Sunday, February 21, 2010

Because we've all had enough of...

...the white sh*te stuff I thought I'd have a rummage through the albums and see if there were any cheery sunny images.

Hmm. The trouble with living in this sort of climate is that were one to rely on sunny days the album would be very thin indeed. That narrowed the selection process down considerably. (I've got lots of us all looking huddled, soaked and stiff-upper lipped under glowering skies.)  Next exclude the pictures of those folks who might not wish to find themselves winged for all eternity into cyberspace. Ditto buildings, vehicles, flora, fauna and assorted dogs, cats and hens and well - the choice is meagre. I'm also a little concerned that some of the pictures after only a quarter of a century in a seldom opened album are looking very washed out. While they are not ground-breaking photographs they are a personal record and I for one value them - perhaps our lads will, one day, too.

So what do I have to brighten the hour? Ah yes - the boy in a bucket:

Paxos certainly. Probably 1987. Why he got the hump I can't remember, but it was so bad he had to put an olive oil can on his head. I've just enlarged and enlarged and enlarged the picture to see if I can recognise the fruit on the tree behind - and no I can't. How lovely though to have my little boy so big again I could almost hug him. Happy days.

Next up: New Year 1987. Can't go to the tropics? Then bring the tropics to a cocktail party near you. Here the Glam.Ass. is having a good time. Out of shot he is also wearing shorts. We did know how to have fun and get momentous hangovers....Somebody out there will remember the occasion. The borrowed palm tree was made for a primary school production of Joseph - and somebody else might remember making it. Again, happy days.
Fortunately children are no longer dressed like this - or perhaps if they are a little more attention has been paid to the styling and cut. Here I am getting a taste of poultry keeping in 1955 at Moreton Hall - at what was then the Warwickshire Institute of Agriculture - in a field known as The Park. I appear to have elven ears but blowing up the photos reveals the tails of two hens which must be pecking at some interesting spot some distance behind. (A photographic faux pas similar to the tree apparently growing out of the subjects head.) Hardly a sunny idyll but I've no reason to suspect that these were anything but...happy days.

Come summer and a sunny day the garden of our old house would invariably look like this. This must have been a fantastic summer because the grass of the lawn is brown and parched; the weather warm enough for a boy or two to sleep out at night. Bicycles and a 'soap-box jallopy', tent, climbing frame, rope, ramps and general detritus - the stuff of active lads. There is a pen with hens too which housed 3 or 4 birds which had been hatched out at school. I see our garden growing too - it's relatively young here. I could step into this picture with ease and even after all these years find every inch familiar to all the senses. For all its ordinariness I find it most affecting, it being so close and yet no longer within my grasp. Gone forever.  I'm not sentimental or nostalgic; wouldn't go back to the suburbs in a hurry - but the thought of no return to these golden afternoons tears a hole in my heart. What appears to be a picture of a scruffy back garden is for me the sunniest of images.

Ah well. Slam the album shut. Here and now is good and the crazy conflicting weather systems which are jostling for position over the UK will eventually sort themselves out. Spring will come and the swallows soar once again over the dingle.....

13 comments:

Pondside said...

Brave you, to open an album of treasured memories on a day that offers only cold comfort. I get terribly sentimental when I look at old photos of my grown children. We had fun - they had a lovely childhoon, no regrets, just nostalgia for those lovely days like your summer shot with the tent in the yard.
I hope the snow lets up for you soon. You've had more than your share!

Annie said...

What lovely memories. Thanks for sharing them.
A x

her at home said...

Wonderful memories. searchign for a photograph the other day I emptied the large box ( think trunk size) of family photos, no albums here, and sepnt hours ok days travelling back through them to a time when yes life was somehow sunnier and in some ways idyllic but I wouldnt go back for the world.
Ps I always suspected you had elven ears!

rachel said...

Oooh, I do so love a trip down Memory Lane! And to see what is now a great big hulking adult as a small boy again... bittersweet maybe, but more on the sweet side. And your garden looks like it was the perfect place to play.

Your outfit and chicken-tail ears are a hilarious reminder of how children's clothes were made to accommodate many stout insulating layers beneath and to last through several growth spurts!

Maggie Christie said...

I enjoyed the quirky photographs and the tales and memories that go with them. The chicken tail 'ears' are a particular joy! You're right about not being able to rely on sunny days for many pictures. My snow pictures were heading into the 700s. No more!

Blossomcottage said...

WONDERFUL, YOU SHOULD PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER IN A BOOK AND HAVE IT PRINTED, THEY ARE NOT VERY EXPENSIVE AND WORTH EVERY PENNY.
BLOSSOM XX

A Green and Rosie Life said...

Those are great photos - just what I needed to cheer up a wet and windy day - the sort of day when I was soaked within 5 minutes of going out and the poor lambs who only went out yesterday looked really miserable.

Rosie x

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

Fabulous. I know just what you mean about the suburban garden photos. So near and yet so totally beyond grasp.
Also adore the snowsuit thingy - you look like a pixie!

Twiglet said...

Thank goodness for photo albums! All those happy - sunny! memories.

Its snowing again - here - today.
I get to sound a bit like Eeyore don't I!!

Chris Stovell said...

Aw, what a great post! I love that photo of you - how cute do you look?

There was some sunshine here this morning, but now the skies are turning grey again :(

Tattieweasle said...

What a wonderful opost and I adore your garden - hoping that mine will look similar just as soon as teh sun comes out!

hand-knitted muesli said...

I have to say no one commented on how lovely the'ga' looked with the back drop of the palm tree in our kitchen - tut tut - he looked lovely.

hand-knitted muesli said...

I have to say no one commented on how lovely the'ga' looked with the back drop of the palm tree in our kitchen - tut tut - he looked lovely.