As an adult, it is hard to truly enjoy outings and activities at the time, because one is always thinking about what to do next and whether it is too expensive and the temperature and your hunger and whether you ought to be enjoying yourself more and whether something better could be happening.
Instead, we rely on enjoying things in retrospect, perhaps the next night before we drop off to sleep, when the day in question is compressed to a nostalgic highlights reel.
This is what Samuel Johnson was getting at and it occurred to me as I was bouncing up and down on a trampoline at Exmoor Zoo, watching the pure, uncomplicated glee on my daughter’s face as Mrs B pushed her on a swing.
Two more things occured to me on the trampoline: one was that there is a girl in New York city who calls herself the human trampoline, and sometimes when I'm falling flying or tumbling in turmoil I say Whoa so this is what she means. The other was THAT I can see WHY people BUY these things and THEN use them ONCE and then NEVer again again againagain…
You should see my neighbour's two grandchildren. They are about 4, they trampoline together and do so whilst both riding space hoppers.
ReplyDeleteAnd in unrelated news: I live in the region of the country with more trampoline-related injuries than anywhere else.
The spread of Argos trampolines throughout the land became alarming, I was convinced that the things were breeding. A shrink, Lucy Beresford appearing on It's only a theory proffered the suggestion that everything about modern life demands that we be permanently happy, never sad. She is of course correct and we are the worse for it, for as we all know that is the unattainable, will someone please tell them
ReplyDeletewhat is it about the british and their obsession with trampolines?? why do the children of other countries not need them, yet a cursory glance on google earth confirms that our island is almost literally carpeted in them??
ReplyDeleteThey are amazingly ubiquitous aren't they? I would put it down to a mixture of affordability, a decline in willingness to let kids run off and play in the street, and aggressive marketing by B&Q (have you noticed they're always on special offer there?)
ReplyDeleteSpecial offer, you say? Must get down there.
ReplyDeleteThere was an amusing sketch on Armstrong and Miller (better than Mitchell and Webb, IMO) a little while ago about 'half-price pots' - a skit on these things that are permanently on 'special offer'.
ReplyDeleteSatsumas and supermarket wine are also good examples.
A young relative currently has his leg in a plaster cast from a trampoline accident.. I remember bruising myself badly as a child too. Falling down between the springs on the side - nothing better than a bit of dangerous fun
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