Back in the day, a summer holiday postcard from friends or family was an almost daily occurrence. I remember my mother having a long row on the mantelpiece, and I would stand on tiptoe to see them all. Most were of UK destinations, and most contained a reference to the weather.
Weather lovely!! Or: Weather mixed. Or (the most sinister): Weather very mixed. Which probably meant it had rained every day except one…

Nowadays, we whack off photos to our nearest and dearest every time we see something worth a pic, and sometimes when we see things not worth a pic, too. I could have done without the photo of the dead bird on the balcony, kindly sent by Son2 when he returned home a few days ahead of me one time. (To do him justice, he did remove it before I arrived.) Photos of drinks or dinners is another favourite, and we all get dozens of selfies of loved ones obliterating their holiday destinations. It’s all great fun, though I’m never sure whether to keep them or not. One ‘rule’ is, if it doesn’t have a person in it, ditch it, unless it’s truly earth-shattering. But then, what is a person?? (That’s Chicago down there, and two of those feet belong to one of my children…)

Last week, the weather in Switzerland was very mixed, so I started to sort through some old photo files. These were the ones I had on my old laptop when I unleashed a load of malware a year or two ago, and they contained scans of old family pics as well as more recent photos. I found them again on a frail and ancient stick that was a freebie from one of my English students, way back. There are some almost-forgotten gems here, too.

Not sure what’s in there…

I’ve worked though about a tenth of the files – wonder what else I’ll find? Watch this space.

One image I was really pleased to get last week was the file for my new book cover – and here it is:

Thank you Bloodhound Books! (More about this later.)

Meantime, big thanks to Alison, Helen and Geoff for their guest posts about Greece, France, and nowhere in particular – you can see some fabulous photos there, and I’ll have some proper ones of my summer in Switzerland soon too!

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