Tuesday 8 April 2008

You can never go back...

I'm feeling very retro today. I just signed up for milk delivery, so the ching of glass bottles shall soon be completely failing to wake me up in the morning. I sleep through thunderstorms, I don't suppose a few bottles is going to do it. I took pity on the guy knocking on doors and begging people to sign up and save the dairy. I thought he looked a bit odd from the window, but I think it was just the knackered fluorescent jacket he was wearing. Just as I was opening the door I started to think "What would I do if he did turn out to be a nutcase?" There's no chain on the door and I'm not sure a telephone directory is much of a weapon if it came to it. My usual defence is to ignore the door in the evening if I'm alone. I don't suppose more than 2 or 3 people a year call anyway. The advantages of a busy road and long driveways!

The weekend was also spent living in the past. I went back to my university with two of the people I shared a house with then. Very odd walking around somewhere so familiar 15 years later. They'd built a lot of new accommodation just to confuse us but it's basically the same place. After we'd finished grumbling about the beautiful looking rooms (and reminiscing about our grey breeze block monstrosity of a hall of residence) it all felt a bit strange. Same people, same place, different life. It was like searching for ghosts as we turned each corner, looking for the familiar but seeing only the new (and the younger....) That's probably the strangest part. I think living there now is probably much the same as when I was there. You don't often get the chance to see your past again, but life there continues much the same.

Saturday ended with the ultimate childhood experience, the new series of Doctor Who. The excitable butterflies are every bit as fluttery now as they were then!

2 comments:

Lane Mathias said...

It's weird going back to old haunts isn't it. A few years ago I went back to a student house I'd lived in (with 17 other people) that we called Hammer House. It had been completely gentrified. I think students have higher standards today:-)

Enjoy the luxury of having milk delivered. If you've got a long drive, less chance of it being nicked:-)

Anonymous said...

I love going back to old haunts. When I went back to Scotland I was amazed how much my village had changed!!
Milk delivered! wow! thats so 70s! great idea though.
Oh yes! saw my old school in Hemel Hempstead...looks like Colditz!