Strange and Daft Childhood Pastimes

I used to make "perfume" too Fanny Lots of little jugs and glass jars full of murky liquid! Seem to remember using food colouring too which looked slightly better!

I had a little toy mangle which I used to put worms through....

Would spend hours high up in a large cherry tree reading. As the youngest of five it was the only place I could get any peace and quiet!

At my secondary school, probably in Year 7, two girls used to pretend to be horses. They would ‘neigh’, shake their manes, ‘canter’ themselves around the quad... I hung out with other girls (thankfully).
?
Can’t recall their names.
Maybe Dobbin and Beauty or some such.

? ? ? Urmston
Glad you’re safely back in UK ?
One of my school friends was cruelly nicknamed Nijinsky by the boys in our class. They said she had a long face like a horse.

We had a long coffee table that my dad had made in the otherwise empty front room. My brother and I would turn it upside down and it was a boat, or on its end and it was a rocket or right side up with a sheet, it was a tent, although we could only lie down in it!

I also had a pet slug, called Sooty, which I kept in an old drawer outside.

My dad collected football coupons from friends and had to stamp a reference number on them. I used his stamp in my books, like a library date stamp, so friends would return them to me.

We lived in a large Victorian end terraced house and my brother and I used to walk along the narrow outside ledge of the bannister, which went along the hallway upstairs and round a corner. Then we would climb onto the landing over it. There was a big drop over the stairwell and I am so surprised that neither of us slipped, or fell, as my brother was so clumsy and four years younger than me. Looking back - I'm horrified now.

My dad used to challenge me as a nipper (my uncles’s word I love it - Oldham) to see which of us could empty a milk bottle of water down the sink the fastest. (Remember the days of rinsing them out to put by the front door - empties - for the milkman the next morning?).

Anyway.
He always, always won. I was just emptying mine and hoping each time I’d win.

Then he let me into his ‘secret’. Something to do with centrifugal force or some such - he was an engineer. You had to turn the bottle upside down and then spin it fast so the water inside circled the bottle and shot out faster.

Small things kept me amused obviously ...

My Grandad use to Show pure bred Rabbits, and won many prizes at the shows. When I was about 7years old, I was sometimes allowed to accompany him to a few local ones. One Day be returned from a show with a Pure bred Blue Bevan Doe, which he gave me for my Birthday. The problem was, that from watching him and his Rabbits, I had learned a 'Little too much too soon' and allowed some of the Bucks to Run free with the Does on the Lawn whilst he was at work, and the resulting offspring were far from Purebreds, and only suitable for the local Pet market!
Needless to say, as soon as I got caught out, each hutch was fitted with a small padlock!

keeping slugs as pets in glass jars! Gave them food not quite sure what it was can't remember

Thank you Fanny for this inspired barmy thread a welcome break from Covid.

Following on from my own creative efforts with clods of mud and large stones which in my mind was going to be turned into something tasty, my son aged about 3 would pick leaves from a privet hedge and place them into his wheelbarrow telling me they were "PG Tips". inspired by the ad at the time, all ready to be turned into a nice cup of tea

Cute!