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

[rustee_nails]

it was a nice night for london. just below freezing .a couple of dozen of us mid teens were in a 10 metre

divot in the biggest mass grave of the black plague doing our thing.booze,smokes & a pallet fire.

i went down the path in a shopping trolley ,stacked it right at the bottom, at speed, so i rolled out of it

and sat on its side drinking and smoking. the most beautiful woman i've ever known came and sat

close and started talking to me .every time my cigarette went out she'd give me another one until

after 4 or 5 she gave me the pack and told me she was quitting. i reminded her of that time a few years

later and she told me i was blind. she never gave up tobacco for a day of her teens. she was just so

impressed that i stacked it so hard but kept my beer upright and my cigarette between my teeth,

that she kept giving me her cigarette's afraid i'd walk away from her. she was my 1st & only love 'til i was 25.

[Gruffudd]

I have been moving house. I unpacked a vase today that is so special that I thought I should share its story...

In her dying days my grandmother took to her collection of vases with a sledge hammer. The family monstrosity passed down the generations and the more utilitarian were all shown no mercy. It was strange behaviour for a proper and somewhat rigid Edwardian lady. With each crash there were peals of laughter. No one could bring themselves to stop her because no one could remember her having smiled, let alone this raucousness.

As the pile of shares grew one vase seemed to be remaining intact. It was by Climpt an artist that was around in the 1920's. It was beautiful. The vase was a simple cone shape depicting a woman. The glaze had a lustre finer than any plate or bowl in the house. Its colour radiated to fill the room.

I spotted my grandmother in the hallway with the sledgehammer.

I heard the crash.

I heard her laughter.

I asked, "Why this one?"

My grandmother said, "It was beautiful but Climpt was not.
He treated women as objects rather than thinking and feeling people."

I didn't know my grandmother had opinions on women's rights, or anything for that matter. Though there were those photos of her with the aunties protesting to get women the vote.

She lumbered towards the sitting room where a particularly ugly hand painted vase depicting cows on a spring morning awaited.

I gathered up the broken pieces and put them in a box separate from the others. I found it difficult to agree that the world was a better place without the beauty of the vase even though it undoubtedly was made a better place by the passing of the artist who created it, if my grandmother thoughts that about him were the reality.

I took the box to a local artist who melted down gold and stuck the vase back together. Each piece of the vase could be seen outlined with the metal, it remained broken but was also whole again. The vase was more beautiful than before the sledgehammer had interrupted it.

My grandmother agreed that the vase was a new item in the house as her intervention with the sledgehammer and the artists work with the gold meant that the vase was no longer an object created by Climpt alone. To make matters more complicated because I had commissioned the reassembly of it, ownership was an open question that prevented an immediate execution. The vase returned to the hall where it reminds me everyday of when I saw an austere old woman having the best fun.

[rustee_nails]

i had a military grandma and always looked like one .

but i'll always remember the unique look on her face when she lit up a cigarette on her patio.

prisoners don't even look that content with a ciggie 🙂

[Croix]

Influence.
The boy is dressed in tight jeans, brown lace-up boots and a flecked rough wool jumper over a white shirt. He is not yet a teenager and slightly portly.

He looks at the entrance to the church, Norman archway is completely rounded. Walking to the aged door with curlicue hinges and pushes it open. Empty inside, not Sunday and Matins is memory. Incense still lingers.

Walking quietly down the vestibule to the nave, nodding briefly to the altar then turning and looking at the choir loft.

Climbing the polished wooden stairs to the loft past elaborate marble plaques citing virtues of those deceased local great families, he reaches the first stage, with pews, organ and a cunning arrangement of six ropes hitched to a timber on the wall. The ropes lead up towards the bell-platform and disappear into holes.

At the back by the west stain-glass window is a ladder. It’s made of two immensely long thin springy wooden tree-trunks with flat boards nailed across as rungs. It is old; the wood is white, the rungs powdery, the nails hand-made. A saint gazes blindly across from the window with raised hand.

The boy is reluctant but dragged on by stern roles models Bulldog Drummond, Dan Dare and Capt. J. Biggles he starts his climb. Hugging the ladder to him – it flexes disconcertingly - and staring fixedly upwards. The bell-platform approaches and then he is though the square hole and scrambling onto the wormy oak rafters. Relief pounds.

Here he sees the six bells, firmly held by rotten ropes - unable to swing round on their axles. The six ropes he noticed before lead to six hammers, one for each bell.

The clock, enormous, complicated, made of hand-drawn shafts and plates is silent. The winding piece broken with the wood handle splintered.

There is another ladder, much lighter than the first, with some rungs broken and hanging in two pieces off their nails. The boy, still wound spring-tight, ascends and putting his shoulder and head to the trap-door efforts it open till it swings back with a crash and shower of dirt.

Daylight floods all and the boy completes his climb, out onto the ridged lead sheets covering the roof.

