This week one of the tasks I've set myself is to create a "memory book" for my Mum who has recently being diagnosed with dementia.  Photos not of high days and holidays, though there are a few of those, but mainly just snaps of family members through the years which can, hopefully, act as a prompt for conversations and, when memory eventually fails and we become as strangers, she will look at our photos and recall her middle-aged children.

The grainy black and white photo above was taken by one of my brothers aged about 7 on a little kodak brownie 127 camera.  My parents are stiting on the grass outside the 'Old Rectory' where we lived in one of two large four bedroomed flats.  In the background is the parish church where we would go on Mothers' Day afternoon for a children's service and return clutching posies of spring flowers (the rest of the time we went to the Methodist Sunday School).  I hope that by looking at the photo - and others - my Mum will be able recall days gone by... and I hope too that the majority at least of the memories stirred are good ones.

It's strange the things that this photo prompts in my memory, from the crunch of the gravel, to rain coming in through the walls, to the nights we sat around listening to stories before bed, to grazed knees and the smell of germolene, to the roses in the garden and the yew tree we climbed when no-one was looking.  Definitely a rose-tinted list there, but mostly the time at this house was, for me, happy, and it's good to remember.