My New Flat
One of my most vivid childhood memories is when I was
four years old and my family moved to a bigger flat. We are a big family consisting of eight siblings
(seven girls and a boy) and my parents. We used to live in a tiny flat of 50
square meters. It was so small that when my brother put up his bed, the front
door was blocked. So nobody was able to go in or leave. He had to go to sleep
the last and woke up the first. We used to call him "the guardian".
We still laugh about this nickname nowadays.
In these circumstances, you can imagine the enthusiasm
that we felt when our parents told us one evening after we came back from
school: “We are going to move to a new enormous flat next to your grandparents’
house, where each of you will have their own room. Do you want to see it?”
We were amazed when we saw the long hallway with so many
rooms. The high walls had just been painted and the wooden floor had just been
polished. I was so excited and happy that I began to jump from paint pot to
paint pot thinking that they were all closed. But one of them didn’t have a
lid, so when I jumped on it the white paint splashed on the floor. My uniform was
full of paint and I left my footprints all over the hallway.
Then I passed quickly from delight to sorrow when I
saw my mother coming toward me and shouting. In spite of all this, it was one
of the happiest days of my life.
Beatriz
A "Pregnant" Pigeon
When I think back as far as
possible, I see myself being 5 years old and sitting in my classroom around a
round table with other children of the same age, and next to us another table
with children who were older than us.
I remember drawing a pigeon
in class to celebrate the World Peace Day .When I finished my drawing, one of
the oldest children came and told me: "Your pigeon is pregnant!" And
he started laughing. "Pregnant? What does pregnant mean?" Nobody
answered me.
I compared my drawing with
the others and I realized that my pigeon was fatter than the others. So, my
conclusion was that they used the word "pregnant" for animals and
"fat" for people and I decided to use this word too.
At that time, every now and
then, my mother used to walk with me on the outskirts and there used to be fat
animals around, and I would say:" Look, mommy, this cow is pregnant!"
and she laughed. I felt very important and I thought I was very intelligent
because I was using adults´ words.
Nowadays, when the World
Peace Day comes, it reminds me of how innocent I was and of how time goes by so
quickly.
Pauli
A Different Summer Vacation
In the summer of 1995 I was ten years old going
on eleven. I don’t remember exactly what day of August it was, but I clearly
remember it was a really hot day and you could feel the sun burning your head.
It was my best friend´s birthday at 05:00 p.m. that day so at 04:50 I took my
bike as usual because in those days of my childhood I would go cycling
everywhere. On the way to my friend´s house I crashed into another guy who was
riding a bike too.
After the accident I was taken by a neighbour
to the hospital where my father used to work. At the hospital the doctors said
I needed stitches on my lips and I also had a broken clavicle so the doctors
strapped my shoulder up. The bandage stuffed with cotton wrapped me like a
jacket. When I got back home my parents told me that in two days we would go on
our summer vacation to Benidorm as they had booked it with 3 months in advance.
So you can imagine the rest, a ten-year-old child in Benidorm in summer with a
bandage stuffed with cotton boiling on his shoulder without being able to go to
the beach or the swimming pool. The only good thing was that I had no school
and I was with my family who were taking care of me 24/7. Eventually my lips
and my clavicle were perfectly healed and I will always have an anecdote to
tell my children and grandchildren.
HaduA Little Fishermen´s Village
Some of my best memories are the long summer days in a
little village in the south of Spain, near the border with Portugal, where my
parents had a little house near the sea. That place was only a little
fishermen´s village, with fishing boats painted in bright colors on the sand. I
remember that those summers I liked getting up early in the morning and going to
the little harbour to watch how the fishermen were repairing their nets sitting
on the sand, while their wives were selling buckets of recently caught fish,
home by home.
I remember the beach days, sunbathing in the warm sand
and the smell of happiness in the summer with my whole family, over all my
siblings and cousins in the same house, enjoying every moment.
Years later I returned there with my children and I
tried to explain to them that this place, now full of enormous buildings and
hotels, where you can barely see the beach, used to be a very small village one
day. I tried to explain to them that, where now there are lots of semi-detached
houses, there used to be only little fishermen´s boats and a long lonely beach.
