Monday, January 09, 2006

I remember

I remember when we flew home after the holidays and my brother and I both had chicken pox and new green coats.

I remember when Mum got a fishing hook stuck in her forehead as we rowed out to sea.

I remember when we flew to the mainland in a plane that was so small that Dad had to sit beside the pilot.

I remember when my brother and I both got bikes for Christmas and the dizzy freedom of riding round and round the roads but going nowhere.

I remember the day Mum gave us some tomatoes and some cheese and let us go on a picnic on the old runway behind our house.

I remember late nights when the kitchen sink was full of sinister blue lobsters, and shiny mackerel about to be gutted

I remember eating peas in the garden and then chewing the pods because I liked the taste of the green juice.

I remember when we waited all night for the boat to Oban, saw it try to dock at the pier in a howling storm, give up, then turn back to the open sea.

I remember skipping across the machair to long white beaches with nobody on them.

I remember the oystercatchers and sandpipers and pewits and black-headed gulls and curlews and arctic terns.

I remember guddling in rock pools, taunting sea anemones and dislodging limpets.

This was inspired by two great posts by Nate and Jonathan.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love the machair link. How lucky you were to live with all those birds so near.

Jonathan Wonham said...

Yes, the machair was a new one for me too. I'll remember that. And the hook in the forehead. Ouch...

Sarah Mackenzie said...

Your childhood sounds a lot like mine. Lots of cheese and tomatoes and warm pepsi. Lots of guddling. Lots of goosepimples and tinkers tartan. And picnics in the back of the car on a wild and stormy summers(?) day defiantly refusing to get out of the car and go for a walk. Walk? Where? There's nothing here! Oh how young and stupid we were. And many, many a happy day throwing live jellyfish at each other (I can still taste them) or smashing them with rocks. It was great.

Lesley said...

Yes I love machair too: both the word and the thing. Of course you have to pronounce it with a Scottish "ch".

Unfortunately my life has more to do with guddles now than guddling.

Ah yes, Sarah, picnics in the back of the car. I remember them well. Especially in Achiltibuie.

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