When I were a lad....
At the age of 3, I was taken on holiday for the first time to some coastal place in France. I have very little memory of this trip with the exception of being sick on the bus for the whole nine hour trip there (which I am told severely pissed off a coach-full of pensioners) and the following tale...

We were relaxing on the beach a couple of days into the holiday, my mum having a nap and my day reading a book whilst my brother and I play with a crappy plastic football.... Well I say that, my brother was doing that typical elder sibling thing whereby he played with the ball and told me I wasn't allowed to. "What an utter cunt" thinks I. Actually, that is probably a lie as I was only 3 and had yet to add the word 'cunt' to my vocabulary... "What a jobbyhead" thinks I.

Turning to look out the sea, I see about fifty balls, just floating there, not a soul playing with them. They are beckoning me like sirens to come and enjoy their ball-like greatness! It is probably the greatest sight I have ever seen in my entire (rather short) life! So I start to run. Faster than I've ever run before, as there are quite a lot of French children on the beach and there is no chance they're getting to play with my balls (snigger). I somehow manage to speed up my wee legs even more as I enter the home straight, the sea is now but meters away...

Now I probably should mention that at such a young age, I couldn’t swim. I also had no armbands on and was fully clothed as my parents didn't want me to burn. About two meters from the sea, I was rugby tackled by my dad. I have never seen my dad run. He has a gammy leg which prevented him from being the sporty type for most of his life. As I was so focused on the footballs in the sea, I never noticed him running on this occasion, which is a shame really as it was the first time he had ran in 20 years and also the last time he ever ran.

As I was led back up to the sun lounger, which seemed to be miles away, I was getting a bollocking from my out-of-breath dad. I tried to protest my innocence; I had only wanted to play with the glorious sea balls.

It turns out we were on a beach next to a harbour and I had just attempted to sprint off the end of a jetty into a rather busy dock, to claim a buoy to play with.

I've never been allowed to forget this.
( greg_evigan is possibly deceased on, Fri 20 Aug 2010, 11:36, 2 replies)

You were running
because you wanted to play with the balls of some foreign buoys?
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Fri 20 Aug 2010, 16:45, closed)

Yes...
because my brother wouldn't let me play with his balls.
( greg_evigan is possibly deceased on, Mon 23 Aug 2010, 10:55, closed)