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

[Doolhof]

Hi Croix and to all reading,

I like your story about the wildlife photographers! It reminds me of the couple I know who went to a place known as "Nature's Paradise". They returned stating they had about 300 photos to show me. I was looking forward to seeing the beauty of the place they had visited. Every photo was a close up selfie! You couldn't see any glimpse of the place they had been to!

No doubt they had wonderful memories of their holiday.

I do like to take out some of my photo albums from decades ago and look at the photos of people and places I have visited.

Friends gifted me a holiday to stay with them for two weeks decades ago. I cherish those memories and the photos that were taken to help recall all we saw and experienced while together.

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Croix, Dools and All,

Croix, I found your description of the wildlife photographers hilarious. They can get so wrapped up in getting ‘the shot’ they’re barely seeing and engaging with the actual animal. It must have been a perplexed and disappointed duck.

As someone who does wildlife and landscape photography myself, I try to connect first with a place before I start photographing anything in it. 12 years ago I was visiting the town I now live in. I’d spent 7 hours at a coastal location I love, connecting with the birds, the crabs scuttling about, the plants, the impressive rocks, the beautiful winter light etc. I was in my element in a kind of flow with the landscape. Late afternoon I started setting up my tripod and camera to photograph the sunset. I’d just taken the first few images. A large 4WD ute screeched to a halt in the car park. A guy leapt out with a telephoto lens and ran around like crazy snapping like a mad man. It was as if he was wielding a weapon. He was literally there for just 5 minutes before jumping in his ute and screeching off again. So much for peacefully enjoying the sunset 😂

Recently I visited another area near that one. There were many cormorants sitting on a rock. I was quite unwell and ended up lying down using my camera bag as a pillow and was there for about 3 hours. I soaked up the coastal atmosphere, sounds of the waves and warmth of the sun. I then felt a little better and took some images of the cormorants who by now were used to me as part of the furniture. So I find connecting to a place first is really important. Particular animals even get to know you over time and that you aren’t a threat. I kind of merge with the environment.

Dools, I enjoyed your story too. Yes, the selfie seems so important now. I guess they are remembering themselves in that place, but it’s funny that the place doesn’t really feature in the photos. I agree, it is lovely to have photos from the past that help us remember things we saw and experienced.

[Patches63]

Hi everyone,

first trip to Phillip Island.  I was mid primary school. Mum, dad, my eldest cousin who is 9yrs older than me and myself.  Sleeping in a tent, internal walls divided into four rooms. Mum cooking on open fire.  My cousin and I walking on the beach and kicking the water up as it wrapped around our ankles.  Going out in small boat with my dad and my cousin, my cousin carrying me back in to shore (I can’t swim and have fear of water).  4 of us sitting on the beach at night huddled up together under blankets watching the penguins come in and head toward their burrows.

Pleasant, relaxed, happy times 

[Eagle Ray]

I loved that description of your time on Phillip Island, Patches. I could just imagine it as you were describing it. So good to have those memories.

[Patches63]

Hi everyone,

Dools you reminded me of the photos and slides I have, the oldest photos being of my grandparents on their wedding day in 1926. My mums youngest sister was very talented and hand painted some of the photos.  Photos of my mum and her siblings as they were growing up etc.

I enjoy looking through the photos, especially those taken years ago.

seeing how things have changed over the years plus helps refresh my memories of happier times.

precious irreplaceable pieces of paper showing snap shots in colour, or black n white, of times and events in the past.

Patches

[Patches63]

as I sit and recall this memory I find myself smiling and laughing.
I would have been mid primary school. My mums youngest sister was bedridden by then and her bed was in the lounge room.  My aunt had grown up owning dogs and missed having a dog for company.  Friend of hers found out one day but said nothing.  She came to my grandmothers house one day carrying something small that was mainly wrapped in a blanket.  As she walked into the lounge room she bent down, opened the blanket and let this little thing stand on the floor.  She looked at my aunt and told her it was hers, my aunts friend had brought her a very timid young chihuahua.  My units friend quickly picked up the dog, took it over to my aunt and placed it on the bed at which the dog immediately nosed her way under the top blanket and lay there.  She was gold in colour with some white patches and was named Goldie.  Over time Goldie came to realise no one was going to hurt her and she had all the food and love she wanted.

