One thing is for sure: I will never forget in which year the 3GKili challenge took place. I will, I hope, always know that it took place in the year in which Oscar became a teenager. I hope I will also always know that it was about Kilimanjaro and that I will not become confused about which mountain it was.
However, it seems I cannot be so sure about some other things that have happened in my life. When planning our recent holiday to Charmouth, we knew that our group had been on holiday in the town before, but we were absolutely certain, having looked at the address of the house, where it was on the map and having discussed it among ourselves, that it was quite some distance away from where we had stayed before and therefore we would have an altogether different starting point for our walks.
It was only as we drove into the grounds of the house we had rented that we got the feeling that maybe we had been there before. The outside looked remarkably familiar – but perhaps there were two fairly similar houses in the town? The house we were renting this time boasted fifteen bath/shower rooms. The one we had before had only half a dozen – but could they perhaps have added a few? It was only upon entering it that we were certain that it was in fact the same house. As soon as we clocked the dining room table, we knew it had to be. The entire dining room is taken up with the most enormous roundish table – probably about ten feet in diameter – and everyone has to sit around the edges. There is no way anything can be passed across the table – no human being could reach across without clambering on to it. There could not be two such tables! I remember on the initial visit climbing on to the table – when no-one was about to see me lying prone on it – to remove the vase of dying daffodils from the centre and then again to replace it with fresh ones. This time there was a vase of rather nasty red plastic flowers in the middle. It was a couple of days before I got enough privacy to replace it with a vase of the lovely bluebells and wild garlic growing in the garden.
We have tried to work out in which year we were in Charmouth before. We know it wasn’t 2001, as that is the year we missed because of foot and mouth disease restricting movement and walking in country areas. I had to send a message out to some of the original group who can no longer walk long distances, to see if anyone remembered. What short memories we have for relatively recent events! Happily, someone has now told me that it was in 2000 that we were originally there: she remembers because she arrived a couple of days late due to attending her father’s funeral.
We have always tried to ring the changes with our group holidays and to find new locations. However, it has become increasingly difficult in recent years because we are not now willing to be packed in three or four to a room with shared bathrooms. We all want our own rooms and en suite facilities, and that is not easy with twenty people. But Ken has come up with a great idea. He says we should choose the best four or five houses we have stayed in over the years and just rotate them. By the time the house comes round again, some of us may have forgotten we have ever been there and we are absolutely certain to have forgotten what walks we did on the previous occasion. We have got to reap some benefit from old age and failing memories, after all!