More than 2 years since last posting - I'm not very good at this blogging lark but I'll try to be more regular....
It's sunny out side but very very cold. It's still January after all.
The day will only be punctuated by housework and food. Which will come first? Probably the former. There's the washing to do and the shopping before we can think of food.
I've been remembering old times today - what seems like another life. The days before computers, digital tv and online shopping. The Sunday love songs played some really old stuff
| From Old Pictures |
which took me back to Sundays when I was a child. Some sort of family favourites radio programme which occasionally had modern stuff on it would play in the background. The overpowering smell of roast beef cooking. The sun streaming through the kitchen window. I don't ever remember feeling cold in the house, although in Cornhill Road we had no central heating. We just dressed appropriately and kept moving, I guess. We were outside playing practically all the time anyway. The kitchen had an aga so I think it was pretty warm in there.
Nothing much happened in our house but it was buzzing with 6 kids in and out of each others lives all the time. In Cornhill Road the biggest dramas were over us wee ones tidying our room. We played, and ate, and had a bath every so often. Dad would take us to work with him on a Sunday morning occasionally. Probably to get us out from under Mum's feet while she got the lunch ready. There were toys in the Medical School for us to play with. A sit-on truck that we could ride down the long smooth corridors - everything there was completely silent apart from the squeak of shoes against lino floor.
If we went to Cornhill with him, we played outside. I remember jumping into huge piles of leaves under the trees. But I guess we were more supervised there. I don't imagine we got the run of a psychiatric hospital as small children.
I remember taking the bus back from school. Dad would give us a lift there. That was an ordeal. All 6 of us in the car - mind you - that was only for a year. It was a sort of minibus thing. Then Liz left school, then Dave so there was more room to move and Dad downsized the car to something more sensible.
I guess at this time Mum and Dad were much younger than I am now - which is strange to imagine. Your parents always seem old - but it's relative.
The bus journey was 2 buses from school with 2 others to watch out for. I was only about 7 or 8 at the time. Nowadays no parent would allow their 7 year old to take 2 buses all the way across town on their own. I think the bus fare was 2d as I seem to remember a 'tuppenny half' being asked for.
The biggest thing to happen to me as a child in Cornhill Road was getting chicken pox and measles one after the other, and being off school for what seemed like ages at the same time as Sheila.
Holidays came and went. We always stopped to look at standing stones wherever we were. We would climb hills, take walks and go to the beach. Dad would be providing a running commentary of the places we visited, keeping us interested in wherever it was. He seemed to know everything about everywhere.
Then the next biggest thing to happen was moving to Old Aberdeen. That was a big deal and a big upheaval.
