A model holds a dog presenting a creation by Anthony Rubio during New York Fashion Week, in New York City, U.S., September 13, 2025. (Photo by Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

A pelican investigates a fallen ketchup bottle outside a cafe in St James’s Park in London, England on October 9, 2025. The species has lived there for hundreds of years and remain a popular sight for visitors. Introduced in 1664 as a gift from the Russian ambassador, about 40 pelicans have since made the park their home. The bottle was safely retrieved from the pelican. (Photo by Stephen Chung/Alamy Live News)

A pair of young visitors rushes through a tunnel of colored lights at the annual Garden of Lights display at Brookside Gardens on December, 06, 2015 in Silver Spring, MD. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

A model presents a creation from the Juozas Statkevicius Spring-Summer 2018 fashion collection in Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, November 9, 2017. (Photo by Mindaugas Kulbis/AP Photo)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Tribal artists and supporters from the southern Indian state of Karnataka dance outside the residence of Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi during her birthday celebrations in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, December 9, 2015. The Italian-born Gandhi is the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and has led the Congress party since 1998. (Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP Photo)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

A man wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) cremates a body of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) victim at the crematory as the country recorded the highest daily increase in deaths since the pandemic began, in Kathmandu, Nepal on May 3, 2021. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)