Of course, they couldn´t believe me.
Miguel Ángel
Talcum Powder
I
don’t remember how old I was. I may have been about three or four. And
sometimes I think that whatever happened I can only remember it because my
mother told me about it more than once. Anyway, let me tell you what happened
that day. Whenever my mother had to go out to buy something and there wasn’t
anyone at home to look after my two brothers and me, she would put us in a
small hall with all the doors closed. That way my mother thought that we could
be safe and could not get into any trouble. My two brothers are younger than me
and my mother trusted me to take care of them for a few minutes while she was
shopping. But that day I took a pot of talcum powder without my mother knowing
about it. Then, when we were alone, we started to run from side to side without
stopping and jumping and stepping on the powder pot. We laughed and the room
became foggy from the dust which could be seen from the stairs outside. When my
mother arrived she found us completely white and very, very happy. She didn´t
feel the same. In fact, she was very, very worried.
Mámel
My Bald Uncle
There is a childhood memory
that I can easily remember, even though it was forty years ago. I remember it
like it was yesterday. Every year, my father's family used to have a family
get-together to celebrate Christmas and, as my father didn't have car, every year one of my uncles had to come to my village to
pick us up. My uncle was very big and was as bald as an egg. I remember I was sitting behind my
uncle's seat. As soon as he started the car, everything started to spin,
I was getting dizzy! And although I started to scream that I wanted to throw up
nobody paid attention to me, so in the end I vomited on top of my uncle's bald
head. Even today, when I see my uncle I remember that day and my face gets red
with embarrassment.
However, in spite of that
embarrassing situation, I still have a vivid memory of the whole family
together in the dining room enjoying the Christmas dinner.
Toñi
The Time of My Life
I lovingly remember my
three-month summer holiday when I was a child.
I would spend my holidays in
a small village near Sierra de Gredos, where my mother had some relatives. I
spent my summer holidays in that village from the age of 6 to 14 . We used to
rent a house, every year the same one, and we would go there with my aunt and
my cousins. My father and my uncle stayed in Madrid and came to see us at weekends.
The day had a very tight
schedule. We used to get up early in the morning and then we went to play different
games with local people. After that, we went to swim in the river- the water
was very cold but it didn't matter to us.
After lunch the children had
to rest, but soon after we would go to the pasture to play, or to ride a bike,
or to swim in the river another time.
Some nights we used to go to
the outdoor cinema. It was very typical to go to the cinema with a towel or a
blanket due to the cold weather, and watch the film while eating sunflower
seeds -all the people in the cinema were eating them and the film
was impossible to be heard.
I am little bit old, and my
childhood happened fifty years ago, in the prehistory of Spain, I know.
Fernando
Holidays with My Family
In 1982 my parents, my
siblings and I moved to Madrid because of my parents´ work. The rest of the
family: my four grandparents, my uncles, aunts, cousins, etc stayed in our home
town. One of my very best memories are the road trips in order to visit them,
at Christmas and Easter, and in summer as well. Those road trips were very
special and we were very happy and excited. In the 80s the roads were very
different from now so the journey was long but never boring. We used to laugh,
play, chat, etc. The arrival was the greatest moment, then we spent the
holidays visiting all the family, having great meals, playing, laughing, etc.
These moments are totally unforgettable. Our childhood memories make us, fortunately
they are an inherent part of us.
Eduardo
First Memories
The dark nights and the
shadows projected on the seats of my parents´ car could be some of my first
memories. As a child I couldn´t understand why we had to get up so early and
why we were in a hurry. My parents began work at seven thirty in the
morning, so they had to leave me at the nursery school first. We got up very
early in the morning, and of course we went to bed before the birds went to
sleep. Nevertheless, it wasn´t a bad experience for me. On weekends we did the
same, so we could do lots of things, like trekking, skiing or visiting new
places with plenty of time.
Sometimes I ask myself why
it´s so difficult to recall your first memories when you are thinking about them,
and why it´s so easy when you smell, hear or see something that you immediately
and subconsciously associate with your childhood. Perhaps the fact that our
senses work better than our mind means that our childhood is not so far.
Héctor
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