He rests his hands on the battlements and looks down at the churchyard, the gravestones, the paths, the grass, the walls. There is a strong cold breeze.

Having his fill the boy turns, the trapdoor a mouth to a fresh journey.

Aftermath:
The boy looks up at the tower, proud of his successful daring deed done in the company of his heroes.

[Gruffudd]

I don't think there is a welsh child anywhere who hasn't loved the soft butter and spice and sweet fruit of the Welsh cake. The little pieces of heaven have been around from before my memory of things became in any way coherent.

At the age of seven after the untimely passing of a goldfish I became concerned about the mortality of everyone about me. I also became rather determined to learn how to make do when they eventually followed my little Moby Dick to the great ocean in the sky.

So I followed Nain around the kitchen and asked her to teach me how to make those Welsh cakes.

Cariad, she said, you make them with love... and 2 cups of self raising flour, 1/2 a cup of butter, the same of sugar, and 2/3 a cup of sultanas mixed with sugared peel, an egg, and don't forget the mixed spice. She opened the pantry and pulled out what was needed.

She got me to rub the flower butter and sugar into crumbs. We added the spice. Then dug a well in the centre to receive the egg and fruit. We mixed it to a firm dough. My arms were getting tired but I had to push on because if I didn't learn this I might die of starvation or misery in the future. The dough was rolled flat upon the counter to about the thickness of my thumb, and Nain helped me cut it into rounds using a glass.

Out with the electric frying pan cooking the little cakes on a low even temperature until brown on both sides. Then to let them cool, resisting temptation.

I have them for lunch at work quite often now, 30 years on. When people ask me what they are, I tell them Welsh cakes and when they ask what is in them, I say, Cariad, the most important ingredient is love...

[Croix]

Dear Rob,

Sounds a little similar to my Nain's bara brith, but without the tea. A happy memory for me too.

C

[Gruffudd]

I do like speckled bread. I got that out of her too. There is something incredibly Welsh about soaking currents in strong tea and marmalade for an hour or two at the start of a recipe.

[Guest_9809]

Hi Croix (and everyone else who contributes their happy stories here).

Croix I promised I would drop by and contribute some happy memories here. Sadly I havent got any to share yet. But I enjoy reading everyone elses stories so I have decided to post now so I dont miss any happy stories.

Please continue everyone ...........

Taurus xx

[james1]

Sitting beside a pond around midday. The pond is not far from a shopping centre but it's in a park and is relatively quiet with ducks and ibis' and cockatoos. It's not really a nice pond though because it has lots of bird poo and the water is very green.

I'm 14 and she's just 5 months older. We'd been friends by accident - talked a few times in primary school and played an online game (Runescape if you're wondering) together. Somehow we'd managed to bond purely over MSN Messenger conversations.

It was as awkward as a first kiss can get - awkward shuffling closer, awkward "what are you doing?"s, awkward tooth bumping - but I swear I was in the clouds when I walked home that afternoon.

[Gruffudd]

Sometimes I wonder if ghosts are real, my ghost story is a happy memory...

For a time after Easter we used to go to an old stone house perched on a cliff one end of the beach at Lorne. The holiday began with the sighting of the lighthouse at Aireys inlet followed by golden sand, rocks and ocean. The road wound around hill and pine until we found the narrow gravel driveway through the tree ferns that opened to a view of the town.

The house was simply furnished with a rounded Victorian table, iron beds, and looming chests of drawers. There was no electricity and the heating was by a grate in the parlour and the black wood fired stove in the kitchen.

Each day we tumbled down the steep cliff path to swim in the sea and then back up through the ferns for a picnic of pancakes with lemon and sugar sitting on a threadbare Persian carpet on the lawn. From there the cars could be seen winding their way along the great ocean road and the fishing boats unloading their catch at the pier down below.

At night I watched the moon rise over the sea before closing my eyes. One night there were strange voices that stirred me. I got up and made my way along the hall trying not to make the floor boards creak. In the parlour there was another family of three gathered around the fire. They were all wearing rather formal clothes, all starched, and the woman had a dress trimmed with lace, the man wore a morning suit as did the boy who was perhaps seventeen.

The boy had a letter. He opened the envelope and unfolded the paper. He read it out to his parents. It was from his cousin Mable in Ballarat who sent news of her admission into the teachers college and that they had been in receipt of a litter of puppies that were now looking to be distributed. One of the boards creaked and the man looked over. I don't think he saw me in the dark. I made my way back down the hall to my room and sleep.

The following day we had some new friends we had met on the beach up for pancakes on the lawn. We needed more carpet and decided to take the one from the parlour outside. While rolling it I found an old yellow envelope underneath. I paused to open it. Inside was a photograph of girls lined up wearing white dresses trimmed with lace, and on the back written in pencil, "Mable on her graduation day, 1912."