Store Your Happy Memories Here:

[Croix]

Dear All~

What this place is for:
This thread is a tool, a resource, and also I guess a dash of entertainment.

I’ve found that when life is grim that sometimes thoughts of past happiness can create a chink of light in the grey overwhelming press of down. They can help occupy the mind with lighter reflections.

With that in view I invite people to set down a brief passage describing some happy event they look back to with fondness and peace.

They - and others too - can then return to it when they feel the need to glean a little warmth.

It is not a place for gloomy or dire tales, those can go elsewhere.

What to do:
Just set out, as simply as you like, your recollection of some past experience that means something good to you, something you enjoyed, something from safe times.

It can be, like my story below, anything – from an account of visiting grandparents to simply cooking and eating a melted-cheese sandwich in a favorite kitchen – you get to choose.

How to do it:
Write. Write enough so someone else can feel the mood, know what happened, find the goodness. (stop at 2,500 characters please!)

Grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation are not compulsory, just write as you can – the only important thing is the content - not literary merit. Short or long - it does not matter.


I hope you enjoy, contribute and find a little distraction here when you need it.

Croix

[Gruffudd]

Why I don't celebrate birthdays.

When I became 6 years old my mother thought it would be nice to invite the entire year from school. We had the week before moved house and I had begun at a new school. The worst thing about it was the teacher who couldn't cope with me spending time away from the other children at lunchtime and would insist that I play nicely with them.

So there they were arriving in their little party dresses each with a present in hand, all ready for crisps and lemonêd. I realised what was happening. The full horror descended on me. Happy children, people everywhere, so called fun and games such as pin the tail on the dragon. It was all a little too much.

There was only one thing that could be done. Calmly I picked up the birthday cake off the table. It was chocolate, lovely. I proceeded to climb a rather large tree taking the cake with me. Up there I had a vantage point perfect to observe the chaos below. My absence went without notice until after a devastatingly uncoordinated egg and spoon race when mother decided it was time for the singing of happy birthday.

They gathered around the tree and sang:
Penblwydd Hapus i ti
Penblwydd Hapus i ti
Penblwydd Hapus i Rhobat
Penblwydd Hapus i ti.

It was dad who suggested that it was time to share the cake.

I spotted a particularly annoying little girl in a white dress. I plunged a hand into the cake and threw a chunk at her. She let out a scream. I was delighted. Then it was a little boy's turn. Success. Fairly soon everyone was covered in cake.

Mother sensing disaster, upended a plate of jelly on dad. War had been declared. The fairy bread became airborne, chocolate crackles thudded on the side of the house as they missed their target, the cat decided it best to hide under the car but was made indignant by a rather large child wielding a bottle of Fanta.

Once everyone had left I made my way back to the ground and went inside. I saw my mother cleaning the cat and said to her, "never do that to me again."

[monkey_magic]

A happy memory is reading Croix's words on other's threads.

I love it as I think u make an impact on people.

Excellent job 🙂

[Croix]

Dear Steph~

First off thank you. For you to appreciate me means a lot. I always look at your posts - and your choice of music, and frankly admire you and your strength. I think you inspire others more than you might realize.

For me strength is not being able to plow though life, barley feeling it, but to be dragged right down and bring yourself back up - that's true strength.

The words of yours I mentioned passing on to another were, with your experiences, amazing: believing there were still good gentle males in the world.

Croix

[monkey_magic]

I agree Croix.. True strength is also getting "through" hard/ painful times never giving up & allowing all the tears to fall.

Happy memories for me are eating. Eating at home,eating out nom,nom,nom...

Whether its chocolate icecream,cheese cake,pizza, lasagna, all you can eat.

I eat salads, pork crackling, cheeses,fishes,fruits, vegetables.

Chinese,Greek,Italian,take away,tofu,chips,dips.

Food makes me happy!

[Gruffudd]

After a disturbing weekend dealing with my brother who is recovering from a brain injury I need a story to take me to a happier place.

Some years ago I was running a pizza shop in our little country town. Most nights a local homeless man came shuffling past muttering swear words as he made his way to a favourite sleeping spot in the civic square. One night I got the bright idea of offering him one of those surplus pizzas where my dislexia had won out on the order.

He came in grabbed it and left. On my way home through the square I saw it had been eaten and the box was in the recycling bin. Over the next few weeks he had a few more of my mistakes. The customers and the drivers started to notice him and chat about their days. He would listen, encourage, laugh... I got to know his name was Wayne.

