The National Trust launched a UK nationwide campaign to encourage sofa-bound children to get outside, exploring and having adventures. Among the list of activities is bug-hunting and playing conkers…..
Image courtesy of the daily Mail
Well, you guessed it. The child in me had to check out the list to see how adventurous my life has been.
1. Climb a tree – Yes, and scraped my knee!
2. Roll down a really big hill – Yes, when you are small any hill seems BIG!
3. Camp out in the wild – Slept in a tent in a field with cows for neighbours
4. Build a den – Often
5. Skim a stone – A regular game when near water
6. Run around in the rain – In Ireland? Sure it was always raining!
7. Fly a kite – A great big bright yellow box kite
8. Catch a fish with a net – A challenge yet to try. 🙁
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree – Yes, we had ten apple trees at the lower end of our garden. Mind you, it was not as much fun as boxing the fox* at baldy Doyle’s!
10. Play conkers – Every autumn we collected, polished, then strung them before playing the games
11. Throw some snow –Yes, but I only lasted about five minutes out in the snow as a child, it was way too cold for me.
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach – Yes, at every chance I got, and I still do when I get the chance
13. Make a mud pie – Doesn’t everyone at one time make one?
14. Dam a stream – With my brothers, it was fun
15. Go sledging – This is one I missed out on, not sure the bones would appreciate it these days. 🙁
16. Bury someone in the sand – We tried to cover daddy in sand, but he was over six foot long and he would get bored easily!
17. Set up a snail race – No and I didn’t eat them either like the boy next door!
18. Balance on a fallen tree – Yes, once to cross a river
19. Swing on a rope swing – Yes, and through a car tyre hung from a tree with a rope
20. Make a mud slide – Not yet, but I have slidden (is that a word?) in mud!
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild – Yes, and came home with half my face purple to prove it! Now I no longer like them.
22. Take a look inside a tree – Yes, there was nobody home!
23. Visit an island – I live on an Island. Does that count? Aran Island, The Balearics, The Canaries, Funen in Denmark and Malta. Is that enough? One of these days I might make it to Rathlin, off the coast of County Antrim.
24. Feel like you are flying in the wind – Yes. Every second day in Ireland!
25. Make a grass trumpet – Yes I have tried blowing on a blade of grass between my thumbs to sound like a trumpet.
26. Hunt for fossils and bones – I am nearly there and I did find a Fossil shop a couple of weeks ago! 😉
27. Watch the sun come up – I did in the Wicklow hills, all dressed up in my finery after a formal dance! Who was I with? If I have to think… then he didn’t matter.
28. Climb a huge hill – Cave hill right up to Napoleon’s Nose! Time I did it again!
29. Get behind a waterfall – Have to leave something for another day!
30. Feed a bird from your hand – Yes. In my garden a good few years ago.
31. Hunt for bugs – Many times with my young neighbour
32. Find some frogspawn – I did and thought it slimy. We called Tapioca pudding frogspawn.
33. Catch a butterfly in a net – No, but they often come and land on me when I am sitting in the garden.
34. Track wild animals – Do Toyboys count?
35. Discover what’s in a pond – By falling in!
36. Call an owl – Yes, but they don’t understand ‘grannymarish’!
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool – Love to do that as I scramble over rocks.
38. Bring up a butterfly – Alas they flay away.
39. Catch a crab – No! I didn’t let any catch me either.
40. Go on a nature walk at night – Short ones. Boy do you meet some rum characters!
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it – I did. Did I ever tell you about Elly and the potato?
42. Go wild swimming – Nope! Not for me. I get goose pimples thinking about it.
43. Go rafting – Water involved again? That will be a No then!
44. Light a fire without matches – Yes, using the rays of the sun (it did shine once in Ireland!!!) on paper through a magnifying glass.
45. Find your way with a map and a compass – I did. Elly, I wonder why that reminds me of Knockagh?
46. Try bouldering – I grow them in my garden!
47. Cook on a camp-fire – Baked spuds and rhubarb
48. Try abseiling – I threatened to do so down the outside of the Europa Hotel at the Blog Awards last year.
Play geocache** – Why use a machine when I have one inbuilt = A BRAIN!
Canoe down a river – Neither up nor down. Water again
* boxing the fox = Stealing fecking apples from someone else’s tree.
** geocache = A hi-tech form of hide and seek using a GPS receiver to locate hidden treasure.
So how did you do?
