From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Greying_Pilgrim

...Turn off your telly and do something less boring! I certainly do - PLUS there were only 3 channels, PLUS programming didn't start until late afternoon, and there was dedicated children's programming until the 6 O'clock news 🥰  I loved the '5 minute slots' before the news, 'The Magic Roundabout', 'Will O' the wisp', 'Noah and Nelly', 'Ivor the Engine' , 'Mary Mungo and Midge' 🥰

greenbee - LG loves reading too, although they're resisting picking anything 'new' up this hols.  I mean, the gain is that they are reading - their teachers will be impressed, I just wish they'd try something a little different - even if they end up putting it down again, as a 'no-likey'.  Yes, I don't really have an issue with being bored as such - I'd rather LG experience proper boredom, rather than be rolling along - unthinkingly - on the over-stimulation train of constant 'entertainment' (whatever form it takes).  And sometimes boredom can help you to appreciate a trip out, or an activity more.  I don't want a scheduled time during the holidays - school days are highly scheduled, so down time is important, but trying to find a mix for each day/each week.  

LG settled on a carpet picnic for lunch.  Phew!  I am so grateful my kiddo is easily pleased - and that they came up with the idea themselves.  We did so many carpet picnics in lockdown - LG never tired of them.  Amazing really 🥰

Greying X

KajiKita

Oh ... Ivor The Engine ... <becomes all misty eyed ...>
I don't know why I loved this programme so very, very much but I did. I think there was something a bit magical about it with the dragons and that glorious, rich, Welsh accent 

KK

Blackcats

I'm voting for Hector's House as my third favourite, second fave was The Herbs (I'm Dill the dog, I'm a dog named Dill) and favourite was Mary Mungo and Midge.  We lived in a flat and it was so nice to see a tv show which I could identify with like getting in the lift or looking out from our high up windows.

our local leisure centre are doing kids swim for £1 this holidays.  Might be a nice cooling activity if your local centre are doing similar.  Mine is apparently Bet ter ( though I'm not sure what they are better than 🤷‍♀️)

Greying_Pilgrim

Yes, I remember those - although not as clearly, because we didn't have a TV for an age/there was no internet to find the archives.  I remember that our next door neighbour had a TV, and I sometimes was allowed there to watch 'Play Away'.  Brian Cant was always my favourite presenter.  I was amazed that there were only 13 episodes of Mr Benn ever made.  The voice actor who did the series died at the weekend, and I was reading about it.  Mr Benn was just so...... exotic to my hum-drum-pedestrian childhood.  He went on such adventures! 

And if we're talking about 5.55pm programming, my absolute favourite of all time..... The Wombles - narrated by Bernard Cribbins 🥰  Then Ivor the Engine, then Rhubarb and Custard - narrated by Richard Briers 🥰  Happy days 😁

Oh, I wish our leisure centres were like that Blackcats - unfortunately they don't have those sort of offers.  No incentive to keep fit at all ☹️

Greying X

rtandon27

I remember saving up pocket money to buy a strip of tokens for the local outdoor pool.  The big adventure was to be allowed to bike there on my own (to meet up with friends) then spend 'all day' it was probably a couple of hours and then bike back home!  The heat and the sunshine meant a proper nap was needed to beat the exhaustion (it may have been a touch of sunstroke)  - There was no sunscreen back then and I had sunburned shoulders and nose which peeled.

badmemory

We, like so very many others, didn't even get a TV until the coronation.  I can't say we ever missed it.  I do remember the flowerpot men & my father (headmaster) was a big fan of the magic roundabout, it was a couple of decades before I realised just why.

teapot2

I now have the theme tune from Rhubarb and Custard as an earworm.  We didn't have a TV till I was a teenager though I did sometimes see it at a pal's.  I maybe had the best of both worlds with easily accessible wild places nearby plus living in a small town with an outdoor pool, 2 lovely beaches a harbour and a cinema.  Not sure I appreciated it at the time though 🙄

Greying_Pilgrim

teapot2 said:

I now have the theme tune from Rhubarb and Custard as an earworm.  We didn't have a TV till I was a teenager though I did sometimes see it at a pal's.  I maybe had the best of both worlds with easily accessible wild places nearby plus living in a small town with an outdoor pool, 2 lovely beaches a harbour and a cinema.  Not sure I appreciated it at the time though 🙄

Sorry for the ear worm teapot! 🤣 As long as your vision hasn't gone wibbly-wobbly too!

I don't think today's youngsters are any different, I'm not sure any of us appreciate what we have whilst we have it - at best we just think it's 'normal'.  As we now live in a town though, I want to try to at least show LG 'both sides' of rural and urban - and within that the architecture/nature/open spaces/street scenes etc etc.  As I've got older, I've appreciated how much architecture there is in rural areas - especially 'industrial' architecture of mining/canals/railways etc, and how much history there is in (most) towns.  For example how places of worship are very often built atop each other - getting bigger or more substantial as money and skills grew.  I'm not sure any of it is going in at the moment, but then sometimes LG will recall something they've seen on a TV programme and then there it is in front of them, or they'll recall something they've seen at one EH/NT property, and we see it again at another.  

Greying X

greenbee

I'm with LG on liking re-reading, although agree with you that something new is probably a good thing. My nephew was introduced to the Skulduggery Pleasant books by family friend of about the same age (a girl - they seem to appeal to both genders) when he was probably about 10, and encouraged me to read them - we now get the new one each year and I read it first to check all the words are there, then send it to him and it gives us something to chat about. The characters have aged, so he hasn't outgrown it, although he reads less now than he did when he was younger (more sports and extra-curricular activities and homework!). Like me he also enjoys re-reading - something that mystifies his parents and my mum!

redofromstart

Full on nostalgia here, love Ivor the Engine and own them on DVD. 'Psh de cuff' is the noise all trains should make. When Mr Redo made me a scrap metal dragon it had to be called Idris obviously. 

Flumps, Bagpuss. Trumpton. Happy days. All the theme tunes are now earworming. 

I lived within walking distance of two big libraries and spent as much of my holidays as possible going to the library to exchange my books. Loved the Chalet School etc.