It's been a funny Christmas. The first since we were first married where Robin and I have been on our own. Our seriously adult children each have had their own Christmas with their own partners and their own children. 1,000 miles separate us all.
So for me this Christmas has been one of memories. Christmas as a marker of the stages of my life.
I have reached back to do my best to recall the first Christmas I can remember - 1953 - where I was - in an appartment in Montreal on Victoria Avenue. Close to where I have ripped this picture from Google Maps. I know I am close in this view towhere I lived because the old fire station is just down the road. The fire station is my memory marker.
I was 3 then and next year the family would move to England and our lives would be shaped by that event like no other.
Note the stair cases here. My mum used to tie me up in my snow suit with what now seems like a dog harness for an airing. It was a different time!
What I got for Christmas - a hammering bench. Funny - my grandson Alfie aged 9 months got one this year too!. I think that these have not changed at all.
Life has a circularity.
In 1977, when we had just had our daughter Hope (mother of Alfie), we lived in an appartment on the next parallel street, Grosvenor.
I won't go on - this has been an experiment in memory aided by technology. It has been fun to go back and use the web to bring the memories to life. In particular I am enjoying how Google Street View can take me back to places that mean a lot to me.
