Mum

This is a cross stich of Conwy Castle, it's on the wall above the desk where I am currently typing this blip. It's been hanging there for as long as this room has been my office at home. It reminds me of mum, who's anniversary is today. 

Like dad, her 22nd, and like the castle somehow it doesn't really change, the number just goes up now year by year. Part of me is glad, as those early anniversaries weren't great days but now their memories are more fixed, and worryingly getting vaguer, but the good ones are like the castle and will be with me forever.

Not sure when she did this, but there was always a knitting and sewing bag by her chair, something that happened for her, normally while the TV was on.

Jumpers, which she often made 2 of, one for me and one for my friend Nick (children of the 70s), dresses from a pattern, crochet blankets, squares for some charity thing - always some output on the go. Whatever happened the clattering of needles always seemed to make her happy. It was her thing.

That and chocolate cake, with a soggy middle. Later it was pottering in the conservatory and growing stuff from seed. She had these quiet passions.

Anyway, back to Conwy, I've spent a lot of time there and have always had a strange feeling of home about the place. I've learned that mum spent a lot of time there too as a child on holiday, and the majority of the pics I have of her as a youngster are there. I've blipped them (see last year). 

Her and dad when there too, in 1969 - I've got the train tickets (see yesterday's blip). I may have been the result of there...We had a family holiday there and stayed at the Castle Hotel when young kids, me and my sister, one of my early memories.

Then there is Newcastle, Geordieland, where I've always felt at home. She went to Uni there, I did, and now her granddaughter is there. Whenever I go there, I have the same feeling as Conwy, the same feeling as the part of Ashton where she grew up. A closeness.

Those are the places that remind me of mum most, it may be all in my mind, but it may be something else. I'm going with something else.