A Handful of Memories.

Yesterday I did go to the cinema, but instead of Harry Potter, I saw the Bourne Ultimatum. I did enjoy it, it was very fast and exciting, and I only had to hide my face and peep from behind my fingers a couple of times. After a while such extravagant destruction of both motor cars and people becomes almost acceptable. Almost. I can't say that I followed the high espionage story in every detail, but certainly enough. Harry Potter is now only on at our local cinema at 10.45 in the morning - for the children on holiday I suppose, but somehow I can't imagine going to the movies so early in the day.

Actually, that's reminded me of when Sister and I used to go to Saturday Morning Pictures in Hornchurch. It cost sixpence (old money), or 9d if you wanted to sit up in the balcony (we never did). We used to take our 2 ounces of sweets, or if we were lucky and had saved a bit of pocket money, we bought a penny ginger cake at the baker's next door. There was a full programme, including a cartoon and a proper feature (often a cowboy film, which Sister loved). And we walked there and back on our own, which was at least a half hour each way. Once I swallowed a big blue bead during an exciting part of the film (why I was sucking it I can't recall), and we called at someone's house to ask for help. The woman, with great presence of mind, gave me a tablespoonful of Castor Oil to swallow. Ugh! When we raced home and told my Mum, she thought it was very funny. Needless to say, I never swallowed a foreign object again.

In those days, we walked everywhere. The Library was a favourite place to go in the holidays, and on one occasion we took our dog, Paddy, with us. It was a long walk, and the Library was in the middle of a large park, so Paddy had a good run, and then we tied him up outside while we sat on the cool floor in the children's section and read a few books (it was always tricky to decide which ones to actually borrow). After an hour or so we came out with our books, chattering away, and set off on the long walk home. We were half way before we realized that we had left the dog tied up outside the Library. I remember racing back, heart in mouth, to see him sitting patiently, whimpering a bit and squirming on his little spaniel's tail, so happy to see us running towards him. Poor Paddy. When we arrived home and confessed, Mum didn't think that was quite so funny!