A decade later I had moved on. I was listening to the radio, one of the food van workers came on, he used to be a driver at the shop. He said that Wayne had passed away, the community had got together and a funeral was being held for him. I decided to go, so did the rest of the town. Wayne had a lot going on in his life that lead to him living in the civic square. It was complicated. What he hadn't expected was that in listening and encouraging others he had become loved by so many.

He left us with one request, a shelter from the rain in our civic square. The vote at the shire was unanimous. Today over his favourite spot is a gazebo, BBQ, and picnic table. If you look closely there is a small brass plaque which dedicates the place to the memory of Wayne a citizen of our town.

[Gruffudd]

When I was at uni l lived on a 5 acre block In the north of the state. It was beautiful with steep sided golden hills and the sapphire blue lake.

It took a few months for me to concede that the the electric lawn mower was somewhat impractical. I got the bright idea of getting some sheep to mow the grass. I'm Welsh and here I can live in peace because the Sheep jokes are made about New Zealand. If you decide to do the same as me I advise locking the back door unless you want to arrive home to find your sheep spread across the lounge furniture watching News 24.

One evening I was upset and climbed the hill. I sat on a boulder with a view of the sun setting lighting the hills in gold and making the lake into a mirror. It was a good place for a cry. But before I could get too self absorbed I found myself surrounded by sheep. They seemed to sense something and were there to keep me safe and sound. That is something no electric lawnmower can do.

[Kazzl]

Hi Rob - y'know, I could happily read your stories all day. Love them, and you write beautifully. Thank you.

Kaz

xx

[Croix]

Y pysgotwr.
I used to walk from Nain and Tide’s house down the back lane, lined by tall grey dry-stone walls to Newfy-Fawr, the main street.

Past the tenement houses, all with brightly polished brass front step and lace-curtained front window.
I would reach the end and look out over the harbour. It was huge with the 2 mile long breakwater stretching around in the far distance as a protective arm.

There was a little stone pier, ‘L’ shaped. It had no rails, and a recessed set of bars I used to climb down to water-level to catch crabs.

As usual Ewen y morwr was down the far end, facing out to sea, sitting on his wooden white-painted bollard fishing. Also as usual were a set of hopeful gulls, standing flat-footed around him, not too near, but close enough to dart in if the opportunity arose.

The one-footed gull was there too. It only came in calm weather. Too hard to balance in a gusty breeze.

As usual Ewen had his bucket, rusty with a brass handle. His fishing gear was a short flat ages-old wooden board notched at either end. Round that he wrapped his line. To fish he laid his line out along the L of the pier, held one end, whirled the other and let fly. The splash would be so far out.

He’d slowly drag the thick green line in, pull it up and start again. Sometimes there’d be a fish which he drop into his bucket. More often just empty, or dragging seaweed. Occasionally the line snagged and broke. “Uffern gwaedlyd” He’s mumble, putting new weight and hook on the end.

He has special hooks, he made them himself - no barb. Once I asked him why?

“Well now boyo, I wouldn’t want to hurt the fish, now would I?”

At mid-morning, Ewen y morwr only came early, he would wrap his line, pour the rusty bucket full of seawater and fish back down into the sea and go home. If the one-legged seagull was there he’d flip it a fish, but all the rest went back.

Gruffudd has a gift, he has the ability to remind me to stress less and think of important things.

Croix

[Emmy.]

Thanks for sharing your stories Rob they're great!

I remember spending New Years Eve at my grandparents home in McMahons Point (think Sydney - on the harbour - can see the harbour bridge and opera house from every room ..yes even while sitting on the toilet looking out the bathroom window hehe).

My parents and sisters would always be so excited with the anticipation of the fireworks. I'm the baby in the family and thought very differently of those fireworks. I was super scared of the noise and all the light. I hated them.

I remember each year my grandfather taking me into a room furthest from the harbour and putting cotton wool in my ears and sitting me on his lap. Holding me and cuddling me. Telling me stories. Distracting me. Till the fireworks had finished. I felt safe.

For so many years he missed out on all the fanfare but he always use to say how much he loved that time, just the two of us together.

Miss him. He was such a loving a caring grandfather.

[Gruffudd]

I love all the stories here, mine I have heard before, yours give me the thrill of discovery.

Emmy, what a special memory of being cared for by your grandfather. I love that you are the youngest in the family, I am in mine.

Croix, you help with the hiraeth. Not many can do that, especially on this the first day of march. Pryd ydyn ni'n canu Sosban fach?

When Croix started this he said that it might be a good idea to store the good stories for a difficult day, he was right, I have trouble remembering them on the worst sort of day and having them here is a gentile reminder of better times.