I’ve been reminiscing today about life as a kid. This week, our church has been discussing God’s creative nature and how, being made in His image, we people are all creative.  One of the questions we discussed this week was what creative things we used to do as kids.

The question brought memories flooding into my mind, and I’m feeling so blessed today to have such amazing siblings to have shared so many fun times with!

-          We improvised radio shows which we taped, with presenters, interviews, our own music, ads

-          We wrote comics and magazines

-          I vividly remember making blueprints for a blackberry jam factory to operate from my bedroom, designing a cart that would need to go up and down the stairs with blackberries

-          We used to make up all sorts of pretend games outside – we made the garden into a town and each of us had our own tree to sit in. I spent many happy hours up my tree with a penknife and an old block of plaster, carving little things.

-          We got hold of an old wooden go-cart one year, and spent the whole of a summer going up and down the road on it

-          I used to have a box of mechanical parts to make inventions out of. I wrote a little book of my inventions, which included a bendable fence so I could sneak across to our friends’ garden next‑door

-          We had a typewriter, which opened up a new world of fun - I used it to type stories, menus, order forms, magazines

-          We loved collecting conkers – and I guess we had conker fights, but all I remember is the collecting!

-          Once we decided to make an underground house in the garden. It was very important to us that it be a secret, so we would go out early in the morning in our pyjamas with a spade and take turns digging. I think we were also hoping to reach China. I’m sure we couldn’t have kept it secret more than a week, and once it was discovered we had to fill it all back in again

-          I made a little doll’s house out of old boxes and covered the insides with wallpaper samples

-          The game of Monopoly featured heavily in our summer playing. We would play over several days, steering a tortuous path through the unavoidable disputes and fatal interruptions by the cat, only to arrive at the end and find my brother had won yet again, to everyone’s consternation (well, probably mostly mine!)

-          Sunday was a day of rest, which generally meant going somewhere outdoors in the afternoon. When we got home we’d have tea instead of our normal supper, which involved sandwiches, a pot of tea under a rabbit cosy, and chocolate cupcakes at the end. One of the cupcakes would often have an extra silver foil case, which would become the treasure in a treasure hunt, or a paper aeroplane that we would all take turns flying down the stairs

-          We used to play complicated story games with duplo, which revolved around Superbaby and which we all found hilarious

-          Jumping off the top bunk wearing a plastic bag around our neck was good for when it was raining

-          Sometimes we turned the volume down on the TV and narrated it ourselves. I remember one James Bond movie Joel and I narrated, where he was desperately trying to get home to his baked beans. We were both in stitches.

Togetherness is a beautiful thing. Joel, Han and Rach: I couldn’t have asked for better friends and siblings. I miss being ten with you.