What did you write about when you were little?

It seems in  my case, not very much.

Arriving at my parent’s house a few days ago and mum pulls out a heap of scrapbooks of her mother’s. They contained the letters we wrote to her when we were kids.

I imagine my grandmother snored her way through all my letters. Countless,  neatly typed (complete with whiteout) letters from me consisting of, “Dear Grandma, I hope you are not sick, we are not sick, have you had any rain? We have had 3mm of rain .. blah blah blah boring blah.

Meanwhile my little sister Lesley was writing enchanting stories about fish who could fly to the sun and magical underwater cities made of gold, where all the teachers were star fish. Lesley wrote about her favourite pigeon falling out of the banana tree, the roast duck tasting awful because mum burnt it and getting bitten by a snake.

While my young cousins were sending incredible pencil sketches of horses, dolphins and Thylacines I was still ratting on about the damned weather.

I do think my young brother David however, wins the award for his apology letter re: the accidental killing all of Uncle Lincoln’s fish.

Dear Grandmar Ward

I’m sorry for killing the fish. Can I come back again? If you don’t want me come back so write to me. I got peachface parrot on Monday. Tell Lincoln [uncle] I’m sorry killing his fish. from David.

What did you write about when you were little? Were you worried about making a mistake like I was? I hope it was more than the weather.