, weeks spent at Auntie S.’s house in X, on the edge of the Lake District, weeks at camp with the Air Cadets.
Even though I have been able to drive since I was 18 and we own a car, I still prefer to walk.  Both from a life-long habit and from the practicalities of not taking a car on to London’s streets. 
In warmer weather we spend lots of time in the garden.  Both The Brainy One and I love a beautiful garden, but sadly neither of us are what you might call gardeners.  My Nana J. was a wonderful gardener and looked after a large garden until her early 80s.  I regret that I didn’t inherit her green fingers. The best I can do is the weeding, when the sun is shining and the radio is playing in the background.