Childhood memories (3)

Students´childhood memories (course 17-18)

A SIMPLE LIFE
I can still feel the vivid memory of the three everlasting summer months we used to spend in Valsain, a little village near Navacerrada. My parents used to rent an old country house there and we lived together with the owners. How come that I feel those days were the happiest of my life….despite living without a bathroom or a TV, or the Internet,or toys? I only had some friends, a bike, the whole fresh green fields for us, the animals, the mountains, the icy Eresma river with its special smell and the pine wood factory´s siren that would ring at lunch time every day and above all….we were free and we didn´t know the meaning of boredom. We were alone and wild from dawn to dusk. We lived thousands of adventures and all in all we grew up making our own decisions, and sometimes tackling dangerous situations.
This kind of life left a deep mark in me. I learnt to respect all the beings and the nature I have around and I have done my best to follow this life lesson until today. From time to time I crave for returning to those days.
Macarena

SUMMER TIMES
I lovingly remember my two-month summer holiday when I was a child. The first month, in July, my brother and I used to spend our holidays in Torrelodones in my uncle´s house- a villa with a pool and gardens. The day-to-day was  extraordinary. We would get up at ten o´clock in the morning to have a special breakfast which consisted of a selection of buns and pastries and jams and orange juice, and then we did some summer activities. We used to do two pages of Santillana´s book- a special work notebook for children- and when we finished it we spent the rest of the morning in the swimming pool playing together and with my uncle´s dog.
After lunch we had to rest- my uncle Mari was really strict with this- but soon after we would go for a walk with our cousin, or ride the Vespa motorcycle with her or ride a bicycle around the
detached house. Some nights we used to go to the cinema or to have an ice cream with our two cousins.
On weekends, our parents came to see us in Torrelodones because during the week they had to work a lot. Then we spent August with our parents at the beach in Alicante or even traveling abroad visiting different European countries.
Those moments are totally unforgettable.
Irene R.

OUR FIRST FAMILY BICYCLE
I have always had a special interest in road vehicles, from small car toys to trucks and buses.
When I was five years old, I had a small tricycle, too small for me. I remember one day, when my father came home from his job, he told us about going to buy a bicycle. It was at the beginning of my siblings´ summer holiday.
We went to an electrical appliance shop called "The Modern Home" where they sold bicycles too. We decided to buy a teenager´s bicycle because my siblings are nine and seven years older than me. I was too young to use it, but I could use it in three or four years. Despite this, I was really interested in the bike.
The shopkeeper took an unmounted bicycle from a box, the same model we had chosen in the showroom.
He started to prepare the bike for us, but I was very excited and he could hardly work on it, because I kept moving around him. My parents asked me to sit still, but I couldn´t.
When the man finished his work he said to me:
´You can ride your bicycle now, it´s ready! ´
And I answered, talking it very seriously, like an adult:
´Only after we pay for it! ´
Pedro