A conversation here at home this morning with my Hero was prompted by a report on TV showing the “digital unrolling” of a scroll found at Herculaneum. We’d chatted about this following our visit to Naples on our cruise last year, around the same time as an earlier scroll had been opened. Scholars hoping for a great insight to events of the time were somewhat disappointed, I believe, to find writings on epicurean philosophy instead. We joked about how disappointed anyone would be if they unravelled the contents of our bookshelves, most of which contain few titles of academic interest.

They’d be fine if they were researching railway history…

Or if textile arts and needlecraft were their thing. But our bookshelves would, I imagine, hold little interest for any historian of the future.

Except…

I am a memory keeper and there in our music room are twenty two albums containing the story of our lives since Autumn 2012.

I had been taking a photograph a day for several years, as a visual diary of what was going on around here, saving them to a free blog, when I came across the concept of Project Life. This “system” of recording daily events using photographs and stories to accompany them seemed to be right up my street and in no time at all, I had bought a starter pack and off I went.

I soon found myself completing a double page spread each week, stuffing the pockets with photos, cards with stories to accompany them and other ephemera like shopping lists and till receipts from the supermarket. I asked myself what I wish my Grandmother had saved for me to see and started from there. One album contained six months of pages and I was hooked.

We have always enjoyed looking through them from time to time and this morning, for the purposes of this post, I took a random album to photograph; the first half of 2015.

The first page is focused on Hamburg, for we were celebrating Edward’s birthday there.

In addition to photographs (which may also be found here) some of the printed cards which came with the Project Life materials were useful prompts for recording everyday events which would otherwise be forgotten. These three cards brought a smile to my face this morning, for I’d clearly felt pleased with myself that day!

A little further in I spotted some photos from a workshop I taught for refugees in Wrexham. Strangely, one of those photos had popped up on my phone a couple of days ago, making me realise that it’s ten years ago this week since that day.

So it was unsurprising to find a photo of my m-i-l Bettine’s 90th birthday a bit further on into the album. She will turn 100 this year. Also on that page, the first washing drying outside and the first grass cutting of the year as well. The card marking the observation that I had made my own bed suggests we might just have returned from holiday too!

And so it goes, to the final page at the end of June.

With 21 more albums like that one already there on the shelf, yesterday I had opened #23 for January - June 2025.

Yes, I have been very slow in getting started this year. Normally, I like to keep up and usually set aside an hour on a Saturday morning to print out a few photos and stuff the pages. It’s a fairly quick and easy process that I try not to overthink. But this year, I had other things on my mind.

Because, as regular readers will know, I make a Christmas journal each year too. With seventeen of them on the shelf; one for each year since I began, I couldn’t possibly not make one for this year. After all, it was Arthur’s first Christmas!

But it’s not quite finished yet. All the pages are there, the photographs are in and it’s nearly done. But not quite.

And now, I have something else on my mind. We’re about to set off on another adventure. Yes, of course, I make a travel journal of each trip too!

What’s a memory keeper to do?