Day 2 The Freetown review.

It's time to try to remember Freetown - what it was in my mind and what it now has become .... And it all starts with a quick check outside the door of the apartment - no 002 of the mansion block !!

Well checking outside was for a number of reasons ... The first being an array of strange animal statues arranged in what was a childrens fairground .... With rides that were seen last in 1947 in post war Britain ... Well maybe later but still a playground ornate with strange statues and wild life that would be perfectly at home in a Michael Jackson home movie !!! There are some small dog sized deer and one large deer wandering around in the same way as you would see the odd cat or two in foreign hotels .. And like a pet cat or dog - they were totally un-affected by us walking past them, stroking them, and if you called them they came over to you.. And like all pets they hung around the breakfast area waiting for children to sit down and slip them odd items if fruit and food .
Yes they are real !!! And the play ground  - whatever - was real also - not the strange illusions you can sometimes see after 7 bottles of local beer !! So that now confirmed ... Breakfast and on with the first day ...

First port of call - a walk along lumley beach ... Golden sands - and generally people leaving you alone to do what ever you are doing ...

Then off to do some sight seeing.. Not of the tourist kind but some places that must be captured for the luxury of reminiscing of times gone by...

Oh yes - my first night bed fellow ... Well as I lay asleep I felt a sharp object almost like a branch under my back ... I brushed it hard away from my back ... A branch left in when they washed the bedding - I told myself ... But in the morning when I looked in the floor I had my suspicions .... With the compliments of a local pesticide and a spray under the bed before we left the room that night they were confirmed ...

You see ... This goes back to being a youngster in Freetown ... I had been out the day before school to buy some new school shoes ... The morning came and I could not get them onto my feet ... The right foot fitted ok - just the left one - we squeezed - I got the entire speech on I should have taken more care on purchase etc.. My mother push my foot into the shoe as hard as she could ... The cook had a go .. But no.. The left foot was not going on.... So out came my foot - and out ran a huge cockroach .... So to make everything complete one of his long lost relatives was trying to share with me again on my return !!!! A huge fella .. But this time bop the local famous cockroach killing spray had done Its job ... And he was kaput !!!!!

Well the day had a few false starts with the driver ... He was late coming and we were late deciding and telling him to come ... So the order of the day - go and do the visit to the cemetery to find my various uncles and great grandparents etc.

The only problem is that it would have taken so long to go the 4 miles across town due to bad traffic and roads that this was abandoned in favour of ... Hill Station Club.

Hill station club is where my mother met my farther ... It was THE place to go in it's day - a place where everyone who was anyone went ... And was a favourite place for all visiting senior military ... It was a place I was taken to as a child many times until the early hours of the morning - as parents danced - drank - talked - and generally enjoyed this bar night club.

Well off to Hill Station Club - my first reunion of Freetown.



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