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It's a bit vague this, but the sort of things that stick in your mind, that your kids loved to do and remember fondly.
From simple stuff like rockpooling to modern costly malarky like indoor skydiving.
Tell me yours and if it's around yorks I might pinch it for my lot....
Damming streams, or at least giving it a good go. Definitely a Yorkshire possibility (perhaps leave it a couple of weeks though). My lot head off to the Dales for this every now and again.
Building Dens in Woods. Staying in them overnight...
Making and flying kites.
Breaking old ladies' windows with a groundbait catapult.
I think they come naturally and you cannot really force them just do lots of intereting things with them
Granted i hoep the first proper MTB ride - we are getting there- and bivvy night will be awesome though.
Climb some big trees
Jump some rivers - get really wet
Museums - that may just be my eldest though
Camping - dont all kids just love it
DR who and hiding from it - didnt we all at some point??
Chippy tea on a friday - perhaps just a northern thing
baking breads and cakes - perhaps just a metro sexual thing
camping, real fire, spuds in foil in embers, sausages pierced on sticks, beans in can sitting on embers
wet day, steep grass hill, SAI fertiliser bag slide
counting shooting stars
grass houses (well woven sticks and weave grass to make a roof with mud walls)
disposing of out of date RNLI flares in a 50 gallon drum .....
collecting wood(and other things) for 5th Nov fire
? do kids have pram wheel soap box go carts now - presumably not...
Midnight bar b watching stars in dark sky Scotland,
Sunset bar b's on remote empty beaches
Building dens
Geocaching in remote spots,
Castles with no one else around
Splash landings
Filey beach building huge sandcastles in the rain
Sunset at cafe mambo in Ibiza (not many kids do that one)
First concert
Camping
Marshmallows on an open fire
Camping on your own back garden
Water slides made out of polythene
Message in a bottle out to sea
Ghost hunting with torches in spooky woods
In fact mostly anything to do with the big outdoors.
Camping (with a fire at night) is a great shout - so much adventure for the bairns.
Chippy tea on a friday - perhaps just a northern thing
Chippy tea is alive and well in the beautiful south. Not every Friday, but it might be if I drove past a chippy on the way home.
Climbing and falling off stuff.
DIY together (aka sharing the pain)
Swimming - first time I saw my eldest dive in and swim to the bottom of a 3.5m pool was a moment of real pride, as he managed it around 30 years ahead of me (6 v 36 - I had some issues...)
Fishing. Starting with Roach and Bream, in a little brook not some carp puddle.
Looking for shooting stars on warm summer evenings
Geocaching or giving them a reason to walk up that hill.
Baking soda volcanoes
Mountain biking?
Kayaking, walking up mountains combined with camping.
Building stuff. Holding a bit of wood while my dad saws it. Going to work with him. Being allowed to drive the car sitting on his lap. Building a robot out of a Commodore 64. Going canoeing, and being allowed to help paddle.
I agree with junkyard - do your own thing.
But damming streams in the Dales - yup, great memories of that myself.
And camping and forraging for mushrooms for breakfast.
And rock pooling.
It's all about the outdoors isn't it. So here am I on a PC!
Top memory is camping in Iceland, woke at 3:00AM and was greeted by the most amazing show of Northern Lights I've ever seen. I woke the family but it was Boy 2 who was really enthralled. We sat cuddled up in sleeping bags for hours watching the show.
Boy 1 and I bivvied out one sub-zero night under a tree in the Beacons. Two sleeping bags each, frost on them in the morning despite the campfire. We were toasty warm though.
Swimming in Thornton Force in the Dales and Scwd yr Eira closer to home.
Boy 1 and I building up his first FS bike together.
Air-pistols!
Playing for the local rugby team- I was a shouty dad 🙁
Fireworks and bonfires.
Making electronic gizmos together. Boy 1 is now reading sound production and electronics at university 🙂
Gigs and festivals.
Foraging for 'food for free' is great. Cooking/ eating it even betterer!
The special ones just pop out of nowhere, some of mine are:
Legofests that last all day & making things out of big cardboard boxes on cold wet winter days.
Autumn days collecting conkers and sweet chestnuts, roasting the latter when you get home - always taste better if you had to find them.
Hanging tarzan swings in the woods.
Demolishing anything, esp young boys.
Camping
Building Airfix models - remember watching my lad building a set with my dad, in the same way that I used to "help" when I was that small, got a small amount of glue vapour in my eye and had to wipe it away....
Some great things here. Some great memories for me and lots of things that I must do with our two. We went cycle touring for 3 weeks in Denmark this summer. Mini mugsy (4 1/2) on his Cnoc attached to a follow me tandem behind Mrs Mugsy's road rat (don't do this at home kids esp with camping gear...)Micro mugsy (2 and a bit) behind me in her trailer. I think Etienne (mini) will remember lots of things about it: primitive campsites on the beach, 1st camp fire, 1st real go at mountain biking on his own etc etc.
Dam I'm getting all emotional now as I'm not even 1 week into a 5 week stint working overseas without them.