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When I was a wee lassie, the world seemed bigger. Did it not seem like that to you?
A garden we would call now, a postage stamp could be a jungle or, if you lived on the North East coat of Scotland, a desert or the Arctic! ;-)
Because you were small enough to find the hidey holes in it, a comfy and secret seat behind the rose bushes or under the low branches of the elder or fir tree. And from your `throne` you looked out across the garden and could embroil the landscape of it in your daydreams.
Or did you not do that too? Ahem..am I the only one here who did that? Oh dearie me.....sigh...
When I was wee, the world seemed much more full of mystery and enchantment. Fairy tales, although your friends soon put you right about the myth of them, still enthralled you because somehow, they held a grain of `might be` in them, so when the wind whistled round your door of a wild winters night you would still lend an ear to listen out for the Cailleach chapping the door, demanding to be let in and have a bed for the night...and if your family were foolish enough to say no...well...you could just bet it would be YOUR soul she took in price....oh aye....
and the house brownie could be conveniently blamed for the mystifying disappearance of mam`s sewing scissors or dad`s right wellie boot....
and you knew that once the brownie had had its fun with those things, they`d be put back, right back, in the place they were looked for, no harm done, except older folks thinking they might be losing their marbles, their eyesight, or both....
When I was wee, an adult could keep you spellbound by spinning a story made of words that birthed pictures in your imagination...it wasn`t already laid out for us, you see, the story, in film or game, because like when reading books, you`d to employ your own inner vision and make the words come to life in your mind.
When I was wee, games played seemed, somehow, more fun, more innocent, from swinging on the tarzan rope over the burn to building the go-kart that would have adults nowadays throwing up their hands in horror at the use of rusty auld nails, and bits of fencewire holding the rickety but tough thing together as you hurtled down the Brae at what you thought was warp speed....
Those were days kids were happy to play outside in all weathers, and nope, we didn`t even usually get well wrapped up for it if it rained...we just stayed out and played harder to avoid getting cold, but a wee drop water? Och, that was nothing.....
And when you saw a group of us kids, there wasn`t the sinking feeling that you`d be having to walk past a gang of ASBO`s or wait for one of them producing a flick knife and demanding your purse....the worse we`d do would be to poke our tongue out at the departing adults back, or throw out a funny nickname then run away very fast, the tune a song of pattering childrens feet and giggling laughter, not even really malicious.
Don`t times change though, eh? Not always for the best, don`t you think?

When you`re wee, the world seems bigger, more mysterious, enchanting even through the fear of the unknown, and somehow, `fresher`, cleaner, shiny new and exciting, full of possibilities seen through the eyes of a child.
Days stretch before you full of those possibilities where anything could happen, and even uneventful and sometimes boring days didn`t dull your enthusiasm for the next one to come.
Life was simpler, though you`d never have said so because whether or not Mary spoke to you next day in school was, of course, of crucial importance and might decide the course of the rest of your life....but somehow, (and even though there were those of us children for whom the adult world intruded maybe too soon...) the relative innocence of childhood was protected more than it seems today, when access to the media and the Internet give children a wider, more detailed view of what the world is actually like..
Back when I was wee, a letter coming in the post was more of an event than an email in your inbox.
A rare trip to the cinema was worthy of discussion for the next year, unlike sitting down one night to watch the latest dvd...
Carefully deciding which sweeties got the honour of your hard earned pocket money pennies was more fulfilling than being able to go into the supermarket and choose from a glut of junk foods...
And somehow, our attention span spun out more than half an hour before disinterest and boredom and destructive behaviour set in...a comic could keep me going all day, read and reread..a book for a windy rainy winters day could see me on the window seat with lit up eyes, stepping into the Land That Time Forgot maybe...
and mam would have to come poke at me to get me to eat dinner, because time got forgotten, not the Land.

Sometimes the lure of nostalgia can provide us with rose tinted specs that maybe also colour our memories of times past, and amplify the innocence and satisfaction of a childhood often well spent.
But more often than not, our memories run true, and what we remember fondly WAS, and did unfold like our thoughts of it give out to our sometimes jaded, tired adult mind.

When I was a wee lassie the world seemed bigger, mysterious and exciting.
Then I grew up....