We have hoops!
Happy hoopy days, Hahahopscotch has taken delivery of some brand new wooden ‘Victorian’ hoops.
You know the things I mean – think ringleted child with knickerbockers and stern governess, think lovely garden terrace with child and hoop running along it., think hoop being obediently controlled by child and stick.
Hoop rolling is surely one of the oldest games we have – even the Ancient Greeks and Romans had hoops!
And just look at my all time favourite painting, of a whole street of children playing in 16th century Holland … hoops!
Children’s Games, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1560
But there is a shock! Rolling a hoop with a stick turns out to be much harder than it looks in all those pictures. I unpacked mine with great delight and scampered off with it expecting to display great urchin proficiency … but no! The hoop has a mind of its own and is not at all the obedient slave I had expected, and the stick is no where near as all-conquering as it looks.
We shall be unveiling the Hahahopscotch hoops this autumn, but in the meantime, I shall be practising frantically!
(Come and have a go with our hoops – Hahahopscotch Traditional Autumn Garden Games, Ardkinglas House and the Woodland Garden, Cairndow, Argyll, Sunday 27th October 11-145am, £4.50/child – http://www.ardkinglas.com/9/35/Whats-On-/at-Ardkinglas.html)
