"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
chris French wrote:


Easy if you are standing up - I landed face forward onto asphalt using
a swing standing up.

Darwin award?


Is your real name Victor Meldrew by any chance? And I'll bet I'm not the
first to say that.

Suzanne

Suz wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

chris French wrote:



Easy if you are standing up - I landed face forward onto asphalt using
a swing standing up.

Darwin award?



Is your real name Victor Meldrew by any chance? And I'll bet I'm not the
first to say that.



No, its omethomng entirely different.

And you are...


Suzanne

The message
from Jane Ransom contains these words:

- You can't have a pond because they might fall in and drown.

- ad infinitum

And a child would hate a garden like that anyway

Snip of horrors...

For heaven's sake, children like a wilderness that they can play cowboys
and indians in, and Robinson Crusoe and hide and seek and stuff like
that. Don't, what ever you do, make your garden 'safe' or your children
will never develop an instinct for danger. If it never hurts a child to
fall over, it will never develop a proper sense of balance. If they
never fall in a pond they will never learn that ponds are contain horrid
smelly water and contain creepy crawlies like leeches. If they never
climb a tree they will never learn the danger of heights!!!!!!!

Quite. When I was small I used to make dens at the bottom of the garden.
I used to cross the deep ditch into the field behind. (Oh, and I'm
talking about aged about six or so) I used to cross the road and invade
the meadow opposite and play by (but occasionally, in) the pond there,
or go down the road and play in the brook, and beyond that, another
pond, or slope-off into the woods a quarter of a mile away, through
which the brook ran and in which there was an evil pond full of black
sludge and green surface weeds, and when I was ten we moved to a house
which backed on to the far side of that wood, and in the acre of garden
of the house were trees, trees, trees, (36 fruit trees to begin with)
clumps of bamboo, a couple of stands of the rigid-leaved yucca, an
air-raid shelter under a steep mound of soil, several eminently
climbable trees, including a big sycamore in which I made a
tree-hous^H^H^den, a summerhouse, various wooden sheds and garages, lots
of lovely poisonous plants, a couple of water butts, and a nearby
chemist who later sold me anything I needed for molishing bigger and
better bangs.

When I think of some of the things I did as a child (including catching
snakes in Singapore)

The best I can do along those lines is catching an adder in Epping
Forest and pretending it was a grass-snake so the parents wouldn't mind
me taking it home. I used to handle it without gloves....

I go sweaty all over but I never suffered more than
a few cuts and bruises - children have more sense and resilience than we
give them credit for )

Quite. And make sure they have every opportunity to get well into that
peck of dirt they have to eat in a lifetime, or their immune systems
will be about as much use as a very useless thing.

The message . 24
from Victoria Clare contains these words:

How old are the children? They will probably have their own ideas.

Something I always fancied as a kid: a den right inside a big blackberry
bush.

I had one. No-one else ever knew it was there.

No-one knows you're in there, if they do they can't get you out without
getting seriously scratched, and you can eat it. What more could one ask!

Dragons. And possibly muffins.

OK, it's not 'safe', it's not sensible, it's not clean or neat. But it
WOULD be cool...

It is/was cool. Especially as when I was being 'sought' I spent a lot of
time removing the inward-facing prickles with my sheath-knife (another
secret).

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

The message
from "Ophelia" contains these words:

Anybody remember not stepping on the paving cracks? It was like a disease
when you started it.

Heavens YES!!!

I have a limited edition lithograph (204/450) of the illustrated poem
"Lines and Squares". Poem by A.A.Milne, picture by E.H.Shepard.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Suz wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

chris French wrote:



Easy if you are standing up - I landed face forward onto asphalt using
a swing standing up.

Darwin award?



Is your real name Victor Meldrew by any chance? And I'll bet I'm not
the
first to say that.



No, its omethomng entirely different.

And you are...



sober