I have many exciting and eventful memories from my childhood. But one of the most vivid and close to my heart is the times I spend with my grandparents and cousins during the summer when I was a young. These memories will forever stay close to my heart as my grandparents have both since died. A granny is someone who is always there for you, even when it feels like the whole world is against you or when you are in trouble. They never shout and scream always listen and they will always love you like there own children, this is a love that is unconditional. From I was a child my parents worked long hours and my granny was always there to support them. The feelings of love and security I got when I was with my granny were incredible. I am going to tell you about some of the most memorable times from this period of my life.
Wouldn’t you give anything to be innocent and uncorrupted by societies “views” and “stereotypes” again? The innocence of being young is something we do not appreciate until you are faced with deadlines and responsibilities of growing up. These memories are of pure bliss and are taken from the only period in your life in which you are free.
I grew up in portrush in a small house in Brooklyn place but as my grand parents got older we moved closer to them in fact just up the road. Every day my dad would go to work and leave me at my grannies on the way. There I would eat my breakfast and prepare to go to school with my two cousins. I would return after school to watch television and chill-out. I loved it there, so as you can guess when the summer came I was incredibly excited. The summer is every Childs euphoria two whole months of freedom, fun and of course if you live in portrush sun and sand, well maybe not so much sun as sand.
On the warm summer July mornings I would walk down the road to my grandparents house and would be greeted by the smell of warm toast and the aroma of a cup of warm tea. After breakfast the television would be turned on and my granny would go out and do a couple of hours work for an old butcher who lived up the street. When the TV went on, the fighting commenced. ” Give it to me!” we would all scream in desperation not to miss a minute of are favourite shows. The screaming would wake my irritable grandfather. My granddad was a lovely man but not the sort you would want to wake in the morning as he would venture downstairs to tell us of and then proceed to behave fecetiously.
Waking him would also mean sacrificing the television not something any of us wanted to do. From we were young my younger cousin Louise and I built up and especially close friendship we were always there for each other. Whereas my older cousin and me would always fight, this usually ending up with me smacking him in the face and starting what seemed like world war three to us. This ultimately would end in one of use getting hit with a flying marble or getting stabbed with a pen. This rioting would ultimately end up in a rush to the kitchen to tell our wonderfully exaggerated tales to granny.
In the afternoon we would be far less boisterous as my granny was home. She had a wonderful way of always keeping us out of trouble however innocent it might have seemed at the time. On her arrival home she would have a bag of goodies, these were rationed out for good behaviour and eating all of our dinner. No matter how hard we looked we could never find the treasure. When you are a child treasure is chocolate, I can remember eating a bar of chocolate and feeling a buzz, that as a young adult you can only compare to the rush you fell when you re doing something incredible dangerous.
One of the things I remember the most, are the many contraptions we would strive to build. These seemed like massive undertakings for a couple of children like us and looking back they were. One day it would be a go-cart and the next a small wooden hut, the list was endless. These projects would almost always certainly end in failure for us, but to avoid having to witness our innocent faces of filled with failure granddad would undertake the challenge of building them from our simplistic plans.
I will treasure these memories till the day I die. Nothing in my life will ever come close to the happiness I felt. As you get older life just deteriates into a spiral set out by today’s society this only consists of stupid pettty laws and the idea you can never be good enough to meet the expectations of other people. Childhood is the only time in your life when you are not degraded and demoralised by people who think they are above you.
