ink marks on a blank page Wed 18th Nov

Took some time out of my busy schedule (har har) to clean out this room I inhabit. You will see in the pics just what I mean by inhabit. I mean there is stuff in here that if suddenly the whole was wrapped in plastic and sealed for 300 or so years forensic archeologists of that time would have field day. Can't you just imagine what passes for the Discovery channel for 2309 might construct,"here we have the abode of the lesser maned robbi, note the plethora of detritus that this creature was fond of and surrounded itself with" "Objects of arcane interest only to the initiates of some bizarre sect, objects that to the normal person of that era would hold no significance" "we can only conject as to what rituals were carried out in this room"
You get the point? I do collect some wierd loot, then tend to keep it close by forever.
So, a clean out of some degree was deemed timely. Not that I got very far, oh I tidied up some drawers on the desk, made space for the new camera bag on a shelf and sorted out some books, but then I discovered three boxes of photos from my childhood and early days ( before digital).

Robbi the magpie had a field day! I went through every photo pack and loose snaps that were there, took me two full on days. By the time I had looked at how life was ,gee didn't she look sweet in that one, and, he really hasn't changed all that much even now, I was a gibbering pool of "where has LIFE gone". Then it was reflection time, believe me that was cathartic and I realised that I do bang on in this forum and others about change a lot. Because that is how a life is made up, we change, circumstance /wealth, jobs/voting patterns/how we read and what/houses , gardens/routines/ cars/dress/likes-dislikes/music and opinions. I began to wonder about those folk who don't appear to change, some whose opinions are the same now that they were 30 years ago. Leaders in politics, union movements, civil servants,lawyers -judges. your neighbour who voted for Genghis Khan and still follows that dictum, the dogmatic folk we all know and sometimes loathe. We aren't of course, we follow our noses and vote with our feet, do we not?
Perhaps I do, sometimes, when it is necessary or a person I admire greatly comes up with a new direction. That I have effected great change in my life is a given, on looking back as I did( when clearing the cobwebs) change of a major nature appears in my life about every ten years. I then seem to lurch forward in the general direction of up, or going forward at this point in time if I were an MBA. Am I proud of my life, guess that I am somewhat, prejudices I have but few, give when I can, stand for the national anthem, as well as for old( and young) ladies.
The following I wrote yesterday in another forum, it was also as a direct result of my looking back into the future.
how sweet it is I don't suppose that most of you know / remember where that phrase , how sweet it is, came from.Some of you do, good. Well for those that don't it is from the days of black and white TV and a show called the 'Honeymooners' starring Jackie Gleason. I first saw this when I was in the navy, as on ships of the USN most mess decks had at least one TV set. The "How sweet it is' line is a reference to life as the whole show was in fact a metaphor for just that. For an Australian at that time to see first hand ,immediately actually, an American show which portrayed life as it really was for some in the States, was a cathartic experience. We watched Hollywood films,read US magazines and hung off the every word of the US music industry.The Honeymooners was none of that, they had menial jobs and lived in very mediocre housing, but were in the most part ,happy and at peace with their lot. The show always ended up-beat and full of hope with Gleason slapping his thigh and saying "Well there you go, how sweet it is' That is what he was saying, how life really is sweet, family and the future really mean something, how it really doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do, and do it to the best of your ability Sure, it was TV, not real. When I talked to the American sailors I understood that this was their lives, most of then anyway, in their own small way they were all Gleason's and that was one reason the US is such a great country , then, and now. The picture I'm posting in no way represents much to do with America at the time of the Honeymooners, but is a pic I found in some old files from when we lived in the UK. The kids aren't ours, we just borrowed them for the day, but it is a time that for me was the start of my journey of understanding of where I was in life, and the Honeymoon is still happening, how sweet it is.

As a postcript the young lass in the picture is now 30 and an MBA, the young chap is mid thirties and an exec with a major cell phone company, the place was Warwick castle (UK) and I still have that shirt and jacket( what change?)

Yes Hortense it were a couple of intense days going through those photos, much ado about lots . You change Horty, all the time, but always for the better,but there again you started from a pretty good base too, whereas I was a naughty boy from way back. Great isn't it, what do I mean? life old girl just that .The pursuit of it ,yes indeed Horty and Gelato at Cocolat too, that always is part of the equation is it not. And "How sweet it is", you make it so Horty old girl.