What are your favourite childhood memories?

I'm going to have to google that to see if it still on sale!   

Just thinking how when I was a child in the UK, we had 3 t.v. channels! Yes, just 3!!!!! 

Lying on the grass in our front yard, which was a slope, on a summer's evening looking for shooting stars.

Catching "lightning bugs" as we called them, fireflies to some - also a summer activity.

Christmas Eve at my maternal grandmother's house when all my cousins, aunts and uncles were there all gathered around her tree (always a fat live tree in a small room full of people - very cosy), eating her homemade fudge and sharing our Secret Santa gifts.  I remember my brother's and male cousins' rendition of "We Three Kings" one year after their voices started changing.  It was grand!

Lying on the couch with my head in my paternal grandmother's lap while she stroked my hair.  Heavenly!

Whoops, I went off to google and then forgot as I was watching footage of out Easter egg run yesterday on youtube. Apparently there was about 10 thousand of us turned up. That's a lot of bikes.

Anyway, I'm not sure about the chewing gum still beingon sale!  

I meant my older sister was an "blue baby, I only have her and an younger brother and he was 10 years old when I was 20, so I wasn' t around him an lot. though he use to beg to come an stay with us on weekends, and he brought over his friend, and I was really "tough" back then you know..older sister and all, and I told him to be home by an certain time, well, I knew like all rebellious kids, he'd challenge me, so came time, he wasnt' there, so I walked out to the front yard and I looked at my watch, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was parked an couple of houses down the street, he came roaring up.."we're here!"..dont' get mad"..actually I felt more like laughing. I just gave him an cool look and said..It's about time you showed up! He was to me something I took care of more then an brother most the time. I came home every night an folded his diapers, until dinner, washed or dried the dishes and did my homework...if my grades were kept above an "C" I could have my future hubby visit mid-week. for an couple of hours. I came home one time to find the entire baseball team sitting on the curb waiting for me to get home also. Then he got his first car, he saved and saved for it, it was an 1952 chevy, black top, yellow bottom, and red interior.He taught me to drive in that thing. I'd lock the gears constantly. We'd have to stop so he could unlock them. My sister use to sit in the back seat and laugh her head off about it, he made her walk home one time. to this day, I can do something she can't..drive an stick shift...not to mention deal with an clutch. He paid $150 for it, got side swiped by some lady and they paid him $155 for it to go get it fixed with it if he wanted, and he turned it in and got another $35 for that...and bought an newer car. such were the days back then. I use to like to intimidate my dad,,,one time he was working on his car...had been working on it for days on end. I walked out there and he's angry, he says, I don't know whose been taking care of this car.. but he's an so and so an forth...and I smiled nicely..raised up my sun glasses and says.."you have I think"... and I couldn't run faster getting out of there. He always said I liked to be an smart @ss..who me?...gesh. always told me he thought he ought to whack me one maybe, but he never did, chased me out of the house one time though, in my bare feet, across the gravel driveway. By the time he caught up with me, he said the look on my face from the gravel was punishment enough he thought..maybe. I use to enjoy going through his Popular Science magazines, and most likely would of never passed my Science class without his help in High School...he showed me how to make an "mercury swtich"...turn things on and off with. Then there was  the time we were on an high cliff over at the coast driving along when this bee flies in the window and starts crawling up his leg, we stopped that car so fast if was an wonder we didn't spin it doing an wheely off the cliff, reminded me of 007 Roger Moore..he jumped out the car and left us all there with this bee mind you..."screaming". Oh fun..I tell you!!! Hanging nearly off the cliff over the ocean...OK, not all that close.  We followed him out the door, and leave the doors open and the bee it just kind of moseys' out on its own, taking it's sweet little ole time doing it, drops down on the pavement an flies off...maybe by then it had an migraine, who knows? We had days like that growing up, they really weren't  funny until you thought about it afterwards. You should of heard him the night he thought we had an "burgler" in the house and it was my sister in her large hair rollers... going to get an drink of water..they met each other in the hallway in the dark. He screamed and she started crying and all the lights went on...everyone was up, while mom calmed sister down that dad wasn't out to "get her" and him that there weren't any "intruders".. afterwards it seemed funny also.. as we realized we'd never heard him really scared up until then...he gave quite an wierd sounding jungle scream that night! ..so goes. I got an lot of those kind's of things for memories. I liked weird thngs as an kid, like the wind blowing my hair on an warm autumn's day, or playing in the rain as it started in on an hot summer's night thunderstorm on the porch, just love the fresh smell of those first rain drops..wrapping myself up in my mother's clean clothes line bedding and smell it, I guess you could call them "sensations".  sitting next to an crackling fire while camping. Little things. There's an place up near Mt. hood, along this hiking trail, the birds don't get to much to eat, but they are use to hiker's feeding them, and if you hold your hand out with something in it, like an granola bar,they will fly to you and sit in your hand, completely wild though as they are otherwise. If you try to touch them, they fly away. But it's quite something to have them do this to you...as your hiking through the area. We have pictures of that around here somewhere. Way far gone from cilvization, so they can't rob garbage bins that I'm aware of either. Long enough post..I think so perhaps.    

We used to have an old fashioned chemist in Blackheath, one with big bottles in the window. When the made up my medicine they used to put fresh blackberry juice in it - made themselves - health and safety would have a field day now! It always tasted wonderful! They used to give me the empty containers that different bottles came in - they were like little boxes covered in plastic. I used to make all sorts of things from them.

In Cradley Heath the owner of the shoe shop was lovely. He used to give me plants out of his greenhouse! I had tomato plants, plants that shut there leaves when you touched them. His brother was a retired army brigadeer (they were a very well known Black Country family) and he used to sit in a rocking chair in the shop in his dressing gown and blanket! Josie Lawrence (now quite famous actress over here) used to work in that shoe shop and climb up the big step ladders to get our shoes!

On the bus the conductor gave me a big reel of tickets - I played buses for ages with those tickets!

Wherever I went they used to give me little gifts - I don't know why!