memories

It's 9.00pm on a saturday night and I'm slowly fading.
Dave and jo are working out what they'd like to order from the Tottenham catalogue, play-fighting and generally messing around.
I on the other hand , am sitting peacefully listening to my favourite tracks , headphones on to block out the family guy episodes that Jo has on the TV, and thinking about the next few days.
I'm travelling up the country on Monday morning in order to be at my great aunts funeral, and it'll be another long day there and back.
But I know I'd regret it if i didn't go.

Damn, I've just realised that I forgot to get a card too.
:(
It's always far harder to write an 'in sympathy' card than any other kind.
I need time to get the words right.
And now I've forgotten to pick one up.
I had to stay on at work after we closed at 2.00pm so that I could get at least part of the stocktake done that ought to be done on monday [ when I'll be half way up the country instead ].
I gave up at 7.30pm and came home, totally forgetting the card, but there's only so much you can do in one hit, and I'd reached my limit.

However, I digress.

It's strange how we remember people.
I get snapshots of snatches of time, filled with texture and sounds, with the occasional scent adding depth.
Most of my memories of my Great Aunt are of her laughing.
It's the picture that springs to mind when i think of her.
A tall slender woman, angular and always busy, brown hair rollered into a fifties style shoulder length 'do', harassed by children [ of which i was one ] and generally happy to see you.
I didn't get to see her as she got older, but when my mum talked of her, it was of a woman gradually ailing but of someone who was positive and happy, and who never lost her sense of humour.
She died peacefully.
I guess its the most any of us can hope for.

this is my only photo of her.


Taken c1967 in Cayton Bay in Scarborough, with 3 of her children, her niece and me.

So many memories.