I'll start by describing a day I remember very clearly...
The first bit I can remember of that day, is that we were driving in our old dark blue Toyota, just turned left at the round-about near a church (if you turned right you would see a Shell petrol station and eventually come to Illawarra Primary School). I was wearing my blue flanny shirt, because Alan from Jumanji wore them, I also felt like him wearing it. When you came close to the entrance, there was a much smaller day-care centre for smaller kids (like, 3 and 5 years old or something), and a playground that we used to play on sometimes.
I don't remember actually driving in the entrance. The next bit I remember is that we got out of the car, and we were talking about something that I don't remember. We were walking down the pine-bark path. When I was that young it seemed like a really long walk, but in reality it was probably only about 10m long.
Actually, as I type this I start to think that I used to go here before I started school - because I have memories there when my brother didn't even go there.
When you got to the door, I can't remember exactly if there were stairs to the door, a sideways ramp, or both. I think it was both. Anyway, inside I can vaguely remember how it was set out:
^ You stand at the door. To the left, there were hooks for your bags, and next to those hooks was a doorway leading into the kitchen area. Straight ahead you could see the TV for the Nintendo 64 in the corner (but when I first went there with my brother, the N64 was in the kitchen, and I had a Pokeball in my hand - as you do - and one of the kids said to me "Hey, you like Pokemon? C'mon, they're playing Pokemon in here", and he lead me to the kitchen area where 2 kids were playing Free Battle on Pokemon Stadium. I remember clearly that the only Pokemon I remember being used was a Zapdos). I'm not sure if there was a couch area straight ahead, THEN the N64/games corner, or not. If you walked straight ahead, then turned right, there was a room with a TV, VHS player, and a couch or 2. Then, there was a room linking the kitchen area and that TV room with games and sport equipment in there, but for some reason none of that was ever used. There was a Foosball table in there.
^^ The rectangle with nothing in it on the right was the games room no one ever used, and the red thing in it is the possible door that was there. All of the red rectangles are where doorways were. The blue thing is there the bag hooks were.
I remember that everything used to me moved around a lot, because I have memories of the N64 being in 3 different places, and for some reason in the TV room there was a SNES with a strange controller where the big couch was - but facing the wall.
Outside there was a sandpit, 2 playgrounds, an alley way leading to a road, a walkway to the carpark/entrance, and stairs leading to a basketball court.
The stuff inside the red line means all of that was raised (above ground).
Where those random buildings were, I'm not sure exactly what they were. I'm sure they were a part of the school we were on, but I don't actually remember what they look like or how you could even go inside them. But I do remember that for some reason we were all there and some bigger girls gave us minties and tried to teach us how to make mintie chains or whatever you call them - you know, there you rip up the mintie wrapper into a long line.
Then, we reach the carpark (though, ironically we should have been starting with this). I don't remember too much of it. But actually, as I typed that I just remember that there were 3 playgrounds, but I don't remember how to access the one I'm thinking of.
And that's pretty much the basics of it. I plan to write as much as I can about my childhood. So stay tuned! Or, whatever you do on blogs....
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