Spring and Dad telling me not to pick all the flowers from the same plant but to pick one or two flowers from each plant. I came home from these drives with little treasures for the nature table in school: a bird’s feather, a shell, a pine cone or maybe a nice twig with berries on it. On Sundays in the summer we went further afield for the day. We might go to Greystones, Kilcoole, Avoca or even as far as Arklow where there was an outdoor swimming pool with a seating area and café. You could sit watching the swimmers and have lemonade and a Club Milk after your own swim. Sometimes there was a funfair in Arklow with swinging boats, chairplanes, a helter skelter and other amusements. My family sang in the car to pass the time and make the journey go quicker. I remember we sang ‘Daisy, Daisy,’ ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,’ and ‘When Irish Eyes Are Shining,’ to name a few. Although when my brother Brian was learning to drive we didn’t sing as he had to concentrate on driving safely. When I was younger I sometimes lay down on my sister’s lap in the back of the car coming home and she made up fairy stories to tell me. I would be tired and falling asleep. As I got older, it wasn’t fairy stories I loved listening to but all the latest pop songs on Radio Luxembourg. I’d hear the top twenty hits on Sunday evening as we were driving home, my face glowing after having been out in the air all day. Sometimes my friend Frances came with us on the picnic. She
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