At the age of 56 I am still ridiculously excited by a....

[Catname]

Travelator at the airport.

Especially when, as happened this morning, there is no one else on it because I love walking as fast I can and feeling like some kind of superhero striding out.

Conversely, I am most disappointed when there are lots of people and my childish glee has to be contained - and when someone has the temerity to block both lanes so I can't get past I feel deflated.

What childish things do you still get excited by as an adult?

OP I get childishly excited by the sight of a travelator,but for entirely different reasons to yours! I have mobility problems and often find walking any distance difficult,so I am always inordinately pleased when I see a travelator.

It seems international postage in the UK, currently £2.20 for a postcard, is about the highest worldwide. I restrict myself to one of two a month but I can understand how you can get obsessive especially as it can take weeks for postcards to reach some countries and until they are registered you don't get one back from someone else.

Going through the Queensway tunnel on the top front seat of a double decker is marvellous too, in a different way. The Kingsway isn't as good somehow

The different trains - including fab double decker ones - in Italy

Hearing foghorns from the docks on a foggy night

A really good bit of dry stone wall, so satisfying somehow

Going inside unusual buildings like lighthouses and windmills

The chair-o-plane rides where you glide through the air on a seat like a swing. Must be similar to flying

Ardnamurchan lighthouse !

I love it when the owl comes and sits in the tree in our garden. Watching bats flying at dusk. Seeing the first swallow. Actually seeing a kingfisher rather than just hearing them. Seeing a Heron fly.
Seeing the first lambs in Spring always makes me smile.
Getting a letter in the post.
Front seat at the top of a bus.
Rock pooling/ looking for fish in streams and rivers from a bridge/ playing Pooh sticks/crabbing.

Jumping off harbour walls into the sea, obviously only in safe spots, where you can see the bottom, no moving craft etc , always makes me feel about 10 again !

The various places where our two cats decided to curl themselves into to have a nap .
They employ the "I Fits , I Sits" mantra
Often it's a complete shock to see a couple of pointy ears or touch warm fur .

Oh and another ridiculously excited thing -
Finding a whisker - we have two black cats so finding one of their beautiful whiskers randomley shed . We don't know if it's him or her .

I keep them in a bag ..........(not in the least bit weird )

@Newgirls - going through the car wash - yes!!!!!

The neighbours' white cherry trees - one is in full bloom now, another will be in a few days. Followed by some pink ones at the corner of the road... I enjoy a little quiet hanami

We had a delivery this morning and the item was wrapped in a large sheet of bubble wrap. Me and DP spent the best part of 15 minutes jumping on said bubble wrap and laughing like kids. It was great.

I saw two ladybirds having fun on my lavender bush in the sunshine just now and was ridiculously happy.

Cherry blossoms are lovely but the magnolia trees in flower are are sight to behold . They are only in bloom such a short period of time though. I know the local gardens that have magnolias and look out for them.

I should've planted one years ago ...

I also keep my cats whiskers. I keep his fluff after grooming, too. He's a ragdoll so very floofy. Any knotty bits get chucked outside for the birds to line their nests with. The soft bits are kept and I use them to felt with.

The white spots and stalk on this toadstool are made from his fluff. Recyclable parts of my cat that I can keep for years!

The estate I live on was built in 1959, and each house had a cherry tree planted in its front garden by the builders (Leech) When I was a kid in the 80s - when I first moved here - it was such a beautiful sight. The adults used to complain of the 'mess of the blossom made', which I absolutely could not get my head around.

Sure enough, one by one, people chopped them down (usually to pave over their gardens). There are only four left now. On a development of 9 streets that used to have about 200 trees!

That is so sad. We have two cherry blossom which are around that age and real focal points in the garden but they are not particularly healthy so I’m not looking forward to the day they have to be removed. I planted a Magnolia to prepare for that point but it’s not looking good either 😢

Seeing the first bat of the year in my garden🦇

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

I may just quote this every time we go past cherry trees at this time of year. Dc have taken to pointing out I'm closer to "Fifty will not come again".

@Thegrassneedsmowing ·
Spring in England. It's so beautiful, I'm excited by it every year but more so the older I get.

Yes I must admit although I stubbornly say I love winter cos I am a winter baby, I must admit seeing daffodils, snowdrops and bluebells out in force really cheers me up and then the tulips and crocuses etc etc. New life everywhere.

@RainbowZebraWarrior

What a shame! Chopping them down and concreting the garden!

I love blossom! I would love to go to Japan and see the cherry blossom!

The corridors in work have motion activated lights. If I'm first in or walking down them if they have been empty for a while I imagine I'm in an eighties pop video as the lights come on

Hehe. I had a hospital appt for an ECG in a totally deserted outpatients dept one Sunday morning. As I walked down the corridor, the motion activated lights were coming on and I started humming the Stars in their eyes theme tune as I walked.

Sure enough, one by one, people chopped them down (usually to pave over their gardens). There are only four left now. On a development of 9 streets that used to have about 200 trees!

Oh, what a shame.
I must find some reason to go to the big out of town shopping centre soon - the otherwise unassuming road leading to it is lined either side with cherries which are gorgeous in bloom, and lovely again in their autumn colours.

Seeing a robin come out to check me out in their territory my garden.
Or seeing the blue tits back nesting again in our garden and watching them working so hard to feed their chicks.

Oh my god yes @LadyEloise1 ! I love it when robins do that. I had a joke with my DM about robins and she died so whenever I see one that hops out as if to say hello, I always smile.

What a lovely poem.