Flashback Friday - Happy Times

Have been reminded today (Sunday 4th July) of two times I have been very happy in my life.  Maybe one time of contentment and one of happiness (I refer you to Frenchman's Creek for my definitions of these ;-) ) and I thought it might be nice to record here.

The first that was jogged in my memory was a weekend in May (probably a bank holiday one) spent in Alderley with all my cousins.  That's why it was so special as the two sides of the family didn't often cross.  And I got to spend some fairly individual time with all seven of them.  I have got a feeling I might have written about it somewhere.  Thinking now, it could have been in 2000 in which case it would have been in my first year of the millennium diary.

I was reminded of it when we entered the Cowley Road Festival in the park and saw a giant bouncy slide.  It looked good fun.  I have been lucky enough to go on one once before in my life on this special weekend.  We went to Tatarn (? oops, just managed to find out its Tatton of course) Park for some sort of pet show/fair.  I remember seeing some dogs doing those obstacle course things.  Maybe it was actually just a dog show.  There were also stalls and marquees types things, rather like at the 3 Counties.  Then in one corner there was some childrens entertainment including the big bouncy castle slide.  I remember feeling dead important climbing up with my littlest cousin and going down with her on my lap.  I always loved occasions when I got to be in charge of the little ones - that's rather why I'm a teacher!  Also over the course of the weekend, some of us went to the park in Alderley Edge and played a bit of cricket - I was with one of my boy cousins on either side of the family, so there was some quality time in there.  I also remember it was the Eurovision Song Contest weekend, and I got to watch some, enough to be fairly satisfied, by myself in Grandpas study I think.  There might also have been a trip to West Park, but that might have been the one other time in life that all the cousins got together.  I will have to see if i can sometime find the original recording of the weekend.

The second memory was jogged by hearing Orinoco Flow during Shrek 4 at the cinema.

I was immediately back in ryhtmic gym lessons in lower 5 - that's year 9 at secondary school.  It was a song that my Dad had played at home before and I had liked and think he had recorded onto a tape for me.  It was the only time we got to do Rhythmic Gym at school, it was on a thursday after break.  We had a few lessons learning how to use the ribbons (and maybe balls and hoops as well).  And then we started practising the whole class routine to Orinoco Flow.  I was excited that I knew the song from before.  And it was just so much fun and I looked forward to it every week.  I remember that it started with the class in 6 lines and I was at the front of one and my friend was at the front of the line next to me and we were kneeling down and did mexican wave things along the lines whipping our ribbons over our heads.  The music and the whole class team excitement was just great.

And that was part of the reason Thursdays became so great.  They were my favourite days of the week then and would just make me smile.  Can't remember what was first on a Thursday or straight after break, but then it was the gym lesson, then single maths in the funny classroom on the physics corridor with our funny american teacher.  Not anything special but not terrible either.  Then it was single french (which was one of my least favourite subject lessons, but being only a single and being on the wondrous Thursday became bearable).  Then the afternoon was single Latin which for some reason was always fun.  My thoughts of it were being sunny.  We sat on tables of four, my friendship four.  On the table near the door.  I think we always had a vocab test.  I remember Miss Williams leaning against the lockers near our table.  At the end of the test, she always said 'Shuffle your books around' to mark each others, but led by one of my friends in particular, we would just turn our books round in the air and Miss Williams would find it funny every week and laugh!  Which of course we then found funny.  After Latin, it was off to the music school for our weekly double music lesson, which were always chilled and generally fun.

It was lovely to be taken straight back to those Thursdays and feel the happiness I had then over such simple things.  I am pretty sure I knew at the time that it was a special enjoyment that I would treasure.  I am having such a good time at the end of term now, that maybe in years to come I will be writing about these days on a flashback friday.

Other blogs I have read have had a Flashback Friday feature from time to time.  I started writing this on Sunday but hadn't finished it by Friday - oops!

hmm, why does the video fit on this screen but the danny baker ones are too big...