When I was younger, weather like we’ve had over the past few weeks would have brought out the inventiveness and creativity in us.
By us, I mean, young folk. Wee people. The wains.
That’s because we loved, snow and ice and all that stuff.
When it wasn’t snowing, we made trucks. In other parts of the world, these were called go-karts.
But we called them trucks. I guess it’s because we didn’t have all that much American tv and what they called trucks – we called lorries.
For us, trucks were essentially a few pieces of board, some staples for hammering an axle and wheels onto one of the pieces of board, a bolt – this was essential for the steering and oh yes, the wheels, axles and a rope which was used to steer.
Engineering at its most basic it might have been, but at one stage or another everybody made a truck.
Except when it snowed. Then you made a sleigh.
Like the truck, there were no great skills or engineering involved, it was just a few carefully put together pieces of wood, two of which (the pieces on the side) had metal runners nailed to them.
The metal runners more often than not were pieces of copper piping, battered flat with a hammer and then nailed to the wood.
It wasn’t all that much work really. But still, it was too much for most people.
Yep, while that was the engineering behind the sleigh, they (sleighs) were not really that plentiful.
And there were probably two reasons for this.
One – we never really got enough snow in any one year to justify the time and effort it took to make one and -
Two – we had fertilizer bags.
Yep, why would anybody want to waste time that might see the snow melting, pounding on pieces of wood and metal when they could grab hold of an old fertilizer bag and have the time of their lives?
I was reminded of this during the week when I was kinda challenged by a third-party into having a race with somebody on one of these bags if the current cold snap continues.
And that got me thinking into just how dangerous this activity was.
For a start there was really no way to steer a plastic bag as it hurtled its way down on a sheet compacted snow.
There was no real way to stop either, until you came to the bottom - unless you count sliding full-pelt into a chain-link fence.
Yep, the best hill we had for sliding on – The Ivy Hill - wasn’t really all that big when you think of it.
In fact it was pretty steep and pretty short and had a chain-link fence and concrete posts dividing it and some person’s garden.
Did we care? Not one bit.
We didn’t have helmets or safety equipment and I’m pretty sure half the time our parents hadn’t a clue where we were or what we were doing, but we had some craic.
I mean every kind of sleigh under the sun was there at the Ivy Hill Winter Olympics.
Plastic fertilizer bags (by far and away the fastest and most common mode of transport) – biscuit tin lids (for those small enough to fit on or who had got caught emptying the turf out of the bag by their parents) – all sorts of plastic trays and basically anything flat that people thought would slide.
The fertilizer bags were the best though. They were the quickest but they did have a drawback or two.
Apart from the steering and stopping thing, they could also leave you quite sore.
That’s because they hurtled over every bump on the frozen ground at breakneck speed. Normally you didn’t notice because of the yelling and screaming and the blind panicky adrenaline rush you were getting as you wondered if you could get your feet out to hit the chain link fence first.
But you didn’t escape. Long after the snow and ice had melted, the bruises were there to remind you of the good times.
Still, you were young. You healed fast.
Which has also prompted me to wonder about this whole downhill challenge. I mean it could be June or July before bruises would disappear now!
That said, the way things are going, it could be June or July before this bloody ice and snow disappears.
Which makes me think I’d better go throw a few more sods of turf on the fire.
You never know the oul fertilizer bag might get a run out yet…
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