Strange and Daft Childhood Pastimes

Terri that's so lovely about the dog.
I have in the past put a pair of glasses on our dog so that she can read the Times.
(I also have the DM - but she, unlike me, has standards)
I must take a photo and put it on Ellianne's thread...

Next door neighbour and myself used to push their baby rabbits round the garden in our dolls prams. Her dad used to breed rabbits to sell and we'd have about half a dozen of them in the prams carting them around, poor things when I think back. Some of them were lovely chinchillas but most were the Dutch black and white ones.

Beat you to it Fanny. Look on the thread and add yours!

Ellenvanin my mom told me that she made her guinea pigs harnesses from corking / French knitting so that she could take them for walks.

Just normal childhood things we all did and great to read! I remember the rose petal perfume so well and keeping tadpoles in mum's old washing up bowl with a little ladder then when they turned into baby frogs they could get out!

Yes I remember making perfume!
My Mam used to put 2 chairs back to back and drape a sheet over to make a tent in the sitting room when it was wet out. We had the usual carpet square in the middle of the room and lino round the outside which we used to pretend was a river and fish in. Mam would make us chips to eat out of paper bags in our tent as a treat. We also had rhubarb sticks from the garden with sugar in a brown paper bag to dip in.
At the bottom of our garden when we moved house was an old shed with a big cauldron outside which I told my younger brother was the witches shed and she boiled up little boys in the pot to eat!

I remember my mum telling me I should never pick a guinea pig up by it’s tail.

The old ones were the best ...
?

TerriBull you’ve reminded me of my delight in paper dolls! I used to have “Bunty” every week and there was always a doll with an outfit on the back! Sometimes I made my own clothes for Bunty.

C’mon tho let’s have some more weirdos!

Used to climb on the wooden headboard at the top of mum and dad’s bed, (very dangerous), steady myself, then let myself dive forwards, arms outstretched, landing with a thump on the bed, probably damaging the springs.

Also used to ride on the back of the settee, pretending it was a pony.
Always wanted a pony (sigh).

I used to play greengrocer shops in my friend Sandra's garden. We used grass as cabbage, stones as potatoes etc.
I remember the rag and bone man giving us a live chick I'm exchange for rags. Can you imagine? We gave the poor creature a bath and then made him a home out of a cornflake box. He didn't survive very long. We also painted our tortoise's name on his shell with nail varnish.

Hiding pennies under clods of earth to "discover" later.

Collecting dropped unused matches and trying to create a fire from twigs. (...also used a magnifying glass unsuccesfully.}

Wrapping up odds and ends from the junk drawer and giving them to my mum as a present. (She was delighted!)

Using the piano stool with lift up lid as my "office" desk. (I still love stationery.)

Digging deep holes in the garden to look for water and/or treasure.

Making a raft from stalks of grass - it didn't float well.

...what a nice trip down memory lane!

I used to love watching heavy rain fall onto wet ground and said to my dad they looked like sprouts growing a field. I was quite disappointed when he told me they grew on stalks and not out of the ground!

I also thought weeping willows should be called ‘dripping wet trees’.

I used to catch butterflies with my fishing net and put them in my little one man tent.
When I had about a dozen I would sit in the tent with them all fluttering frantically around my head until mother would come out and demand that I released them.

I remember swinging on the garden swing, and belting out well known songs. I’d learn all the words and was convinced I would become a singer one day. I had, and still have a bad voice for singing.
I had an imaginary friend Fanny, and that’s all I’ll say about it. My family laugh about it even now. ?

We used to get in mum and dads bed, pull the sheet up over our heads and pretend we were in a wagon train (covered wagon).

Another good thread from FannyCornforth.

I used to cut out families and furniture from old catalogues, rooms were shoe boxes and the people could shop for anything they wanted from the catalogue.

We used to have a large plastic flamingo in our rockery ( didn't everyone ? ) I remember my daily 'must- have' event was to clamber on the birds back , shouting to anyone who might be interested " I'm doing t' duck "
I hope I meant riding t' duck!

My friend and I spent one summer holiday “in character” - she was Holmes and I was Watson - investigating mysteries around the town - did the voices and I had a pretend pipe which I smoked ...best was going out digging in gardens when it got dark ... thrilled to dig up some bones ones night (lord knows what they were - chicken?

You’ve just reminded me of another one hf59.
Our secondary school taught German language and in the first summer holiday after doing it for a year, my friend and I would walk around speaking to each other in German. We thought people would believe we were Germans (although our families were well known in our town).
The innocence of being young ......

Puzzler61
Not just me then! ..I just remember this as one happy summer ... it didn’t seem odd at all .... we were both totally “ in the moment “ as they say ..... wonder when I stopped being so imaginative?!

In autumn on dewy mornings, we'd take small forked twigs and twizzle them around the spiders' webs in privet hedges. The layers of web grew thicker and stronger until it was a rubbery mess which we called spider glass as it was clear enough to see through.

Urmstongran

In the summer months, my sister and I used to love pressing the soft tar blobs that appeared in between the cobbles in the ‘entry’ behind our rented terraced house in Old Trafford ...

Yep, two weird kids.
?

Didn’t all children do this though??
Also the rose petal water thing, and making pretend stew in the garden in an old pan, and looking in flowers for fairies.
Mind you....not many boys did the last three things.
Asking neighbouring adults if they had any bottles they wanted taking back to the shop (I knew they would give me a few pennies for myself.)?

Maybe not the posh one lemongrove!

*ones