FILL IT UP DAD! FILL IT TO THE TOP!

We're having a heatwave here in West Yorkshire. It's scorchin'. All this sunshine reminds me of summers as a kid back in the Sixties. They all seemed to have been hot  back then [or is that just my memory?]

 

 

The number one way for my Mum and Dad to keep us kids cool was a paddling pool. After living in the shed in the company of spiders for six months the pool was brought out and inflated on the garden. Inflation involved a combination of my parents blowing till they went blue in the face and the much slower method of a cardboard pump shaped like two loo roll tubes, one inside the other and a plastic nozzle. Quaint but futile.

 

 

Once inflated and filled with the hose pipe the pool beckoned to us like a silvery oasis and half a dozen betrunked kids leaped in! Now bearing in mind these pools were only really made for two small children at most, you can imagine how quickly five small lads, all kicking and jumping, emptied the precious coolant! Yep, out with that hose pipe Dad!

 

 

Better still, why not just leave it on! Yes, the best thing about childhood summers wasn't the paddling pool. It wasn't even the chest freezer stuffed wide ice pops. It was a simple plastic doughnut ring full of holes, which attached to the end of the hose. The ring was placed on the grass in the middle of the garden and once turned on, the water came out in a fantastically tall and continuous circular fountain. My God it was just brilliant!

 

 

We ran through that fountain like mad men and slid around on the soaking lawn as if we'd gone bananas. The device wasn't actually for this particular use. It was sold as a lawn sprinkler! Its a classic example of how its misuse was infinitely more interesting than its planned one!

 

 

Now where's my lawn sprinkler! What are your summer memories?