Win a Joules picnic basket and a copy of Poppy and Sam's Animal Hide-and-Seek - together worth over £100 *NOW CLOSED*

My favourite activity as a child was playing outside

Going to the seaside was a dream come true. We had no car so only went once or twice a year. We would be laden with buckets and spades, extra clothes, towels, blankets, picnic food and a beach ball. It was so much fun and the sun always seemed to shine.

My favourite activity as a child was playing outside

Mine was something very simple and you don't see children doing it today! We loved the hot Summer days and would sit on the pavement watching the tar at the edge of the road start to bubble - then we would pop the bubbles! Used to get our hands covered in tar and then Mum would use margarine and sugar to scrub us clean

Bike riding. Cycled in every part of the village but my favourite place to ride my bike was in the woods. All those twisty paths and little hills!

Conkers! Watching them ripen on the trees and then searching through the fallen leaves. In my memory, it was always a crisp dry morning in the autumn when mum and I would head out to look for them. Then home to prepare them by first making a hole through the centre, then threading a knotted string through. If dad were around, he would insist on baking them in the over (strictly against the rules!) to make them as hard as possible.

Then off to school, conker careful stashed in the bottom of my satchel. The wait for first break would seem never-ending, but soon enough it would come and out we would go conkers in hand. Does anyone remember the words we used when playing? I’m not sure I remember them all, but these are a few: Tips when the swinging conker just brushes the opposing conker. Strings when the strings tangle. Stampsies when someone loses their conker, and everyone else rushes over to stamp on it. How about scramble which happened when someone let go of a string, and a conker went sailing across the playground. Then it was a mad dash to try to grab and own the fallen conker.

Did you ever have a sixer? If you did you probably remember the heartbreak of getting it smashed. I often had a one-er or two-er but rarely got as far as a sixer. For those of you who don’t know (can there be anybody who doesn’t?) A one-er is when a conker breaks an opponent’s conker and so on.

Since those days I’ve had the pleasure of searching for conkers with my grandsons but never my granddaughters because they live in Australia. I’m not even sure if Horse Chestnut trees grow in Australia? I must remember to ask my son next time I speak to him.

I used to like riding my bike, I would go everywhere on it, We lived out in the sticks with lots of 'back lanes' to ride down and feed the horses.

Building dens with friends in the local woods; damming the stream, catching frogs and fishing for sticklebacks to put in a jar; turning over stones to find caddies larvae and other insects, an activity that stands me in good stead to this day. To catch brown trout it helps to know what they are feeding on (they love caddis flies and other hatching insects) so turning over stones is still very useful!

I loved going to the park where there were loads of squirrels to feed them

It's a weird one. My mum and dad had an allotment and they would grow all our own veg. A particular favourite was onions for pickling. Once harvested we'd sit on the back doorstep and peel them (I must have been around 8-10 ). Then they'd go into vinegar in the big old glass sweet jars my mum would get from the sweet shop and then it was a waiting game for when they were already. A packet of crisps and a pickled onion was a great back then ! I don't even eat them now ?

Csmping! We joined the Camping Club when I was 6 and camped every weekend from Easter to September with the.club. Wonderful times.

We use to play Jacks, they were little metal bits (jacks) that you had to throw a ball up and then pick up one and gradually try and pick them all up.

Swimming without a doubt, either at a local beach or an outdoor pool, still love it and do it regularly as I’ve lived in Cornwall all my life, for me nothing can beat the invigorating feeling of a dip in the ocean, and the best thing is it’s free !

Bitofanerd Identifying lots of wild flowers with a very simple inentification book that just started with colours. Still have it and it's still where I start.

I used to love searching privet bushes to find stick insects.

A friend's father built her a little shed and the three of us spent hours in there- just having fun. We were lucky, we had access to tennis courts and there was a small wood close by where we would go hunting for minnows and picnicking.

We also "helped" by picking raspberries and being paid for it. My mother said it cost her more putting drinks and sandwiches together than I ever earned.

Fishing for tiddlers in Arrowe Brook with my cousin. It was at the end of the road where my aunt and uncle lived. We would go armed with fishing nets and jam jars, a bottle of water and
a packet of Marie biscuits ( remember them? ) for sustenance. Such simple pleasures remembered with much happiness.

I was a real tomboy growing up and my favourite activity was climbing the trees along the riverbank near to our house.

Making perfume out of rose petals and water. It used to smell dreadful!

Playing elastics with my friends.
A large piece of elastic tied into a circle around two peoples legs which started at the ankles then moved higher and higher while you did complicated steps in out of the elastic.
Playing ball against a wall when on my own was always good too .

throwing and catching balls against a wall. I could manage 2 in sequence but failed with 3.

Playing 'two balls' up the wall with fancy tricks and the rest of it. I still have good hand/eye coordination and am still playing netball at the age of nearly 62 and 3/4!

Walking in the woods through all the seasons, picking bluebells, wind whistling through the trees, picking blackberries, clods of clay sticking to my boots after heavy rain, building tree houses and seeing a magical, hushed Narnian world after heavy snowfall. ❤️

GOING FOR LONG WALKS TO THE PARK WITH MY MOTHER AND FAMILY - IT WAS ALWAYS SUNSHINING AND I LOVED PICKING BLUEBELLS. WE ALWAYS HAD SANDWICHES AND ICE CREAM

I used to love roaming the fields in Spring, picking huge bunches of cowslips and bringing them home for my parents...that's when I wasn't building a den in some tree which I'd managed to climb! Got stuck in one once and my father had to manoeuvre a long ladder across a farmers field of cabbages to get me down - he wasn't much impressed!