Do you remember? Can you recall all those
trips to ballet classes, violin lessons, tap dancing and aerobics for kids? "Just try it, darling
and see how you like it". We watched, waited, transported and paid the
bill as they tried it out. Eventually all the experiments ceased in favour of
the remaining few hobbies that had really passed the test and subsequently became
a part of their ongoing lives. As a child I craved ballet lessons. I still
don't know where the craving came from but it was there. Maybe I wanted to
twirl and pirouette; maybe I just wanted a pair of pink ballet shoes, a frothy
net tutu and a fluffy bolero. I don't know. I nagged, pestered, cajoled and
persuaded until my mother gave in. Thereafter the craving grew, rather than
diminished, until the weekly ballet lesson turned into ballet twice a week,
stage dancing once, tap dance another day and finally, 'advanced ballet' too.
Our trips (on the bus) to North Chingford where I attended Eileen Langman's
School of Dancing became a regular part of the after-school routine. My mother
sat with the other mothers in the draughty entrance hall of the big house where
we practised, night after night, knitting endless jumpers and fluffy pink
boleros. Her long-suffering deserved recognition with a medal or probably a knighthood.
My daughter dutifully tried
it out too, just to humour her mother ("Just try it, darling.."). The
experiment was an unmitigated disaster. She was not a natural dancer. To give
her her due, she stuck it out for a while, whilst her proud mother tried to
relive her own childhood pleasures. She even participated in the annual dance
show - with her very own white, fluffy tutu, pink tights and pink ballet shoes
- and went stiffly through the routine - practised to perfection - to please
her mother and satisfy her own high standards. But to no avail. The magic just
did not work for her like it had for her mother.
No, riding was the thing.
Riding was the dream, the aspiration and the goal. So, regretfully, I adjusted
my own dreams, checked them out against reality and signed her up for a course
of riding lessons at the local, messy, smelly stables. For what seemed like
years we dutifully staggered out of bed early on Saturday mornings to clean the
ice from the car windscreen and take her to the icy stables for her longed for
day of mucking out, grooming, feeding and watering, attacking the ever-growing
muck-heap in the yard with great enthusiasm, and the reward - a free riding
lesson! We bundled her up in mountains of jumpers, gloves and a black riding hat
and watched proudly whilst she walked, trotted and cantered (eventually) round
the huge barn and balanced precariously on the top of enormous, bad-tempered
nags whilst they leapt - at the very last minute, it seemed - over bars that
seemed to have been raised to ridiculous heights. Oh for a pair of pink ballet
shoes and a few harmless pirouettes! But our daughters have ideas of their own.
However, the years have
passed and my turn has come round again, it seems! Our daughter is grown up and
about to sample the delights of taking her own son to football practice on cold
winter's days in a few short years. We ourselves have finished the endless
journeys to such a variety of activities and settled down to retirement. Ah,
retirement! Time again to sample the delights of the world of hobbies. Recently
moved to a new location and at the same time released from the obligations and
deadlines of the working life, we are ourselves ready for a bit of
experimentation. So it's happening all over again - the experiments, the
dabbling in this and that, the trying out new things that we never dreamed of
doing. He can dabble in oils and gouache to his heart's content. I can join
writing groups, write blogs and experiment with new genres. We can stumble down muddy footpaths with rucksacks and picnic lunches. I can join choirs
and warble happily with my reedy voice and poor sight-reading and no-one minds. We can sample
amateur dramatics and audition for our local Christmas pantomime or daub paint
on stage scenery, sell raffle tickets or greet the audience at the theatre
door. We can even sign up for a course to learn to be volunteer train drivers
at our local steam railway station if the fancy takes us.
The world is our
oyster! We are like pigs in clover! We can even indulge ourselves in hours of
internet research concerning the fascinating origins of such colourful
expressions - oyster? clover? But a pink tutu? Maybe not. Perhaps those days
are over.
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