Today I have a special guest with me, Martin King.
He will be guest blogging for all of us to enjoy. His contact information will be at the end of the post.
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The great outdoors, the child’s playground. Where I grew up, we lived in a house on the very edge of Mother Nature. Country lanes, farms, fields and rambling hills ran for miles. Life was one great big adventure. And as such, the flora and fauna provided much to entertain us.
Do you remember sticky stuff as we used to call it, or perhaps sticky buds? It was that green stringy, plant stuff that stuck to your clothes. You would sneak up behind your mates and chuck it the back of their jumper. But then this is the best bit, when they realised it was there and pulled it off, it left behind millions of tiny green balls that took forever to pick off.
And there were rosehips, or more commonly known among our youthful ranks as ‘itching powder.’ Yes those harmless looking red capsules contained those little furry seeds that you could chuck down someone’s back. Then you would watch happily from a safe distance as they writhed around in the middle of the road.
What about cuckoo spit? That white spit stuff you would find on long grass. Inside were those little tiny hopping bugs. If you tried to touch them, they would spring away. Talking of grass, do you remember walking along a country lane and plucking the small grains off in your hand and through it up into the air? Or using a blade of grass to make the loudest noise?
Near our house were these plants that produced white berries. I don’t know what they were called, but we used to squeeze then and they would make a pooping sound. There are so many others too, like hunting conkers and making daisy chains, blowing dandelion clocks and throwing sycamore helicopters.
If you put a buttercup under somebody’s chin and it turned yellow, it meant they loved butter. Making perfume from mashed up rose petals, I guess I could go on and on. No doubt I have missed so many. The joys of nature provided many magical moments!
These blogs are all about fun and sharing. Thank you for reading a ‘#100blogfest’ blog. Please follow this link to find the next blog in the series: http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076
Sharon C. Williams-Author 
I’m itching just thinking about the plants you mentioned! How terrible to put them down someone’s shirt. But I guess that’s just boys being boys? 😉
I hope you’re enjoying #100blogfest, Sharon. I sure am!
I should take a picture of my plants- I am proud of them. What am I putting down someone’s shirt, you have to ‘splain Lucy 🙂
I am enjoying the #100blogfest, meeting fellow writers is awesome. When is your day?
Oh my bad I just got it, that is Martin’s post on my blog- he is guest blogging today so that is him doing all those boy will be boys stuff LOL
Great post – I grew up far away from nature, lots of concrete, so never did any of that stuff, yet still found things to pop, and pranks to play – imagination is natures garden I guess.
Where did you grow up Martin?? Fun post~
I grew up in a small town called Barnoldswick. For more on this, check out Suzy’s blog tomorrow!
Cool-looking forward to that one Martin
Can you post a link? I would love to read it.
Yes what Susie said
You can check out all my blogs so far here: http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076 and I will post that one for you tomorrow. By the way, they are all true.
Great reminders, Martin. The stringy plant with the sticky balls is called ‘Cleavers’, probably because they cleave. And the cuckoo spit is the hatching ground of ‘Frog-hoppers’. Rose hips, with their hairy little seeds; why did the girl, whose back I put them down, never accept my offer of a date?
Thanks for sharing this with us.
I had to remember where Martin was from when I read this 🙂
England rocks…
Are you writing mostly about your time in England Martin?
Hope you enjoyed!
My #100blogfest, which you can check out here: http://martinkingauthor.com/blog/7094550076 is all about my childhood. If you read them through, you will see why they are all about England, because explains. Hope you are enjoying this fun idea and I hope as you and your readers follow them around, it reawakens flickerings of thoughts where you can remember; ‘I did that!’