Abalone

Spent the evening removing the 10,000 images dumped on my external hard drive with no folders or EXIF data and then resaving some in folders from iPhoto and deleting from computer which is too full of photos to work properly. Laborious . Need new external hard drive so I can just start using time capsule I think. So once again , 23.00 and its 'eek no blip yet' I headed for the cabinet of things that cannot be thrown away . This Abalone shell was bought on a lovely holiday to Cornwall when I was about 8 or 9 ( a considerable amount of time ago) long before I knew about things like Cites. I have a few shells of shame from that era. It is amazing that the colours are still so beautiful after so many years. I can still remember buying it in a small shop in Polzeath probably long since turned into a wine bar.Dad used to use one of those crazy wooden surf boards . We used to stay with an old couple called Mr and Mrs Brimacombe who rented out half their bungalow in the summer. It was called Catbells. We stayed there a few years running and used to be allowed back into their rooms some evenings. They were lovely people. Mrs B would play the piano and we would sing along to 'The Isle of Capri' and 'Oh my Darlin' Clementine' Dad and Mr B woud have fierce Scrabble contests. One year we took a dog , two cats and a hamster with us. How on earth Dad fitted everything in the car I have no idea. I'm just chuckling to myself now at the mental images.
Good old blip.