Sunday 4 May 2014

making memories in mullindress

This weekend I'm making memories. Lots of them. I'm snaring everything that moves and stocking it up, packing as much as I can into the soles of my shoes and the salty roots that are snaking below the foundations of Mullindress. Now don't be thinking I'm greedy, these moments aren't all for me, I'm going to share them, and one day my children will pass them out like playing cards, photographs of the past shuffling from their hands to the chosen others, past meeting present and continuing to grow and forage into the ether.

I'm with mum and dad for the weekend, their first stay in the new house at Mullindress. They brought the past in through the tall glass doors, my dad shaking 80 years of his own memories from his shoulders before peeling off his overcoat and unfurling the recollections of his parents too, decades that stretch far into the distance and yet all the while crossed the threshold of my door mat last night.

Readers of this blog will know that my house at Mullindress has been built from hard work, passion and a love of my heritage. Dad was born in the house that guards us from it sentry point a few hundred yards up the single-track road, mum travelled with him to the island for the first time more than 60 years ago, and together they walked the treads of Mullindress's paths and enjoyed the craic within the framework of walls constructed in another time, which are now of the same place.

"The dresser was just there on that back wall" says dad, "we had a right laugh listening to all the old stories" says mum.

Their stories, our stories, forever-more stories. Memories made and shared and blessed by the sun rising from the east.