The Sundays of my childhood, the ones before shops started opening, were about family. Drives out to the Cotswolds to clamber and collect crab apples, walks around the closed city centre and visits to my grandparents. These days were full of simplicity. They were inexpensive, and yet they are perhaps some of the most memorable days.
Many of my childhood memories include my sister - with her only being eleven months younger than I am, I don't remember life without her. And despite us almost being polar opposites of each other, I'm glad I had a friend to explore the world with.
Pocket Money
On Sundays, my sister and I would walk
around Coventry’s concrete city centre. Shop shutters down and locked for the day.
Her trainers would flash red at the heel
as she skipped in front while my eyes shifted
like a magpie, looking for the glint of something shiny.
With two Safeway carrier bags and a magnet
we collected aluminium cans, clattered
and clunked through the empty precinct.
In a supermarket car park on a Saturday
our efforts would be weighed and costed:
one type of metal for another.
My sister would spend hers: buy penny sweets counted into a white paper bag; a 10p Freddo
if she was feeling reckless.
While I would slip my coins into a ceramic pig,
saving bronze and copper-nickel, until loose change became a paperback book.
Thank you for reading, Lara Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
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