So I don’t really have a blog posting schedule, but after some recent encouragement from people about the stuff I write, I’ve decided to try write more regularly. I knew I wanted to get one out today on what is one of my (seemingly rare) days off from work. I actually had a post already planned out for today, I’d been writing it for the past week, finished it yesterday, and had started to type it out. Then life decided that it had its own plan (as per usual), and decided to throw me a curve ball that meant I had something completely different I wanted to write about first.
This story starts about 18 months or so ago, when my Dad was trying to sort his house out and got some cleaners in to try and deal with the mountain of junk that had accumulated over almost 20 years in the house. These cleaners did help to an extent, and they cleared out the cellar, stripping it almost bare. Now in the cellar was one of those clear plastic boxes with the lids, that was absolutely full of childhood photos, and in the clearing process got binned. As far as I was aware that was it, all our childhood photos were gone, all those memories that were from before the digital age and could never be recovered. Photos from memories that aren’t so much memories as stories that other people tell you about, photos of your first childhood pet, and those really embarrassing photos that you’re saving for your little brother’s 18th birthday. They were all gone.
We thought they were the only ones, that we were never gonna see any of those moments ever again, that there were no childhood photos left of me and my brother. Then today we were clearing some stuff at my Dad’s house, and there buried at the back of a big cupboard were two boxes absolutely full of photographs, some dating back to when my mum was younger than my brother is now. In those boxes were all those brilliant photos that we were convinced were lost. The photographic evidence that I’ve always been an adorable little shit.
Those moments that I have only faint recollections of, like the holiday we took to a seaside town somewhere and I ran out early in the morning still in my pyjamas to sit on the back of my Uncle Andrew’s motorbike.
Those photos of those childhood friendships that you had, that even if you’re not as close these days you still have very fond memories.
And those memories that you thought you remembered, but then when you see the photograph you realise that your memories aren’t quite right. Like the first time you see a photograph of the dog you had until you were 8, and he looks completely different to how you remember him, even if in all the photos of the two of you, you look just like double trouble. It’s being able to remember the first girl you kissed, remembered her name, and how you knew her, but until you saw a photo of her you had no recollection that she had bright ginger hair. It’s also in knowing that you’ve been trying to cute your way out of trouble, and perfecting your very best “Who? Me?! I would never do that would I?” for over 20 years. 
It’s knowing you have those very embarrassing photos of your little brother for when he turns 18, and knowing there are equally embarrassing ones of you in there as well.
It’s finding those photos of your Mum in the 80’s with an amazing a perm, and seeing one of your Granddad from the same decade sporting some very fetching mutton chops. It’s seeing your uncles when they actually had hair, and seeing your grandparents looking young, its seeing photos of your grandma from before she died looking exactly how you remember her and realising you look just like her. It’s realising that for some reason you’ve always been absolutely obsessed with bodies of water, and for some reason nobody ever seemed to be able to keep you fully dressed at any point (apparently some things never actually change). It’s those memories that you don’t quite remember, but when you see a photo it brings things flooding right back. That’s what we got back today, and that, quite frankly, is priceless.
Sophie x
A Place of Mine 