oh no it will always be there backstage with old props…waiting to come out again as a reminder.
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I’m loving all these heartfelt reminiscences from so many of you, and they do add an extra layer of trust and understanding to the relationships developed within the SFN community IMO.
For me, and perhaps for a few others, moving to France has been an experience not totally unlike that of a lobster plunged into its bouillon, but of surviving pinkly to tell the tale…
À few ghosts occasionally make a familiar whoooooowhooooo 
appearance stage left, but soon turn tail and make a cobwebby exit to examine their bruises in the wings 
, so never say die, chins up and enjoy the balmy air and sweet summer breezes of La belle France.
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The worst part of my childhood, was a period when the Parents were going through a rough time, lot of shouting at each other, with me and my brother terrified in the kitchen, but things did improve. Always tried not to argue, or contradict each other, in front of the kids;
Reading through this thread… I can identify with most of you… things were very good, very bad and lots of stuff in between…
However, I would hate to think that I have already had the Best Years… that leaves little point in going on… or it might appear like that to some…
Life has always been a bit of an adventure for me… and it continues to be so… and long may it last… 
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I’ve often mused about the seven walks/seven days routine, Helen, this being a pre-antibiotic age recommendation. So I reckon that perhaps…
…it gave the anxious mother something constructive to do instead of just worrying helplessly… it was likely to bring her and infant into wider contact with other women who could offer support and reassurance, and strengthen the mother-infant bond… it would get the infant into fresh air (my own mother was given the advice in June, weeks after my birth, but it might not have been offered in the colder seasons)…the small whole-body movement involved in going for a walk (in a pram, perhaps) would be soothing for a child and/or stimulating and distracting, thus slightly inhibiting the cough triggers, and improving respiratory movements and general circulation. There’s often a hidden folk-wisdom in these “old wives’ tales” I reckon… 
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The perennial wisdom is to “live in the moment”… “consider the lilies in the field, they toil not neither do they spin…”, but it’s much easier said than done. Meditation is a training discipline that I use to refine my attention to the “eternal now”. It does help to stop what I’m doing when I remember to (!) and watch what is going on inside me, not just my thoughts which only last a few seconds at the most, unless I choose to stick to one… 
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Our first car was a Ford 8 which must have been around 30 years old when dad acquired it. I recall it was a non runner languishing in a friends garden. It’s best years were definitely behind it, but it did get us out and about. Sometimes it even got us home again!
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Peter… I’m forever considering the lilies… and everything else… OH gets a little exasperated when I blithely call out… won’t be long… 'cos he knows I’ll get side-tracked by something or someone… 
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Dad’s first car NFJ269… no idea what make… definitely second/third or whatever hand…he bought it when we moved to Devon… He piled us, the dog and a huge picnic in the car and took us exploring nearly every weekend. We kids used to get out and walk up some of the hills while the car chugged and blew… happy days…
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“… . cos I’ll always get side-tracked…”
Tu seras toujours sa petite papillote Stella 
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I have some really good things to look forward to this year and the new year to come.
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My dad was a sales director for a group of garages, so we always had the latest models.
Someone must have known we were likely to have petrol because the car was stolen on Christmas Eve during the Suez crisis and left in a nearby road, minus petrol.
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I’ve just remembered that dad had a something like a cricket stump with notches cut in it to gauge how much petrol was left in the tank. You can probably guess how reliable that was…
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I was fortunate as I never heard my parents arguing…I don’t think they ever did argue…I attempted to carry this on when I had my own kids and all 3 will say that they never heard a cross word between me and their dad when they were little…our separation when they were all under 7 was for reasons I would have never spoken about to them at the time…in fact it’s only now my daughters are grown up with kids of their own that they understand the why of it…
They were remarkably good-looking cars but, as I recollect being told by people who owned them, proper b*ggers to run, even if you could get them started. Completely out-classed by the Austin 7 and the Morris 8, though the latter was pretty ropey. I recall test-driving a second–hand ‘bargain’ that had wooden floor-pans that had rotted through so that you could watch the road passing between your feet. A snip at £30, but I passed it up.
Yes, he spent more time repairing it than he did driving it…
No doubt there is a profound wisdom in “old wives tales” and plant medicine and the shamen’s view of Dreamtime and the realms existing beyond visible light…it is fascinating…any parent trying to console an ill child or any crying child will naturally resort to “rocking”…the seven ways are probably an extension of that…??? I remember one time with my first child and my feeling of inadequadacy that I couldn’t stop her crying…I left her for all of two minutes in the lounge and went and sat outside…took a deep breath and then went back in bundled her up put her in my car and went for a drive…asleep within minutes…My next two were far easier…I gave up accepted protocol and just trusted my intuition…if that meant scooping them up out of the carrycot next to my bed…feeding them…changing them and allowing them to fall back to sleep in my arms then so be it…My second two slept through the night far earlier than my first…but all of us now know the ride around the block in the car method just in case…(well not for me personally I’m well past the menopause…although even this stage of my life is interesting when considering the fact that my mom and me were exactly the same age…!) x 
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Luckily, Dad was a mechanic, so we always had cars, when most families didn’t, things like a couple of Citron Tractions when I was around 10 ish.
Parents didn’t have a lot of dosh, but we went on hol’ every year, out somewhere every Sunday and took other kids/pals along, to the beach or into the lakes with us, when I was 11, first Continental trip 
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Citroën Traction, beautiful cars (assuming I’m thinking of the right one).
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We used to all pile into the car on a Saturday or Sunday and go for a drive…eventually piling out of the car at bradgate park or beacon hill…Thursday nights were reserved for a visit from my uncle jock and a walk up the road to our nearest off licence where we routinely bought a big bag of kp salted peanuts for sharing and me and my sister got to choose a treat…mine was an Aztec bar…Fridays was fish and chips night from our nearest Cypriot fish and chip shop…we mostly had chips and scratchings with lots of salt and vinegar…x
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