CHILD’S PLAY
RACHEL, 47
When my daughter Evangeline told me that the only thing she wanted for her eighth birthday was a pair of retro roller skates (because, despite not having a phone, she’d seen cool girls doing it on TikTok), I was overjoyed. While she would never know the naff indoor rinks, flashing disco lights, preservative-laden red slushies (over my dead body, child) and scuffed grey hire skates that filled my tween years, the idea of her feeling the fun-factor of zipping around on eight wheels – away from rectangular screens and social pressures – was a huge yes for me.
They arrived the day before her birthday, in all their white and glittered blue wheel glory, but what I didn’t know until she unboxed them the next morning was that I’d accidentally bought adult rather than child sized. “You should keep them, Mummy,” she said graciously as I scrambled to express order her replacement. They weren’t the semi-pro slick black-and-yellow speed skates I’d received for my own 13th birthday (OMG, why didn’t I keep them!) but still cute and totally nostalgic.
Maybe it’s
