Losing my senses

You play those games as children, unbeknownst to how topically relevant some of them are. We can exclude 'Dizzy Dinosaurs' and 'Hop-scotch'. But the others; 'Stuck in the mud' - a game of helping your friends in distress before the catcher (or what we can interpret in the adult world as grief or pain or stress). 'It' or 'tag' - being the it-girl or it-guy. And 'kiss-chase' - trying to attract the best looking person of the opposite sex and pursuing them as they run away. Our childhoods taught us so much, if only we knew at the time.

And then there are those eager questions that children ask. I don;t know if it was the same for you, but my brothers and I used to always ask one another, as though we'd be caught out by some form of government torturer for one heinous crime or another;

What would be the sense that you'd most hate to lose?

It was always a hard one for me. I essentially had to choose the sense I loved the most. A a big foodie, I couldn't live without being able to taste but would taste have been a good compromise when I couldn't hear my child talk to me? Tell me about their first day at school? Hear them sing in the Nativity?

But my sense of taste always frustrated me. When I had a cold and I knew the feelings and smells and tastes that should be running down my throat and I registered nothing. I hated it. Chicken kievs should ooze garlic. There should be sweet melodies to the zingy jig of a glass of lemonade. And when I'd saved a perfect square of meat to fit into a small off-cut of yorkshire pudding that I'd specifically left until last so savor the dinner - I wanted to make sure I knew what it was like.

But in the end I put it down to this.

Over the years, I've developed a passion for vintage EVERYTHING! Clothes, make-up, past times. Nothing makes me happier than to thing of myself of an evening eating oranges and sucking the juice to the pith and being in the corner of the living room in a one-person armchair reading. 'Matilda' first put that thought into my head.

When I was younger I always fancied myself as a whizz kid. I didn't like reading much only doing so to say that I'd turned the pages. I would sit in class after lunch break and read the end words of every sentence. I was flipping pages in books faster than anyone else. I loved playing on my Nintendo and I guess that was because I hadn't yet found the unlocking power of writing. Or because it took too long to create the image of my perfect family when 'The SIMS' did it far quicker.

But eventually, as I matured, I turned back - quite literally!

And so, it came as a little surprise to find that old movies didn't always have that riveting affect on me.

Take 'Charlie and the chocolate factory' for instance. The super-tanned Oompa Loompa's and the wild-eyed (and haired) Willy Wonka would have, in the real world, made the chocolate factory seem a place of wonder and awe. But the hues of the picture; the dulled purples and greens and reds, they just didn't cut it and I found myself turning to Johnny Depp instead.

When I asked for the new 'Alice in Wonderland' on DVD one Christmas, you cuold have been fooled into thinking that I was in love with Johnny Depp. The truth was more abstract; I was in love with the colour.  The vibrant make-up and costumes, they all struck me.

And so, without thinking, I'd have to say that the sense that I'd most hate to lose would be my sight.