A distant memory

It may surprise you, but when I first started writing this blog, one of the early comments received was along the lines of "...so little to say, so many words to say it in!", which to be perfectly honest hurt me a little.
However, I suppose that yesterday's blog entry was, some might say, another example of this.
The "passage" is repeated below, but this time with the lyrics of Memory, inserted at the relevant points, by way of a demonstration of how life can, at times, imitate art!

By way of a rather convoluted "link", it is sometimes quite amazing how our memory works, or on occasions doesn't.

Yesterday I was completing an 'on-line' form at work which required me to enter my home address and I instinctively started to type the address of the house (in Wiltshire) that we moved out of over 13 years ago!
Maybe our return there the other weekend had a deeper psychological effect on me than I realised.

There was also the time when someone close to me entered a competition to create a new slogan for advertising Marmite.

Her brilliant entry was "Marmite, the growing up spread that even grown-ups never grow out of!"
This creative, descriptive, succinct slogan could have spawned a new career in advertising...but for the fact that it was in fact the existing slogan for Marmite!

Memory can for some, or maybe it's just me, be triggered by smells.

Memories of a visit to my Aunt & Uncle's house in Beeston, Nottingham in 1970 (ish) can be triggered by the smell of a certain type of plastic, due to the fact that I was collecting 1970 Football World Cup England figurines at the time, and we stopped at a petrol station (Esso?) on the way to get some.

So I can remember an event 37 years ago just by sniffing a bit of plastic, but can't remember where I currently live!

Forgetting where you put things can also cause some problems.

A good friend of ours once took a chicken, that she was cooking out of the oven, to check on its progress, and then put it back to finish it off. When the cooker timer rang some time later she went to get it out of the oven, but it wasn't there...mainly because after she had checked on it earlier she had put it back...under the sink!!!

And as we end the week we can only wonder at: -

• the poor memory of Peter Hain, the former UK Work and Pensions Secretary, who resigned after "forgetting"to declare £100k of donor's money;
• the poor memory of the Societe Generale trader who appears to have forgotten what he did with £3.6 billion (I wonder if he's looked down the back of his sofa, because it is amazing what you can usually find there);
• the poor memory of Kevin Keegan, the new Newcastle United football manager who recently said that he would never return to football manager;
  

BACK TO YESTERDAY'S ENTRY

Unlike on New Year's Eve when we watched the London firework extravaganza surrounded by 700,000 other revellers, last night, as I went for a late night walk, [MIDNIGHT] all around me was quiet.

Not wanting to spoil this air of tranquility I walked slowly and silently. [NOT A SOUND FROM THE PAVEMENT] Up above, the moon [HAS THE MOON LOST HER MEMORY] shone in a hazy night sky with no sign of any stars [SHE IS SMILING ALONE] and I was even unable to make out the features of the man, (or woman), in the moon.

Whilst just after midnight, the streetlights still shone [IN THE LAMPLIGHT], with some old and decaying leaves from surrounding trees, (despite the fact that Autumn is theoretically long gone), still swirling around my feet [THE WITHERED LEAVES COLLECT AT MY FEET] , as a gentle breeze started to build [AND THE WIND BEGINS TO MOAN].

[MEMORY, ALL ALONE IN THE MOONLIGHT] Such solitude made thinking easier, and whilst life is so good now, I wondered if I'd ever look back with fonder affection of days gone by [I CAN DREAM OF THE OLD DAYS]. It wasn't that I couldn't remember happy, and some might say beautiful, times [LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL THEN], I could, but I wondered whether such recollections were, or would, eventually become better than the present reality? [I REMEMBER THE TIME I KNEW WHAT HAPPINESS WAS] No doubt I'll dream about this walk one day and re-live these memories again [LET THE MEMORY LIVE AGAIN].

As I walked, the regularity of the streetlights in the distance appeared to flicker [EVERY STREETLAMP SEEMS TO BEAT] in the growing mist, like slow beating hazard lights, emitting some kind of fatalistic warning [A FATALISTIC WARNING].

It appeared as though I wasn't alone in the moonlight for as I turned the next corner a dog-walker (odd looking face) passed me and quietly muttered "'Evenin'" [SOMEONE MUTTERS] as the streetlight above us spluttered [AS THE STREETLAMP SPLUTTERS] and went out, plunging us into temporary darkness. His dog (who he called "Lord") apparently oblivious to the many cats that were silently roaming the streets at this late hour. [SOON IT WILL BE MORNING]