I remember my grandmother giving her a bone in the kitchen that was half the size of her.  Goodie grabbed the bone and took it up to the lounge room where she started chewing on it.  She wasn’t allowed to have bones in the lounge room and Goldie knew that.  My mums brother stood up and started to walk toward her at which Goldie grabbed the bone and dragged it under the bed.  As my uncle bent down to reach under the bed Goldie starting growling, my uncle stopped.  My dad said he would get Goldie out, same thing happened.  Here was 2 grown men standing wondering how they were going to get this little dog from under the bed.  
I walked toward the bed and got down of hands and knees to which Goldie growled at me.  Difference was I didn’t stop.  I crawled under the bed until I had one end of the bone in one hand and then started crawling out slowly.  Goldie had the other end of the bone and was not letting go.  Just as my grandmother entered the lounge room Goldie and I were both out from under the bed, Goldie continuing to growl.  My grandmother starting laughing and said to look at Goldie’s tail.  This little dog had bluffed 2 men, had one end of the bone in her mouth, was growling and was happily wagging her tail.  My grandmother called Goldie by name at which she dropped the bone and ran to my grandmother for a pat.  The noise was all bluff.

Patches

[quirkywords]

I like the posts here very interesting stories.

On Monday I spent a day with 5 year old grand daughter going to a maratine museum. It is wi der seeing life through the eyes of a 5 year old. 

[Croix]

Dear All~

ER I really like the way you absorb the nature around you and then take photographs. I guess not only do they give you a reminder but it allows you to really see what you wish to record, unlike the guy who rushed up and took a few random snaps.

I've another memory, which sort of has to do with nature (snow). I lived at one stage at the end of a small country road and had to walk about 1k to get to a cross-roads where I caught the first of two busses ot school.

In the summer it was light and interesting, birds, rabbits and even once a stoat. But in the winter, with darkness all around, nothing ot see but bare branches and slush on the road. My shoes and socks were soaked by the time I got to the bus

I used to toast my feet on the bus heater, which was pretty OK,

The same deal on the way home except for some reason it tended to be scary, those branches almost alive.  Not that good an experience

But

One thing was excellent. My parents gave me a sturdy ex-army waterproof torch to see the road in the dark, which worked well and banished threatening shapes, but had another even better use. My parents forbade me to read in bed and made sure my light was out, so - and you can guess what is coming - that torch came in very handy for reading under the blankets, stuffy but enjoyable

Of course this ate batteries and my parents were always puzzled why a perfectly ordinary torch could use so many:)

Croix (the well-read:)

[mmMekitty]

Oh, Patches, that was so funny! I can easily imagine two grown men in a stand-off with a little chihuahua, & the bone ... looks like a cartoon picture in my mind.

Croix, I can recall tryong to read via torch light, only I found it quite uncomfortable to read while lying in bed.

I had been given a small transistor radio, which fit ithe palm of my hand. I enjoyed listening to that radio, tucked under my ear, late at night, when I could hear radio stations from Victoria. I was in S.E.Qld. It was one night, while listening to 3Kz that I first heard Joni Mitchell, & I pretty much fell in love with her voice & music.

Hugzies to everyone

mmMekitty

I'm very much enjoying the memories everyone has left here.  

[Croix]

Dear MK (and ER if you are in range)

I agree reading under the blankets is not ideal, stuffy and uncomfortable, however it was all there was.

There was a radio, but it was cabinet sized (with a "Cat's Eye" tuning device) and only played 2 stations unless one wanted ot try for Radio Luxembourg, which was the only one with pop music available but faded in and out depending on atmospheric conditions.

Reading opened up a whole world far outside the British Public School environment and was worth the discomfort.

I remember that later on of course there were the pirate radio stations in international waters, they were on ships and disused forts outside the 12 mile limit. I believe Kenny Everett started his career as a disc jockey on one. They were certainly different from  the BBC

Croix