One of the best memories of my childhood are the long walks I used to go on with my grandfather. This was in England during the 1950's and 60's. We lived in a small village in the heart of the Devonshire countryside and, being surrounded by rivers, woods and fields, gave life an almost magical feeling. The feeling that nothing would ever change. But of course, it did. Life has a habit of changing when you least expect it and you try to hold on to it for as long as possible, knowing full well, that it will only exist in your mind. It all sounds a bit sad really, but one consolation is that you got to live through it. You had the privilege of enjoying something for a fleeting moment in time that nobody else knew or cared about. The memory of sleeping in a huge four poster bed in a manor house and wishing that you could stay there forever. Impossible to value in a material world and yet it means the world to you. You do have the memory of better times. Times when the world stood still and all you could hear was the sound of the wind through the trees and the birds singing. The smell of damp earth and woodsmoke. Blue skies and white fluffy clouds straight out of a picture book. All gone forever. Beautiful times that made me feel special with an innocence destined to fade all too predictably. Even sadder, I can feel those memories slipping away slowly from me too. Memory, hold the door.
