About twenty years ago, I decided that photograph albums were boring. Even worse is having to feign interest when somebody shows you theirs.
(Since the advent of electronic cameras and mobile phones with cameras it has got far worse, because people don't come back with one or two rolls or film, they come back with hundreds of pictures which you are supposed to view on a tiny screen.)
But I had to do something with our holiday snaps. So what I did was get down to the bare essentials, a few photos of me and Her Indoors, the train tickets, the receipt from the hotel, the entry tickets to the museum, the front page from the gallery brochure, postcards etc, as much as would fit in a 40cm x 50cm clip frame. The rest got junked.
And I have kept going ever since and now have nearly a whole wall covered in these collages:
This has three main advantages.
1. It fills the original purpose of "keeping those treasured memories alive". You can look at pictures of your kids when they were small and cute etc.
2. If anybody asks where we went on holiday, I can just take down the frame and present it. If the person asking was just doing it out of politeness, they can pretend to look at the collage for thirty seconds, say something like "Ooh, that looks lovely." and pass it back with no offense meant and none taken. If they are really interested, because perhaps they have been to the same place or are considering going there, we can have a proper chat.
3. It cuts down on arguments over things like which year we went where, how many times we have flown with EasyJet, how many aquariums we ever have visited, whether we went somewhere for a long weekend or a whole week etc. All you have to to is go over to the wall (standing on the sideboard if necessary) and look.
Debate Magazine
