Imaginings
Nov 14th 2014, 3:22 pm
#16
Forum Regular
Joined: Feb 2007
Location: London
Posts: 276
Re: Imaginings
A bit off topic, but I just wanted to say that after 8 years of Christmas in Australia I am really looking forward to an English Christmas - I enjoyed the first couple of years of Christmas in the sun, but after a while missed all the traditions I had grown up with. So this year there will be no barbecue breakfast, beach cricket, dip in the sea followed later by dinner cooked in a/c comfort and skype calls; instead all the relatives will be at our house, we'll have a real tree and a late lunch - hopefully it won't rain (and we had plenty of that on Christmas Day in Queensland), but if it does, it'll be OK as that's normal for the middle of winter in Blighty.
Give me the English version anytime 
Nov 14th 2014, 3:30 pm
#17
Forum Regular
Joined: Feb 2007
Location: London
Posts: 276
Re: Imaginings
That takes me back - I read so many books about horses when I was a child, including the Silver Brumby books. I used to imagine that my spacehopper was my horse and set up courses of jumps in the back garden with my sister and several friends and we would then compete in our own version of "The Horse of the Year Show"!
Nov 16th 2014, 9:54 am
#18
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Mar 2008
Location: Sydney, NSW
Posts: 7,580
Re: Imaginings
That takes me back - I read so many books about horses when I was a child, including the Silver Brumby books. I used to imagine that my spacehopper was my horse and set up courses of jumps in the back garden with my sister and several friends and we would then compete in our own version of "The Horse of the Year Show"!
Got the tune running round my head now......
Nov 16th 2014, 2:56 pm
#19
BE Forum Addict
Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 4,996
Re: Imaginings
Growing up in the bush in Queensland (Darling Downs, on a sheep farm), we kids based some of our imagined adventures on "The Man from Snowy River", the narrative poem by Banjo Paterson. In October last year in a reminiscence of my childhood, I blogged:
Occasionally, after school, some of us would pretend we were The Man From Snowy River and charge headlong through copses with fallen trees underfoot. That was fun, until Bryan broke his arm trying to squeeze between two trees that were too close together. The Man From Snowy River was the hero of our favourite action poem, a role-model for Australia’s bush horsemen.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground, Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound At the bottom of that terrible descent.
It’s an exciting description, and impossible to recite properly without bending your body to the rhythm of the ride. My Dad knew all the words, but would never recite it in public. It was an unrealistic description, anyway. Galloping downhill over fallen trees would be suicide for both man and horse, on a loose rein. Ah well, poetic licence.
Wikipedia has an entry for the whole poem, for those interested enough.
Occasionally, after school, some of us would pretend we were The Man From Snowy River and charge headlong through copses with fallen trees underfoot. That was fun, until Bryan broke his arm trying to squeeze between two trees that were too close together. The Man From Snowy River was the hero of our favourite action poem, a role-model for Australia’s bush horsemen.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground, Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound At the bottom of that terrible descent.
It’s an exciting description, and impossible to recite properly without bending your body to the rhythm of the ride. My Dad knew all the words, but would never recite it in public. It was an unrealistic description, anyway. Galloping downhill over fallen trees would be suicide for both man and horse, on a loose rein. Ah well, poetic licence.
Wikipedia has an entry for the whole poem, for those interested enough.
