Planet Mad

Warning: whimsical ramblings...

When I was living with my parents, my bedroom had a floor-to-ceiling pin board next to the door. I’d stick anything of significance to this board - notes, pictures, tickets or just things that were reminders of a particularly good day. Last year I finally succumbed to my mother’s nagging to clear the junk from my room, so I took everything down and put it in a carrier bag, which has sat under a table in my sitting room since that day. The domestic tidy-up here on Planet Mad continues unabated (except when I am distracted by things I’ve not seen for years and feel a nostalgic urge to look over them again) and I decided that today was the right time to tackle The Bag.

First out of The Bag were 3 McDonald’s flags. I’m pretty certain that they were “borrowed” on the day of my last concert with Staffordshire Youth Orchestra, when lots of us went to McDonalds between rehearsal and concert. One of my greatest regrets is that I’ve lost touch with every single one of the people from County, even though we were such good friends. The only person I’m still in touch with was a member of the Wind Orchestra (boo, hiss) and I only really know him through Scouts. Maybe a reunion is called for…?

Next from The Bag came numerous friendship bands, followed by loads of tickets. There are bus tickets from my first real ‘dirty weekend’ in the Lake District and travel passes from trips to the Big Bad City where we would hang around outside the sex shop behind Toys R Us daring each other to go in. Concert tickets abound in The Bag, ranging from the BBC Philharmonic to The Sultans of Ping, via The Cranberries and The Wonder Stuff and lots of tiny local bands that are no longer in existence. I could only have been about 13 years old for some of them – I have no idea how I persuaded my parents to let me go. I’ve even got tickets to college balls from university: good days.

There are a number of notes in The Bag too, scribbled on scraps of paper, on the back of chewing gum wrappers, on bus tickets. One reads

I would like to express my sincere apologies for slobbering over you (so Sarah tells me) and I hope you will, with time, forgive me. Lots of love, Stuart

I have no idea who Stuart is, but apology accepted, anyway.

All of these things are understandably deserving of their place in The Bag. What confuses me, though, is the fact that I had a folding plastic spoon stuck to the board. Why? And what possessed me to pin up a picture of a cookie cut from a magazine? Such are the great, unanswered questions of today. Obviously being on holiday has addled my brain cell. It’s just a good job I resisted the temptation to read my old diaries…