Saturday 12 August 2017

The BIG Trunk

I bought a BIG silver trunk and that's where all my letters and memorabilia will be going.





Today's the day. Having spent most of the summer holiday ( aka monsoon season ) sorting through and re-reading each and every letter, card and notelet, consigning every carefully penned message to its assigned folder, I am now going to attempt one last cull before those I that have survived the cut will be bundled into the trunk and who knows when or even if I may ever open it again.

The task has been overwhelming. I am a die-hard sentimentalist. The reading of sweet, kind words, notes of encouragement, congratulations and commiserations at every milestone of my life so far has left me an emotional wreck. I have learnt more about my younger self than I ever realised at the time.

So, one least day to get this done and then I can move on. But before I do, I want to document one bizarre co-incidence. One afternoon , I had settled into a chair to read another pile of letters, this time from my mother who died over 30 years ago. She wasn't one for lengthy letters but what she did write always made me laugh out loud. She seemed forever to be sending me £5 notes, urging me to buy 'nice food' and telling little anecdotes that would end with a phrase such as " well ... you know what your Dad's like " . I could almost see her eyes roll heavenwards as she wrote it . This particular letter asked me how I liked the chair she'd given me for my newly purchased house in Greenwich. She told me that it was 'wasted' in their hallway and that it was called a library chair. It was the very chair I was sitting in as I re-read that letter three decades later. How strange and unlikely was that ?





Edited to add ...



Job done - thank the Lord . Now I can get back to the here and now.

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