… I loved the rain, real pouring, can’t see your feet from the splashing rain. I would walk up the gutters letting my shoes fill with water until the socks slip-slid inside and imagined floating on the surface of the mini torrent, flying down the street, gurgling down a drain and emerging in a land of yellow with banks to roll down and small cakes to eat. And I would go home with my raincoat a shapeless saturated cape hanging off my slender shoulders and mum would sigh and rub me till I glowed pink and gave me small cakes for tea.
Now I enjoy blissful days like today when I walk a foot from the kerb and remember that little boy and put him in stories of bravery and fear and hope and, occassionally rain and forget to feed him cakes. And I go home and make myself some tea and think I’m not much different 50 years on…
…except that little boy really believed his imaginings might happen.
Which, I suppose, is as good an explanation of what age does as any, I think.
But at least I still have small cakes for tea.
TanGental 
Small cakes for tea. So evocative of a far off world. Did you ever have Mr Kipling cakes? My grandma used to buy them because they looked posh and she couldn’t always be sodded baking for all of us.
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I have to admit being denied them at home. Mum’s logic was 1 they are advertised on ITV 2 I TV is common 3 we don’t have anything that is common 4 we don’t have MrKipling cakes. So as soon as I reached uni I bought them wholesale
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Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes. The lies advertisers could tell in those days!
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Yes! We never used fairy liquid, Daz or Heinz either..
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Or the Persil that washes whiter, the Mars that made children frisk about like spring lambs then made their teeth drop out and gave them diabetes. Those were the days.
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Indeed. Where would dentistry be without Cadburys
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Thank heavens for those small cakes! !!
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I truly believe there’s not much that cake won’t cure
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I agree totally Geoffles!!!
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Frangipan fancies are memories from a far off time. But a good rub down with a rough towel until your ears went pink is one I’ll pass on now I’m growed.. Nice post.
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Thanks Ellen. Mum rather overdid the vigour. I never really liked the idea of body scrubs because it took me back to those cardboard towels she used
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How did I know? A mystery. Keep up the posts I enjoy them very much. 😇
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You are very generous and I will try!
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What lovely memories. KL ❤
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It’s odd little things that pop in the head
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For the life of me, I don’t know why Americans haven’t appropriated tea time from you guys. I’d also be equally fine if we appropriated siestas too.
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Didn’t you tip it into Boston harbour😄 And I think compulsory siestas was why we joined the European Community. That and cheaper red wine.
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We tossed the tea. Nobody said tiny cakes were part of the deal.
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No one looked inside the crates did they!
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Hmmmmmmmm yesssssss! Lovely post and now I want tea and cake!
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Good. It aids most writing complaints
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What lovely memories, that you’re continuing today. Tea and cakes reminds me that it’s time to put the kettle on! 🙂
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Somehow putting the kettle on sums me up nicely
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Oooh I do love a small cake too Geoff, and a lovely cup of tea! 🙂
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Nothing better to perkins you up
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Perkins? Who’s Perkins?
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Such a nice post, Goeff!
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Thanks so much
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Very touching, hooray for small cakes – and big ones!
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Indeed cakes all round. Huzzah!
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There’s no greater pleasure in life than a scone!
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Ah indeed. A mark of civilisation. Tool making, polysyllabic language and scones
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That small boy remains inside all of us unless you happen to be of the female persuasion and I’m not sure about them at all. I think there might be a fight for the cakes.
Hugs
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Ah well cake fights were fun too.
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You wrote straight to emotional heart of memory and rain. Somewhere deep in my DNA, rain still reminds me of my British Isle roots.
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I think you might say nations can be categorised by how they experience rain.
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Cakes? Did anyone mention cakes? Have you tried Welsh Cakes, Geoff? They are very Welsh. Slow start, but towards the end they burst into life. A little like Saturday’s game I guess?
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They are delicious. I’m sold. Saturday was very hard on the constitution
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Having the small cakes to eat is not a minor consolation in my book! It’s a major achievement. I sometimes think back to myself as a small boy, but I’m pretty confident I didn’t like walking with wet shoes, but cakes (small, medium or large) have featured in my daydreams at pretty much every stage of my life.
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Ah ha an idyllic childhood where there are always cakes for tea.
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Yep. Like a lot of kids, I also dreamed of one day getting a job in a cake store.
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I hated getting rained on when I was little. it was years later, in my twenties, that I fully enjoyed a nice walk in the rain. Loved that. Now… I’m old and pull my coat over my head. But small cakes and tea? Well, that’s always good. Whatever your age.
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Yes cakes remain a constant don’t they
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