The splendour of Summer

As we enter the August bank holiday, I thought I'd  like to take look back to the Summer  when I was I was away and I saw this group of trees.

 It just appealed to me greatly so grabbed my camera  and took this picture in the early morning of it while other folks were doing other things like getting up.

Nature has always held a fascination for me, not least in my childhood being surrounded by countryside.

 

It isn't just flowers that interest me, even leaf structures do too.

Summertime Cub

 

Summertime means many things but being out, exploring, going on a hike is very much a part of what it means and was a part of my original boyhood as much as relatively unstructured play with my mates was.

Scratch the surface of this boy and you will find the eternal cub scout at his happiest playing games. learning new skills and having fun under the guidance his leader so it really was no accident at the age of fifteen and sixteen I went back in time, wearing cub scout uniform.

Today although officially you can't be a cub scout within the organization, I do shadow and follow much of what cub scouts do and learn to gain their badges having a specific uniform for such activities that include short trousers.

For a boy who hasn't really past ten years of age being taken back to learn the life skills I need while having fun makes a lot of sense

Summertime with more play

Summer for me always brings back memories of vacations of the past typically in traditional seaside resorts with beaches, long shore lines to walk on and playing in the sand, making big sandcastles with moats.

It includes the days we went down to the park for a game of footy or just a made run about making up games as we went along.

It's also days out at the fair, visiting the amusement arcades, eating ice cream, going on the Dodgems and riding the Merry-Go-Round with its distinctive rhythms without a care in the world.

It's also the place adult but child me really feels at home in, doing what I understand the best having fun.

Summertime play with your mates

Summer means time together exploring and doing things together in our very own spaces so we'd make dens or climb up to our tree house for a pow-pow and sesson together for ages or at least until our Mum's called us in (and home).

It is most emphatically NOT a girls zone, you have your own with your own kind so only boys are allowed to partake in play and rituals we, as boys, love and so we have our action figures, games and toys like guns we play with with much badinage and horse play tossed in for good measure.

We definately know what boys are here as we form a tight bond and that's how we like it  enjoying our masculine ways while the girls do their thing no doubt feeling better off for not having to accomodate us.

Of course there are times we might do the odd thing together but otherwise this suits all of us down to the ground.

I'm glad to be a boy.

Summertime 2016

A few weeks in the Summer, that period where on the last day of school you'd be feeling quite elated for being free of double maths period and the cross country in all weathers for a while and yet a couple of weeks on you're bored.

It's almost as though you cannot cope without that routine, knowing exactly where and what you'd be doing at any one point in time.

Holidays when I was younger had more of a routine planned into them by parents or other bodies such as schools just to get around of this.

It wouldn't be summer without some consideration of summer attire which for boys like me means more t shirts and casual shorts as in beach or sports types as like most boys as much as I like uniform, just breaking out of it for periods is great.

Boys like me belong in and wear Speedo type swimming trunks in and around the water, tight fitting and making us look rugged and, heck more attractive even compared with the swim shorts we used to wear.

Time for a ninty-nine me thinks...

Co-ordinated uniforms

The school term may be officially over for the new familiar six weeks school hols but this doesn't mean school terms are over for good as much as you'd like to see the end of S R Jones's humilating and often homophobic presence as science teacher.

I likened him back then to the popular brand of toothpaste which upon getting back to him only resulted in being smacked in front of the class for cheek and disrespect.

Instead as if by magic come September it all begins again.

Connected of course with all that is the ritual of going to the boys department or sub section of the men's wear that deal with more formal boys outfits for a fitting for the new school years uniform where out comes the tape measure to take chest,waist and inside leg measurements coupled with any school requirements before getting some items you go into the tiny cubical with thin curtain to try on.

That in real school life things went a bit wrong because at my school, like a good number they favoured long trousers while really it would of made more sense for me to had been put back into short trousers of the then brievity and treated a bit more like a junior to work on my attitudes and develop some sense of self discipline rather han relying totally on the notion of pleasing or not having pleased a grown up.

That's beside the fact being unco-ordinated and still playing rather a lot at breaktimes it would of been more cost effective given long seldom lasted a month without holes coming in knees.

BEING LIKE THE BOY ON THE LEFT REALLY WOULD MADE MORE SENSE.

Leaving and resuming years later

In the old order of things you'd be in school this week as Summer Term wound itself down as we couldn't really go any further in our classwork  so we'd have trips out, maybe a school production, certainly a school leavers service and board games on school desks at other times.

I remember that time in July 1975 quite well as we had a composition to write about our time at school, the things we learnt and our hopes for our futures at high school all to the backdrop of It Ain't Half Hot Mum on tv and Whispering Grass sang by two cast members on the radio.

The kit you need, I need even, as the eternal boy reflects that era although we didn't have caps and blazers, and the latter was one item I had to get that summer, removing any outward appearence of an adult.

Restoration to a school aged junior boy is the order of my day which is why two impliments are included for bringing my behaviour in line consistant with that era as that's what I understand best.

A juvenile little boy really is best treated for his misdeanours with a well caned bottom which he was used to if not merely threatened with 1975 style.

It is a very effective way of teaching me a lesson and I support adults who as this adult little boy teaching me right from wrong caning me without question.

It'll make a good boy out of me.