Tonight's photo: "Boats" which seems a good a title as any.I'm not quite sure why I like this photo but for some reason it captures it my imagination.
Perhaps it's because the blue boat reminds me of a soap dish I used to play with in the bath when I was a nipper - in the days when the only mention of showers came from the lips of mothers - "I didn't come down in the last shower you know."
That little soap dish sailed to many previously unchartered lands, fought many a battle with marauding pirates and weathered torrential rain as it passed through that deadly passage just under the cold water tap.
It was also a troopship and often carried a multi-national force comprising a British soldier, an American soldier, a German soldier, a Mexican bandit, (with a beautiful bullet belt) a "Red Indian" and for some reason a little figure dressed in red playing a set of cymbals.
Of course, much of it was totally politically incorrect and playing with toy soldiers probably caused me to have psychopathic tendencies which although yet to appear, the experts and gurus would tell you are probably lying there in wait.
I had a toy gun too - with caps. But not content with a silver handgun, I also had a "Cheyenne" rifle! Add to that pea-shooters, spud guns and catapults and I was probably a prime candidate for a team of school counsellors with more letters after their name than a United Nations aid program.
Except of course we didn't have school counsellors in those days. Nor did we have neurotic mothers wrapping their little darlings in cotton wool, monitoring and controlling their every move and interaction. If there was a problem at school or with other children - one way or another it got sorted.
Just down the road from me there is a house I call, "The Happy House". Everything in the garden is set up for children. A small trampoline, a tree house, a little covered two seater swing - just simple things that emit a feeling of happy, laughing children.
But what I like more than any of those things, is that every time I pass by after school has finished - school bags are left outside the door. School is kept where it belongs.
I have a feeling those kids will grow up to be happier and better parents than many of the screwed up educated experts who have made life so damn hard for everyone else.
That's why I like this photograph.
It reminds me of the old soap dish.
A time when kids were allowed to be kids and to grow up - instead of being an academic project with the aim of producing a successful outcome based on a training needs analysis and results based assessment.
Wherever you may be - be safe
