Anniversaries
The first wedding anniverary is the paper anniversary. The third is the leather (I remember it fondly) and the tenth is the tin. Veterans of this marriage malarkey, Kate & I have passed the silver, the pearl, the jade and the coral and are resolutely heading for the ruby. Blimey - tempus bloody well does fugit. We haven’t amassed much silver, jade or coral and the pearls have long since been wiped away but jeeeez we have a shit-ton (sorry, that’s now a shit-tonne) of paper. Photos, books, receipts, brochures, programmes, manuals for white goods still in service, manuals for white goods long gone, guarantees, notes, Flock Comedy posters, business accounts etc... We’ve also got CDs, DVDs, pictures, nic-nacks, ornaments, tins of screws, tools, cables, old mobile phones, laptops, cameras and all the usual paraphanalia of modern living. Quite how we’ve amassed so much stuff, given that just five years ago we downsized from a large three bedroom town house on four floors - and five sheds - to a small two-bedroomed flat. In 2016, to facilitate that move, we got rid of 80% of everything we owned… and now we have to do it all again. Bin bags full of rubbish, lugging books to Oxfam trips to our handy, local recycling centre (just 15 or so miles away) at Alkerton - what a dump! This time it’s ready for life aboard Dædalus in just three week’s time - I estimate that we have to get rid of 95% of what’s left.
I must admit that I am stressed. I’ve always hated paper, admin and anything associated with it! Going through every sheet of paper and indeed everything we own to justify it’s potential place on our new 67’ x 6’10” home is hard going. And it’s bloody distracting. You can lose a good two hours looking through old photos, “Oh look there’s Evie jumping in puddles! Wasn’t that near Hatton flight? Or was it Tardebigge locks? Let me think, what year was it that we were caught in that really heavy rainstorm?” “Well it must have rained look at those puddles!”
So we ended up just shovelling our photos into a box and sending them off to reLOVE Photos a digital scanning service*. Nearly 3,000 of them! About a week later we received a link to a collection of online albums from where we can view digital facsimiles and download them. We opted for high-resolution scans and paid about £300 in all which included postage, (both ways, if you want the photos back) recycling the old photos and scanning. Photos less than 5cm x 5cm need hand scanning and cost £1 a time. The service is brilliant and means I can now do the sorting at my leisure once aboard the boat. I intend to name tag, geotag and date the photos, ten at a time, on a daily basis - it’ll only take a year!
With fewer distractions from photos I can now sort through my extensive pile of theatre programmes, autographed concert programmes and signed books of which I have hundreds. Each glance sparks a conversation about who we’ve seen perform and who we have met. I have a copy of Cider with Rosie signed by Laurie Lee who I met at Foyles in the late ‘80s, The Remorseful Day signed by the wonderful Colin Dexter at the first ever Chipping Norton Literary Festival and I’ve just come across this inscription to Kate in Death Message by crime writer Mark Billingham:
We’ve just had our alabaster - 37th - wedding anniversay and I am wondering what the 38th might be - possibly the penultimate?
*If you want to use the reLOVE Service quote this code: 1086000 and we’ll both get a gift (I’m hoping for something digital - the last thing I need is anything that could clutter up my boat!)