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
