My mother had a very different experience of raising me than I have of bringing up my son. In his entire life he's never been truly naughty and the worst thing he ever did was eating a couple of pieces of chocolate hiding in the yard when he was about three. I was significantly more of a challenge. Indeed, the stories of the adventurous and inquisitive scrapes I got into when little can take up most of an evening. The most famous one is about me, aged about 6, saying I could walk from my grandparents' house in the wilds of rural Dorset to the local village a couple of miles distant. Unwisely my grandparents said I couldn't. So I did.
Today, being Easter Sunday, we started off with an egg hunt in the garden. My son wasn't allowed sweets or chocolate until he was nearly at school and it makes me laugh to remember this looking at the haul he found lurking in the garden this morning.
After a really unseemly quantity of chocolate we decided to go for a walk. The Purbeck Hills are always visible from my parents' house but generally I don't think about climbing up the big hill. Once I had hauled myself up the 70 steps to the top I could see all of the Isle of Purbeck spread around me. I could also see the distance from the little hamlet my grandparents once lived in and the trek I'd done along winding lanes alone, to prove I could. A top the Purbeck hills there was glorious sun and a clear path to Swanage so my son and I did the 5 mile walk from Corfe to Swanage. And very lovely it was too.
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