Friday, August 21, 2009

Fabbo Friday and HOLIDAYS



Vinegar oil splashed onto our skin to make ourselves burn and hopefully end up as brown as the Dolly magazine models.

Lying at the local country pool soaking up the sun all day with my sister and cousin.

Hot chips with sauce, chiko rolls and bags of mixed lollies from the local corner shop.

Back to the pool to splash on the coconut and vinegar oil and get some serious sunburning achieved.

When we had baked ourselves as much as we could bear, we’d leap into the pool for instant cooling in the icy water. The sunburn began to smart when the sun went down and later provided us with the glorious game of peeling the long strips of skin from each others bodies.

Picnics in the local graveyards and bush walking adventures with friends. And on the rare days that I stayed home I’d sit in the yard typing away on our antique typewriter, acting out my dream that I was a famous author. Even then tales world demand to be told.

Lovely, innocent summer days which seemed to stretch and bend forever. We had very few material possessions (I can still remember my wild excitement when my father brought home a surprise gift of Abba's Arrival album). No computers, no cinema and I barely remember watching television. Holidays were not the over-scheduled events they have become with today's children.

We lived in our swimsuits and life seemed forever summer and filled with promise and the smell of coconut tanning spray. I was young, the world was young and seemed so much bigger pre-internet. And the summer days were filled with heat and golden dreams and longings.

With thanks to Pip from Meet Me at Mikes! for inspiring this exercise.
Both images via flickr

16 comments:

  1. dolly doctor! and no call waiting so if your sister was on the phone whilst you were waiting for a phone call...well, tough. dinner out once a month (at the chinese restaurant..exotic!!!) except the time kitty sullivan got married...no video recorders so we had to stay home because you wouldn't miss THAT!!!!!
    looking back it seems primitive...but i remember being so happy.....

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  2. Josephine, you've described my childhood in S Africa during the summer months, only we would use metholated spirits and baby oil to tan. Worked a treat! Then the summer rains would come and it was a delight to walk bare foot in the deep storm water drains, which ran alongside the curbs. I wouldn't do it nowadays, though, as I can't get "IT" out of my mind by Stephen King. Shudder. Thanks for the trip down "Stormwater lane" and the local village pool.
    BTW - went to buy one of your books yesterday, to no avail. Are you on a database in Australia? I've probably missed something...

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  3. I tell you Cat the world seemed such a more innocent place back then. Boy I sound like a right old woman but it's so true! I look at the children today and they seem like adults compared to how I was! At my leavers formal I looked about ten whereas today all the girls look like supermodels! They grow up much faster.
    Helen you sweet thing to go looking for my books. I'll contact you about them. How fab to use metho and how could I have forgotten the baby oil! We did use the baby oil too! xx

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  4. this is amazing Josephine you manage to capture the way I feel and the way it was for me so many times. This is my childhood to a tee! Even as a teenager summers were exactly like this, including Dolly! I sometimes long for that time, especially during school holidays now

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  5. long summer memories sound so nice

    sarah

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  6. *ah! what a lovely magical blog!*
    i love the picture of agatha christie
    as a girl.. you never know the
    potential lurking inside of
    someone! xoxo

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  7. What was the exercise exactly? Childhood memories? How do you feel about not having many material objects when growing up? I was the opposite - I had a lot, possibly too much...my mum had a spending problem which led to a major debt problem and I guess it affected us all in different ways. It took me a while to realise material objects really are not the be-all and end-all...

    I was a bit of a collectomaniac - postcards, stickers, videos, marbles, books, stuffed animals -even pictures I liked from gadget/argos catalogues and old sweet wrappers...

    When I have kids I keep saying I'll make sure I highlight the benefits of the cardboard box to them in the early years!!! Keep down the tat and then we won't be filling so many landfills later!

    Anyway...I digress...mosaic - google Big Huge Labs - it is a bit basic - you need flickr and it doesn't let you choose where you position the photos or which ones you use...there must be a more sophisticated method but I need to look into it further...

    As for the statue - I knew there was a Banbury Cross but I didn't know there was a statue there either. I took quite a few close up photos...perhaps I'll put them up over the weekend so you can see how beautiful she is. xxx

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  8. Thank you Linda. The pool that I am referring to in this piece is the Oatlands pool which is a lot swankier now than back when I was a teenager.
    Sarah, I am always happy to see you. Thanks for dropping by.
    Thank you again Tiny Mouse, both your Blogs are slices of heaven and tutu dreams.
    Thanks Miss Curious Cat. I will pop over to your Blog and satisfy your curiosity later. xx

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  9. I loved summer and the beach when I was young. Shirt off, care free, swam all the way out in the ocean, sweat was great heat was a non issue , had no fears. . .
    Now, I prefer winter and the cool crisp air of autumn. . . and take delight in the things I was blind to when I was young. . . not sure what happened ;)
    Sweet post, Josephine

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  10. Gary I realise I have done exactly the same thing! Winter has become my favourite season rather than summer. A more reflective time perhaps? xx

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  11. yes i think you are right.
    she was a shy mute angel...
    she was reading my fairy book
    over my shoulder. (lots of pictures)
    maybe she sang when she got home! :)
    xoxo

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  12. What lovely images- I hope you have a wonderful weekend xo

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  13. oh i remember the sunburn! funny to think of it now that we swathe and slather our children when they go outside. it was a more innocent time environmentally too i guess.

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  14. OMG, Dolly magazine was my absolute FAV thing as a teenager.

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  15. Dolly taught me so much about all the things my mother didn't want me to read Dolly for! xx

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  16. Ah I remember Poet's Corner in Dolly. And I remember asking for Arrival for Christmas and my father asking why I wanted a rifle. What a great reminder Josephine...I grew up in the bush - I remember being outdoors all day, bare feet, summertime, swimming, no tv, a decade that seemed endless. And I'm very glad I didn't read IT till I was an adult!!

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