Today I had a blast from the past. We were getting in my husbands car to go to do our weekly shop and sitting on my seat was an old A-Z of London. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a child. I flicked through the pages, looking at all the intricately drawn street maps, it was a real thing of beauty! It took me right back to being a child, going on a trip somewhere with my father in his blue Renault and being told to look up a street name in the back and find the corresponding page. I used to love doing that, which is perhaps why I still love map reading to this day. I was consumed with nostalgia and spent a good while thinking back to when I was a child and the things I loved to do, many of which just don’t exist in the same form today.

And yet some things stay the same. It’s good to remember the things that made you happy as a child. I once read that often your best memories of childhood are spent outside and for me this is so very true. Being outside, breathing in the air and soaking up all the beautiful details of nature are what makes me happy and always has done since I was a small child. So excited to play in the snow with Littlelish tomorrow!

Here is my top 10 things I loved to do as a child:

1. Playing in my garden as a child, where it always seemed to be sunny. Hanging from the top bar of my swing upside down by my knees. The best feeling in the world.
2. Dream. As a child I always dreamed of intriguing buildings where I would find a secret entrance to another room or part of the building. These adventures were so magical to me. I still love dreaming.
3. Looking out of the windows at the back of my old family home and seeing my neighbours HUGE conker tree. It was so impressive and so beautiful to me, I loved it. Sadly it was chopped down when I was about 13, the view was never the same again!
4. Play, play, play! With friends, with cousins with the neighbourhood kids or with my Sylvanian families :)
5. The secret garden “The Hill” in the woods of Golders Hill Park, London that we used to walk in. First you came to wall and then a door and then you opened it and stepped foot into a magical garden. This was how I experienced it through the eyes of an imaginative child/teenager. I spent hours lying here and walking the pathways covered in climbing roses.
6. Listening to the woodpigeons call outside my bedroom window every summer.
7. Listen to my nana singing chatanoogna choochoo and would you like to swing on a star and teaching me (or trying to teach me) how to jive. What an energy and love of life she has.
8. Summers in the south of France with a childhood friend, Amelia, who is sadly no longer with us. I have beautiful memories of playing in and among the olive trees, making wild boar escape routes, smelling the lavender and swimming in lakes. (I went on to visit some amazing places with some equally amazing friends and have fantastic memories of them all Israel with Nat, St Lucia with Jouls, Sanibel with Lou)
9. Recording myself on anything I could record on. Singing, making radio stations. My dad to this day still will not let me live down ‘its no sacarifi i i ice’ on his Dictaphone!
10. Walking to the cornershop with my dad to get tom thumb drops in a white paper bag every Sunday!

And a few other things I loved (I was an 80′s child!) include reading the Beano/Dandy, collecting stickers, playing nintendo (zelda!), wackaday, cassette tapes (the first one I ever bought was do the Bartman – aged 9), Gremlins, The Goonies, Hypercolour tshirts, mousetrap and Tony Hart.

And many many more :) I’d love you to comment with your favourite thing as a child or even your favourite memory with me! :)

Update! Tonight I was reminded about another awesome childhood memory, the ha ha bonk book… oh I wish I could find mine…