Be careful what you wish for!

When I was a child.......we were poor.
There were things that I wished for, but knew that I couldn't have because we couldn't afford them.

I wanted to go up in a plane....the one that all the school children went on, on ascension day.
It was only a bog standard Turbo Prop plane, but it flew over the town, and all the children whose parents could afford it, could look down on the local geography.
I wasn't particularly interested in geography, I just wanted to go up into the clouds......it never happened. (Well, not until much later)
On ascension day I would watch the planes flying overhead and imagine what those lucky children could see.....and I would envy them.

I wanted to go on holiday with the school.......they went to Blankenburg and Calais......and when they came back they told such wonderful tales of the things they had seen and done.......and I had only been to Wales.......in a TENT(strictly for the arabs).
I DID once manage to get a day trip with the school to Chester(courtesy of some cash from my Gran)...we went on the River Dee.......it was a lovely sunny day and I was really enjoying it when one of the boys ripped my regulation school beret off my head and used it as you would a Frisbee.......it went skimming over the water of the river and landed with a plop....too far away for me to reach it,
Boy was I in trouble when I got home?
It cost seven and six for a new beret(we had to have one) and half a crown for the badge........so the trip cost ma an extra ten bob that she could ill afford.....as you can guess, I didn't get to go on any more school trips.

Another thing that I longed for was a doll.
I used to walk past Hopwoods shop window on my way to school each day.
There was a doll in the window...it was the ugliest doll you have ever seen.....but I wanted it.
It was fifteen and eleven pence so there were two hopes.....Bob, and No.
The doll was bald, it had poppy eyes(like someone with a really bad case of thyrotoxic goitre) and was naked...well apart from a flimsy scrap of cloth that was supposed to be a nappy.
I never really played with dolls much(there were always real babies at our house) and I can't think for the life of me why I wanted it so badly.
I think that I might have asked Santa for it.....but I was disappointed, because on Christmas morning there was no bald, poppy eyed dolly in my stocking.
There were nuts, crayons, a colouring book, a satsuma wrapped in purple foil and a red apple and some other things, but nothing as expensive as a dolly.

Come the January sales, the doll was still in the window....well, that might have been on account that parents really didn't want to scare their daughters....and it was reduced to nine and sixpence.
I asked again...but the answer was still the same......then it was reduced still further, to eight and eleven pence...at this my parents relented and bought me the doll.
Clothes were knitted for it.......I remember the doll being dressed in a lurid green coat and leggings with a bonnet to match.......the wool was all the rage at the time, the best that Woolworths could sell..... it was a sort of acid green with a sliver thread in it.....and it came in pink, blue and red as well as the lurid green.
I was happy that I had got the doll - even thought it was ugly. It had soft skin...not hard plastic or pot, like many of the dolls that were on sale at that time.
It sat on my bed for many years.......I think in the end it was given away to the Jumble sale(at an age when I was deemed to old for dolls)....and I was quite sorry when it was given away.

Another of my mad desires was for a pair of roller skates...these never did materialise.
I was fifty by the time I realised my ambition to have roller boots........despite what anyone might think, you are never really too old to indulge in your childish desires.
It would be really sad to be going to your grave, never having experienced the thrill of falling with a bump onto a very well padded backside, never to have felt the wind whistling through your legs.....and getting your face scratched with the privet bushes.

When I was a teenager I wanted Boobs.
Everyone else seemed to have boobs.
It was a rank embarassment to be getting changed for PT, and still be wearing a vest and liberty bodice when all your class mates were wearing bras.
I was fairly flat chested......and used to look enviously at the girls who had.....erm, developed a chest.
They always seemed to have boyfriends chasing them for their favours.
I was sixteen and could have got away with using corn plasters instead of a bra!
I always wanted to wear glasses too.
I thought that they made you look interesting and intelligent....studious even.

Now I have to wear glasses.
In fact I can't find my glasses without my glasses, if you know what I mean.
I have learned that glasses are a great imbuggerance......they fog up when you come in out of the cold, you need windscreen wipers when it is wet.......and I have also found that it doesn't matter how I adjust my glasses, there are somethings that the focal length will never adequately cope with.
And as far as boobs go....well, now I have got more than enough, certainly more that I ever hoped to have and no-one bothers to look anymore!

Ah, such is life!!!!