I really don’t like January and February - I tend to get the blues.
Not depressed, but blue. It’s the constant grey skies, the icy wind and the bloody rain. I mean, just how much rain do we seem to have?
It’s around this time that I begin to find things to do. Now I’m not doing as much acting work this year so this should be the perfect opportunity for me to relax, unwind and enjoy doing all the things that I used to enjoy doing.
So, I thought it would be a really good time to have a gander through all my craft things.
At the beginning of the year, when we’d had all the wind, I’d gone out for a walk and collected blown-down branches - the smaller ones that I could carry, of course - with every intention of making something with them. And yes, I still have them in the bag, just waiting for me to get my act together and do something with them.
But in the meantime, as I was searching for all my craft stuff, I came upon all my photos. The ones that for the last few years - by that I mean the last 30/40 years - I had been meaning to sort out and put into albums.
I honestly do not believe that it’s just me that has boxes full of photographs from years and years ago. I think that collecting photos is an age thing; when we were young there were no mobile phones and laptop where we could store all our photos. Like the younger generation do now…
Hell no! I can even remember having to take the film out of the back of the camera and take it into the shop to be developed. In my case, I could guarantee that most of them were blurred…
At least now we can look through the photos on our phones and just delete the ones we don’t want.
Anyway, back to the boxes. I tell you no lie, there must have been a thousand, easily. Stemming from old ones of my mum and dad and me and my sister and brother, to my kids when they were young all the way through to our grandkids growing up.
Where the hell did all these photos come from, and more to the point what the heck was I going to do with them all? No-one would want to tackle this job.
Slowly, one by one, I began to sort them into categories. Old photos, photos of Macey, Isabel, Olivia, Amelia and Georgia, were all put into their own piles.
Then of course there were photos of friends, and the piles went on and on and on.
I had to then go and buy several photo albums to start the job of putting them in. It’s taken ages, but I finally feel that I am now on top of it.
The question is this: how can one woman collect so many photos? Is it normal for one woman to collect so many photos? I fear these questions may never be answered and I will soldier on.
As for the craft box and twigs, they will just have to wait until I have a spare minute, although I cant see it happening for a while yet…