Our Childhood spare time
I was recollecting all the things we did during our spare time. We had lot of spare time back then.
1) Our earliest time-pass was stamp collection. Our aunt gifted us a stamp album when I was 7. She had put 4 stamps too in that album. Collection which started nearly two decades ago is still ON. Our craze was so much that every few days we used to change the order of stamps. Whoever returned from any foreign country was asked, "do you have any foreign stamps?" In our collection, we have nearly 5000 stamps from all around the world. Favorite stamps include:
1) Round stamp of Kiwi bird from New Zealand
2) Few triangular stamps
3) Collectibles set bought between 1997-2002
2) Music class was always running without much stoppage. It took little bit of our spare time.
3) Skating - I was very much interested in skating. Dad got us wheeler skates when I was 9. My brother and I played a lot, learning ourselves the art of skating. We used to skate by sitting and we pushed ourselves by hand. For teaching our cousins, we implemented the method of ice-skating which uses hand sticks as support.
4) In Shimoga, we had lots of plants in our house. Leaf collection was taken up for few days. They were neatly dried and collected.
5) Animal pictures collection - We had subscribed for few magazines. These had information about animals/birds. Mom used to get stickers from medical reps. My brother and I had a note-book to paste all these and write about that bird/animal.
6) Swimming - Every day from 7 to 8 was our swimming session. Be it Winter, Summer or Monsoon, dad used to wake us up and take us there in scooter. It used to be very chilly in Winter to ride back home after swimming. We participated in District level and I was given the championship award. After we moved to Bangalore, swimming sessions ended because of many reasons.
7) Cycling - Not many have played 'run-n-catch' in cycle! We did it. How did it work? 1 on cycle will chase 3-4 others on cycle and if he touches others' cycle, the other person is OUT. Recollecting this, it was too dangerous to play this game. Don't know how we played this!
8) Painting/sketching - Do guys paint/sketch? Very few I think. Very often, we used to sit for hours painting and sketching during Summer vacation. Our house was always decorated with our drawings.
9) When we were very young, kids in the neighborhood collected match-box covers. We too were interested in collecting it initially. Somehow, it got lost as we moved out of Chikmaglur.
10) Gardening - After coming to our own house in Bangalore, we spent lot of time in gardening. Maintaining the pots, creating new samplings, watering them daily - the whole family enjoyed doing this. My brother used to go to Lal Baag and bring new plants very often.
11) Physical fitness - We were encouraged a lot on this. If not often, atleast during holidays, we used to go for morning jogs. Both my brother and I were very athletic and participated in school events regularly. Mom put us to Yoga-Shibira once to make us learn Yoga!
12) Cleaning - What???? Cleaning as spare time event??? Yes. My brother and I have jointly done lots of cleaning of the house and decorating the living room. Mom and dad used to be out of home from 8 am to 5pm. The whole house was our kingdom. We re-arranged the show-case, cleaned the place to look attractive.
Anything else, brother???
1) Our earliest time-pass was stamp collection. Our aunt gifted us a stamp album when I was 7. She had put 4 stamps too in that album. Collection which started nearly two decades ago is still ON. Our craze was so much that every few days we used to change the order of stamps. Whoever returned from any foreign country was asked, "do you have any foreign stamps?" In our collection, we have nearly 5000 stamps from all around the world. Favorite stamps include:
1) Round stamp of Kiwi bird from New Zealand
2) Few triangular stamps
3) Collectibles set bought between 1997-2002
2) Music class was always running without much stoppage. It took little bit of our spare time.
3) Skating - I was very much interested in skating. Dad got us wheeler skates when I was 9. My brother and I played a lot, learning ourselves the art of skating. We used to skate by sitting and we pushed ourselves by hand. For teaching our cousins, we implemented the method of ice-skating which uses hand sticks as support.
4) In Shimoga, we had lots of plants in our house. Leaf collection was taken up for few days. They were neatly dried and collected.
5) Animal pictures collection - We had subscribed for few magazines. These had information about animals/birds. Mom used to get stickers from medical reps. My brother and I had a note-book to paste all these and write about that bird/animal.
6) Swimming - Every day from 7 to 8 was our swimming session. Be it Winter, Summer or Monsoon, dad used to wake us up and take us there in scooter. It used to be very chilly in Winter to ride back home after swimming. We participated in District level and I was given the championship award. After we moved to Bangalore, swimming sessions ended because of many reasons.
7) Cycling - Not many have played 'run-n-catch' in cycle! We did it. How did it work? 1 on cycle will chase 3-4 others on cycle and if he touches others' cycle, the other person is OUT. Recollecting this, it was too dangerous to play this game. Don't know how we played this!
8) Painting/sketching - Do guys paint/sketch? Very few I think. Very often, we used to sit for hours painting and sketching during Summer vacation. Our house was always decorated with our drawings.
9) When we were very young, kids in the neighborhood collected match-box covers. We too were interested in collecting it initially. Somehow, it got lost as we moved out of Chikmaglur.
10) Gardening - After coming to our own house in Bangalore, we spent lot of time in gardening. Maintaining the pots, creating new samplings, watering them daily - the whole family enjoyed doing this. My brother used to go to Lal Baag and bring new plants very often.
11) Physical fitness - We were encouraged a lot on this. If not often, atleast during holidays, we used to go for morning jogs. Both my brother and I were very athletic and participated in school events regularly. Mom put us to Yoga-Shibira once to make us learn Yoga!
12) Cleaning - What???? Cleaning as spare time event??? Yes. My brother and I have jointly done lots of cleaning of the house and decorating the living room. Mom and dad used to be out of home from 8 am to 5pm. The whole house was our kingdom. We re-arranged the show-case, cleaned the place to look attractive.
Anything else, brother???
Comments
Our bicycle antics were really scary, but it was fun.
We did not use sticks for skates. We used cricket stumps instead. That was dangerous too. I am sure we won't let our kids do what we did :-).
What about inventing our own games? We modified cricket rules to suit our surroundings. What about hand tennis, hand squash, indoor cricket, hockey using stumps?
You missed coin collection. We also collected stones of different colors and shapes.