Who killed Cock Robin?

I’m in trouble again. I have not been keeping up my blogging rate and one of the few people who follow me has complained. Sad bugger, obviously has nothing better to do!

I’m at a loss as to what to write today. Summer has gone, winter is knocking at the door and the camping season is over. The tent will have to stay in the cupboard till the spring. All the shops appear to have the Christmas decorations up and Halloween hasn’t been yet! We now have to look forward to the neighbourhood children knocking the door and begging for money with menaces. Another American “tradition” that we have imported and twisted to suit the greedy bastards that we are bringing into the world. They don’t really want to see a carved pumpkin. They don’t want sweets. They want good, hard cash. If they don’t hear the jingle of pound coins or the rustle of a fiver they’ll probably carve your face into a Jack ‘o’lantern. Kids round our way are hard.

Mrs Giant68 has just come in complaining that some of the kids she works with in the school do not know what a sparrow is, or looks like. I find that quite sad. I expect that if there was a video game called “Kill Cock Robin” they would know. I can imagine it now:

“Oi! You feathered b*stards! Which one of you killed Cock Robin?”

“I” said the sparrow “With a f*^%in’ machete! Carved his face right off!”

My kids know what a sparrow looks like, we have a large number living in and around our garden. They know what cows are (mini Giant68 is scared of them!). They’ve seen pigs and sheep. Horses and donkeys. They have been round safari parks and seen more exotic creatures.

They also still like some of the things they learnt as young children. Winnie the Pooh, The Hungry Caterpillar and such things. They had nursery rhymes told to them and stories of Scraggy Rabbit courtesy of a family friend.

When I was little, ok I have never really been little, my grandmother would tell me stories that she had in her head. None of this written down rubbish. I have never been able to remember them, apart from the first few words, and google searches have failed. But, recently, my mum found a copy, that she had written down, of one of these stories. It begins: At number one in Rabbit Row, A crowd of bunnies live, you know. The oldest one was Bobtail bunny…

I have to try and learn this so that I can tell it to my granddaughter when she is a little older. All I need to find now is the one about the tin soldier. I wonder if anyone reading this knows it. Kate?

The important thing is that I think that the children we have should retain their childhood for as long as they can, and we should help them. Even when they are older they should remember the childish things. Myself and Mini giant68 can behave quite childishly at times and it does relieve some of the stress of being an adult.