Czech Republic's Jakub Mensik celebrates after winning the men's singles quarter-final match against Russia's Andrey Rublev at the ATP Qatar Open tennis tournament in Doha on February 22, 2024. (Photo by Karim Jaafar/AFP Photo)

Devotees of the small farming village of Bibiclat celebrate the Feast of Saint John the Baptist while covered in banana leaves and mud on June 24, 2025 in Aliaga, Philippines. Known as the “Taong Putik” (mud people), the ritual happens yearly in this small farming village as their own version of expressing their faith and celebrating the feast of Saint John the Baptist whom the survivors of the Japanese occupation in 1944 in their area prayed to for rain to save their fellow villagers. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

A pug dressed as Yoda from the movie Star Wars walks along the runway at the 9th Annual Pug Parade on February 25, 2006 in Bradenton, Florida. 117 pugs competed for 10 prizes in 6 categories. Proceeds from the event benefit the Sarasota County Humane Society. (Photo by Phillippe Diederich/Getty Images)

One woman was pictured sitting bare foot on a pavement in Leeds in the northern English county of Yorkshire on May 30, 2021. With the sun streaming down, Brits have been taking full advantage of the three-day weekend by packing out pub gardens and lining up the beers at bars. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

English singer and songwriter Dua Lipa performs onstage during the Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia Tour at FTX Arena on February 09, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images)

A woman stands in front of a mask-clad lion statue outside a department store in Tokyo's Ginza district on January 18, 2022, as Japan reported a record high of new Covid-19 infections fuelled by the Omicron variant. (Photo by Philip Fong/AFP Photo)

Vendor Nyurgusun Starostina, 47, poses for a picture at an open-air market on a frosty day in Yakutsk, Russia, December 5, 2023. Temperatures in parts of the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia and located in the northeastern part of Siberia, went below minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) on December 5. (Photo by Roman Kutukov/Reuters)

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)