New Aberdour Beach (and a lighthouse)

One of my favourite ways to spend an evening is to be sat around a table with my brother, Wol, and my older daughters, listening to him tell them stories from when they were small. Sometimes I remember the events as he tells them but other times I don't remember them at all. It's like opening an old box in the attic and finding it full of forgotten treasures.

Occasionally I wonder what it must be like to have a good memory. I don't mean for remembering things like 'phone numbers or birthdays, I can do all that, I mean for events and incidents that have happened. If memories are like libraries, my books are tatty and faded, unindexed, occasionally appearing in my hand unexpectedly as I sort through a nearby shelf. For my brother - and also my friend and colleague, Steve - it's more like those books are constantly thrusting themselves into their palms. What must the mental noise be like, I wonder?

(I'm not complaining about my brain, by the way; it may have a low spec memory but it does some stuff that never fails to surprise and impress me.)

I think that this is one of the reasons I love Blipfoto and also Instagram; they enable me to go back and see all the places I've been and things I've done over the last few years, starting on January 16th 2012. Often, on a given date, I'll go back and see what was doing on the same date in 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012, and I have lots of pleasant surprises. Every few months, I trawl through my Instagram posts and get the photos with the happiest memories made into fridge magnets. It's changed my life.

It does mean that whenever I get anywhere interesting I whip out my phone or camera but that also has the benefit of encouraging me to look around where I am and puts me more in the moment than I might have been otherwise. 

Today we went along the coast to a beautiful beach where I recorded the trance-inducing sound of the sea dragging over the pebbles as it receded, and then we went to the Scottish Lighthouse Museum, which might well have been interesting enough in itself but we had the bonus of a guided tour around the first lighthouse in Scotland by a guide whose enthusiasm for lighthouses almost made me swoon.

Today's photo is of the Minx on New Aberdour Beach, recording her own memories, just before we walked across the pebbles to investigate (but, as it turned out, not go into) an interesting looking cave.