Childhood memories...

Bed in Summer

 

 In winter I get up at night 

And dress by yellow candle - light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day. 

I have to go to bed and see 

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

 When all the sky is clear and blue, 

And I should like so much to play, 

To have to go to bed by day?

Robert Louis Stephenson

Oh, this brings back memories of when I small and not so small and had to go to bed at 7:30. I used to lay awake listening to the blackbird singing in our garden, the neighbours busy in theirs and my friends playing ball on the green out the back. I have never understood why I had to go so early when I lay and fidgeted until my sister would come up at 10:00 pm. I always thought it was such an enormous waste of hours. Many was the day I had a book hidden under the bed...