FSO - I remember when .....

Funny the things that spring to mind when you sit and purposely say "I remember...." 

I immediately saw, in my mind's eye, a scene from 40 years ago. My two oldest children when they were aged five and six running, laughing and competing noisily as they raced over the hill in the foreground below.  They were returning to where we were staying in a house beside the beach under the brown of that hill.  It was their first day at school in New Zealand, and in Leone's case her first ever day at school.  Times sure have changed.  I'd taken them to the school in the morning and they came home in the school bus then ran the rest of the way from where the school bus run ended.   All those houses weren't there then, there were a few residents, retired people and a couple of holiday houses.    

 A few years ago we had a Back to Pouto weekend.  My youngest was born after we had left and had never been there.  We had a wonderful time with Danny and Leone sharing with their children the activities they delighted in when we lived there.

Making more memories.

Which reminded me that some of my very best memories are associated with the Kaipara Harbour.  I returned to the banks of the Kaipara many years after we left Pouto and lived at Tapora on the opposite peninsula.   

Once again I was lucky to live at the end of the road down a harbour peninsula.  It seems to me that the strongest communities live in such places.  

And now I feel a nostalgic urge to revisit both places soon.

I wonder what the other FSO guys have remembered this week?  I'll be visiting them here to find out