My Weird Stories 2 by Paul Audcent - HTML preview

TOBOGGANING MEMORIES.   (Yes all true).          Copyright Paul Audcent 2014

We children lived close to the top of a steep hill, during winter we used to get falls of snow that often lasted several days before turning into a grey slush. Well apart from throwing snowballs at one another and I being the second youngest with my sister  still in a pram, I used to get covered in icy snowballs. I soon learnt to duck and dive but being a slow dyslectic child it took me a year to learn the ducking business.

We eventually knocked up a small toboggan which we took down to the local park also on a hill. There were lots of kids and parents all sliding about, some on rubber tubes others on car tyres, and a few on proper toboggans. Also there was one group using a light weight wooden ladder. And it must have been greased as it flew down the hill. Our own conveyance had runners to narrow and short. Well the snow was powder fresh and it did not go far in fact it was a waste of time so we took it home feeling very dejected. Mother said we should wait for a frost to harden the surface and try again next day. But my brothers had been fascinated by the ladder with three people on it going so fast.

So next day my brothers decided a ladder toboggan might be the way so we hunted downstairs near the old kitchen that our father had turned into a work place, along by the passageway near the odds and sods room we called the Cave, in fact it was the place in the olden days they hung the meat. Eventually the boys picked one of the old ladders, heavy and solid even though it must have been centuries old! So we tried it outside and it did slide a bit but that was on the icy roadway. So we thought better of it and lifting it up on our shoulders we marched down the hill and then upwards to the park where many parents and their children were cavorting in the firmer snow.

Well we picked a really steep part and placing the ladder on the snow we all clambered on. Give it a shove Paul yelled my elder brothers, I was on the rear, so I pushed and pushed and we rolled forward an inch or two. A man came across and said 'that won't slide look its already on the grass below'. Yes it was, it had sunk right down and with the extra weight of three boys it had dug in as well. We never got to toboggan but we did get healthy exercise walking up hills and down dale, and I can vouch how heavy that ladder was, it was the one father used to lean against the tall pear tree to pick the fruit from, his Great Grandfather had planted all those years ago. And I bet it was even here when they originally bought the house and planted the trees.

Nowadays I reckon the lorry rubber tubes would be the very best to try. We did actually try a car one later with my children and except for getting a wet bottom due to  snow piling up in the tyre hole, it worked rather well. But my grandchildren had the best idea they used their flat surf skimming boards and that worked a real treat. Well it just goes to show that the older you get your youngsters soon leap over your back and become even clever.

      THE END