Crafting – A response post

Wouldn’t you agree ‘imagination’ is the mother of all inventions? Me aged @10yrs beside a go-cart I’d constructed from old pieces of wood, stolen buggy (stroller) wheels and my parents old kitchen lino floor for a roof! I’d even painted it racing blue and added a bike wing mirror.

Oh and the hair is but a distant memory (sigh) 😀 , back in the 1970s I was always making things from old scraps of wood so was I taught to be creative or inherited the skills through my genes?…………… Happy days! 😀 And back in the days of my youth pram wheels were childhood currency, if you had them some kid would always buy or exchange for a swap……….. I’m wondering do children play like this in 2018 or am I looking at my past through rose coloured spectacles?

Anyways chatting about ‘meee’ isn’t necessarily the point to this post.

My mother is a perfectionist she can turn her hand to almost anything, as a small child I remember her sitting at the dining room table, cutting out material for dresses, shortening curtains by sewing machine and taking the hem up on my Jeans because she could never buy…………….. LOL long story!!! Most evenings leading up to Christmas she’d be baking mince pies, cooking a fruit cake, icing when cool with brilliant white sugar solution then leaving on the dining room bureau to dry. My mother used to make everything and anything before arthritis took hold of her hands (they’re not so bad which is a blessing but sewing is a hobby of the past), and only just recently she helped me assemble a bathroom cabinet holding it up while I drilled screwed and attached to the wall……….. yep a lovely family anecdote to put down in writing.

Ah where was I? Oh yes crafting a response post to a lady blogger I follow, about the age of nine and for some unknown long forgotten reason I had to make from scratch a small ‘sitting stool’ from oddments of timber. You know the scenario, this crafting project was a task to be completed earning me a badge from my Cub Scout leader, successful and mum would later sew onto my arm. The point to my tale is I guess mum could have left me to my own devices, and yes I could would have presented a half decent chair to my Cub Scout leader, earned the badge because well I was good with my hands and now I’m a time served engineer by trade.

Anyways rather than leaving me to work on my own, mum helped with the measuring cutting drilling screwing together before trusting me with a tin of brilliant white gloss paint!…………… And measuring each small piece of timber is the key to my tale, the dimensions had to be marked with a pencil then cut to a line, left to myself I’d have used rule of thumb and yes as I remember the ‘sitting stool’ EXACTLY resembled the picture on the plans……… even if I say it myself the stool looked pretty darn spectacular with its shiny paint drying under bright sunlight.

As an aside after the presentation ceremony, unbelievably one rather catty bitchy mouthed mother had the nerve to criticise mum saying,

“I don’t agree with parents doing the children’s work for them!” (Mum let it pass!)

Ffs I physically made it! Mum just instructed me how to use tools properly and to this day I still live and work by the mantra measure twice and cut once, and yes still to this day there are occasions when in a rush to get tasks done the initial first measurement turns out to be wrong…………. don’t you think that bitchy mother was out of order? I guess some parents compete against other parents through their offspring and it gets outer hand, anyways very childish behaviour but there you.

So what’s the point to my tale? We all have childhood memories experiences which only when many years later as adults ourselves do we realise shaped our lives, to this day I can close my eyes and picture us two knelt on the concrete front drive with tools and oddments of wood scattered around about us, I guess some would use the word bonding though I’m not so sure? To me our labours were more an exercise in how things should be done correctly, and yes on reflection the anecdote is a happy childhood memory which perhaps I’ll appreciate even more in years to come……… sadly.

I’m employed as an engineer so perhaps her early construction lessons rubbed off?

The amusing part to this tale is knowing my mother as a person I’d guess she was herself competed against other parents, however note she was very careful NOT to make the ‘sitting stool’ for me (btw I’ve asked mum and she cannot remember what happened to it), yes a competitive parent but cheating to win an award wasn’t and isn’t her style!

So my message to the blogger I’m responding to, don’t worry about the mess, the child is crafting and baking but life skills are being learnt, I’d guess treasured memories are being locked away for future reference and at least the child isn’t staring at a screen zombie like watching TV.

A. Shepherdson 2018