memories – Page 7 – don't confuse the narrator

brown study

Well, it’s not the study itself that’s brown, but many of the small objects on the shelf are. Some are natural, others man-made; some were gifts, while others were picked up around the garden and elsewhere.
Continue reading

seasonal nostalgia

The tail end of summer always makes me slightly nostalgic.

Every time I see blackberries growing in the hedgerow, I remember that one of the few good things about going back to school after the long summer holidays was knowing that we would go blackberrying the next weekend.

Easter gifts

It’s Easter and I’ve realised that I don’t remember any of the Easter eggs I was given as a child, though I’m fairly sure there must have been some and I’m sure I was quite excited about them at the time.

Later on, I may have been given chocolates, flowers or other gifts by friends and lovers; no doubt they put a dutiful amount of thought into the choosing and the giving.

Perhaps I even gave presents to other people. If I did, though, I don’t remember.

In fact, from all the Easter gifts given and received during more than fifty years, I only remember one – the book in the picture.

The dedication inside shows just how long ago I was given it:

Half a century from now, how many people will reach for their e-reader and bring up a digital file that will have the power to connect them to the past in the way this book connects me?

more perseids

One of the poems I submitted to the South Bank Poetry Magazine competition earlier this year was Getting Around on the Underground, a sort of reminiscence of romantic and risqué encounters around London by a female narrator.

Somewhere amid the rambling it contains the following:

[…]the time we sneaked into St James’s Park
and lay at 2 a.m. in August dark, spaced out on meteor scatter,
cool grass at our backs, the universe heavy above us.[…]

Of course that scene was inspired by the memory I mentioned yesterday of watching the Perseids in Battersea Park back in the early Eighties.
Continue reading “more perseids”

the bright side

Half empty wine glass with marina backdrop — Half empty?

I was at a writing workshop this weekend and one exercise involved writing about our childhood homes. When the first few pieces were read out they involved anecdotes of family arguments and illness etc.

Some of the people involved grew up during the War, so it’s not surprising that there were some bad memories, but the tutor commented that her experience shows the vast majority of people will write something negative. I suppose this ties in with the fact that first memories are often of some traumatic experience.
Continue reading “the bright side”