Minutes of our meeting of 22ND FEBRUARY 2024 Venue: Coral Star Taverna Pegeia Cyprus

At venue: Rick, Mike, Irene, Patti, Jackie, JohnE, Glen.

On Skype: John G, Bobby.

John Goodwin announced that he would be stepping back from running the group, and asked for a volunteer in Cyprus to take over. Bobby volunteered to take over the website..

Thanks John for the many years you have run the group.

Readings Began with:

John G: I remember my last day on the tools.

John recalled changing jobs as a young man from a scaffolder to an office job and how on his last day he fell off the scaffold. First time ever!

Bobby: Magpies Ch 15.

Bayen lost the feather and struggled to catch it in the strong wind. He then lost the rest of the team, but Trixie called to him to hurry up. They got into the luggage hold by distracting the loaders. Bayen invites Trixie to come and live with them. The plane lands and they make a run for it, burrowing under the fence to escape.

Rick: The ten best spas in Cyprus.

Rick’s travelogue showing the best spas in north Cyprus and the Republic. An item he has prepared for a Canadian Website on tourism.

Later he read his memories of travelling 3000 Kms across Canada on a Greyhound Bus with his sick son who couldn’t fly. A long journey!

Mike: I remember when..

Brian Gough returns to his home town, twenty years later and tours round the haunts of his youth. He meets up with an old mate which turns into a surprising incident later on . . .

Irene: Study of memory

Irene’s advice to new parents about the memories that young children have. Followed by memories of smells, pleasant and unpleasant, music, then touch, pleasant and unpleasant and how these things stay with you for life. PTSD and how that can change your life forever. Again an interesting study of the subject.

Jackie: Life before Covid

Pre covid Jackie went back to the UK for her sister April’s renewal of their wedding vows twenty five years on. She takes her late mother’s pearls for April to wear on the day. A family photo of the last get together before the pandemic. Very moving.

John E: Dreams

A common dream among ex serving soldiers is of losing vital kit and letting the team down which some men still have thirty years on. It just goes to show how the discipline is drummed into them for life from the training camp into their military career.

Patti: Going back…

Using the Dusty Springfield song from the sixties as a base she recalls how life was so much better without mobile phones, computers, on-line shopping, and street violence encouraged by so-called computer games. A poignant look at modern lifestyle, with which I wholly agree.

Glen: I remember when . . .

Another look back to a better age when comedians were funny, behavior was much better, respect was the normal state of affairs in fact a much nicer way of life for everyone.

Do you think that we’re all getting old or something?

NEXT WEEK’S THEME COVID MEMORIES.