Shedding Light On Years Gone

It’s hard to believe half the year’s over.
This week has galloped past me – is it time itself speeding up, or am I just getting old?
I’ve been rearranging bits and pieces around the place, and admiring the light at different times of the day. At the moment afternoon light seems to make my room look sort of pinkishy-orange.

It also brings out the beauty in a woven bag.

…as well as the stack of baskets I have yet to find a use for.

I still go out to the verandah after dark to look over our part of town, before closing the door to the night.
I took some photos in the darkness – my phone seems to have a night setting!

At times, ploughing through the mass of memorabilia, I wonder whether I should throw more stuff out.
Then I find myself looking again at tickets, receipts, letters and postcards from my journey through Europe when I was 25. I remembered more than I thought I could (and startled a largely uninterested son with reminiscences, when he had just come in to ask me a question…)

Disregard Frodo staring out at us.
Pretty much everything is in as good a condition as it was then. That plastic bag at the top contains my hair (which Biggest Boy thought was creepy…). I kept it because my hair had been quite long at the time, but Europe was so hot that I got it all chopped off very short, and didn’t want to just throw it all out. I’m not sure what to do with it now!

I also kept bits of currency, which is no longer used in the countries I visited in Europe.

The Netherlands 10c piece is the tiniest I have. You can see that the Eire (Ireland) coin fits in the hollow of a film canister lid – it’s roughly the size of an Australian 5c piece. The Netherlands 10c is tiny, and very light as well.

Bits of paper.
Random coins.
It all seems fairly useless.
But I can hold them in my hands, and once again feel the cold of a wet Irish night, or the heat of baking Roman stone. And I can remember younger me, heading out to see the world, still able to hike any amount of miles with a huge backpack on my back.
Life is strange, sometimes.
But still sweet.
❤