Memories are a funny thing aren't they?
I had a conversation with one of my closest girlfriends this past week-end....
I mentioned an unforgettable conversation in which one of the girls in our close group of friends revealed a huge secret to us during a reunion week-end in London - just as the lights had gone off at about 3am as we were all snuggled up on the living room floor about to go to sleep.
This was years ago but we still laugh about it to this day....it's one of those "moments".
At the time we were pretty much all living in London but during our conversation last week-end, we were unable to decide on where this exact "moment" took place.
We all think we know where it happened, we even phoned another of the girls - but we can't agree!
I guess the point is that it was the drama of the moment, the revelation by our friend, the fact that we still bring it up & laugh about it every time we are reunited....the location doesn't really matter.
It's one of many memories & shared moments that bind us together.
I had a conversation with one of my closest girlfriends this past week-end....
I mentioned an unforgettable conversation in which one of the girls in our close group of friends revealed a huge secret to us during a reunion week-end in London - just as the lights had gone off at about 3am as we were all snuggled up on the living room floor about to go to sleep.
This was years ago but we still laugh about it to this day....it's one of those "moments".
At the time we were pretty much all living in London but during our conversation last week-end, we were unable to decide on where this exact "moment" took place.
We all think we know where it happened, we even phoned another of the girls - but we can't agree!
I guess the point is that it was the drama of the moment, the revelation by our friend, the fact that we still bring it up & laugh about it every time we are reunited....the location doesn't really matter.
It's one of many memories & shared moments that bind us together.
I have two brothers who are 2 & 5 younger than me respectively....
we all grew up together but, like lots of siblings I am sure, our recollections of certain events in our childhood often varies a lot!
My brother M, who is closest in age to me, remembers some things so clearly & yet I have no recollection of them at all.
He does - if I'm honest - remember much more of our childhood than I do.
He does - if I'm honest - remember much more of our childhood than I do.
I am very much someone who focuses on the present and the future....
very often when I think of the past or my childhood, I think of it in terms of snapshots & still photographs rather than a moving film of what took place.
I have clear memories of both my brothers being born, in fact going to meet my brother when I was just 2 years & 2 months old is my earliest ever memory....
I shut my fingers in the door of my mother's hospital room & had to be taken away by the nurses, perhaps that's why it's such a vivid memory!
....my youngest brother was born when I was almost 5....
my dad cycled to school to collect me & then we rode to the hospital with me balanced on the crossbar of his bike!
I was clutching a card that I'd made for my mother on the front of which was a huge red flower made of tissue paper.
When I was 6 we moved from Wales to London...a big move.
I invited my whole class to a goodbye party before we left & wore the most beautiful dress that a dressmaker friend of my mother's had made for me....
it had the most beautiful cream paisley pattern & a raised fluted collar.
I can picture my brother's favourite bear, Teddy Edward,
I can see my brother standing on the roof of my small dolls house in our garden in Wales when we must have been 5 & 3 years old,
I can see my old light blue Raleigh bike....
and I remember my favourite childhood shoes - blue denim wedges (barely an inch high) with a pair of bright red cherries sewn on to them!! My grandmother brought them up to London from Wales for me....my mother thought them highly unsuitable & I thought they were the most beautiful things I had seen in my whole entire life!!
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It's always reassuring when an experience as a grown-up measures up to your childhood memory of it.
Last year I went back to a beach in south Wales - a place we would head to en masse after what felt like hours of preparation by my grandma.
In my head it was this incredibly long beach, a huge expanse of sand, it felt like we had to run forever to actually reach the water.
I was surprised to find that the drive to it wasn't the hours that it felt like as a child but - happily & more importantly - it was still the glorious stretch of golden-ness that I remembered it to be....
it is very comforting to know that some things never change.
There is so much comfort of course in familiarity, in food & aromas....
all of which become entwined with our memories....
the delicious aroma of my mother-in-law's pasta as I arrived there on a dark winter's night to collect my daughter....
no one makes it like she did, but I can close my eyes & remember the comfort of it
my grandma would make Welsh cakes on a griddle - warm, sweet & dusted with sugar, she told me she only made them for me & of course when I was little I believed her!
My husband & I spent Millennium Eve in Times Square, NYC....we were there for hours & (although we had the most fantastic time) I was as cold as I have ever been in my life....
I can still remember the meal we had at around 1am that night as we thawed out & warmed up.
I am not sure I have ever enjoyed a cup of coffee as much as that one!
Moments....memories.....life.
I can picture my brother's favourite bear, Teddy Edward,
I can see my brother standing on the roof of my small dolls house in our garden in Wales when we must have been 5 & 3 years old,
I can see my old light blue Raleigh bike....
and I remember my favourite childhood shoes - blue denim wedges (barely an inch high) with a pair of bright red cherries sewn on to them!! My grandmother brought them up to London from Wales for me....my mother thought them highly unsuitable & I thought they were the most beautiful things I had seen in my whole entire life!!
.jpg)
It's always reassuring when an experience as a grown-up measures up to your childhood memory of it.
Last year I went back to a beach in south Wales - a place we would head to en masse after what felt like hours of preparation by my grandma.
In my head it was this incredibly long beach, a huge expanse of sand, it felt like we had to run forever to actually reach the water.
I was surprised to find that the drive to it wasn't the hours that it felt like as a child but - happily & more importantly - it was still the glorious stretch of golden-ness that I remembered it to be....
it is very comforting to know that some things never change.
There is so much comfort of course in familiarity, in food & aromas....
all of which become entwined with our memories....
the delicious aroma of my mother-in-law's pasta as I arrived there on a dark winter's night to collect my daughter....
no one makes it like she did, but I can close my eyes & remember the comfort of it
my grandma would make Welsh cakes on a griddle - warm, sweet & dusted with sugar, she told me she only made them for me & of course when I was little I believed her!
My husband & I spent Millennium Eve in Times Square, NYC....we were there for hours & (although we had the most fantastic time) I was as cold as I have ever been in my life....
I can still remember the meal we had at around 1am that night as we thawed out & warmed up.
I am not sure I have ever enjoyed a cup of coffee as much as that one!
Moments....memories.....life.
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