What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
Hubby and I were cycling along on our tandem in the middle of the countryside. We were passing through farmland one spring when he suddenly braked to a stop. He had seen a camera in the ditch next to the road on a clump of grass. We think it must have fallen off the top of a car?
There was no one around to ask who it belonged to, so we decided to wind back the film and get it developed. The thought was to try and identify the owners. It was a nice camera with just a dent in the metal ring round the lens, it was worth a bit of money and it would have been sad to lose by the owners. It might have had important memories attached to it.
We waited a week for the photos to come back. There were three photos of the landscape, but nothing to identify the owner, no people and no houses or cars.
In the end we kept the camera. I used it for years, taking photos for college, holidays and family events. I always wanted to give it back. I used 35mm film with an iso of 400. It had a good life with us.
I decided to optimise my photos as I haven’t done it for a while. Now it looks like 50% of my photos were taken today. Plus they are all mixed up. If I go back a few hundred they were suddenly taken in March. I wish it wouldn’t do that, I’ve been searching for something for half an hour because I wanted to share it? Can I find it? No, so I just decided to post a photo of an old factory from a few months ago. And great to see an undemolished chimney.
My cat has gone missing. He’s a large cat with a distinctive smudge on his nose. He might have got shut in somewhere if he’s found a place to sleep in the shade. I’ve looked round the garden, round the back of the house. I’ve knocked on neighbours doors. I’ve been down to the pdsa but they haven’t had him handed in. I rang the local vets, but they are closed till Monday so I rang their emergency vets but they are in Nantwich. He was abandoned by his previous owners who would not speak to the cats protection league so I was never able to get his microchip changed over. He’s a very loving cat, very big, he might have gone up to someone. All I can hope is he might be asleep somewhere because of the heat. But then he comes in for a drink and food? I don’t know what to do. Posted to Facebook.
We sat and planned places to go. He wanted to go to the East coast and Scotland. I wanted to go to Devon and the Lake district. We thought over the next few years we would visit places like Cardiff or the Angel of the North.
It would be our big adventure. The time would be set aside, we would get cat sitters and take a few days away. Not months, but enough to explore places.
What was stopping us? I was nervous of driving long distances after developing shakes a couple of years ago. He didn’t drive because of his anxiety. But I’d hoped that I would have a diagnosis and get better. I would have loved to go to those places.
But things happened, Covid came and went, trains were unreliable, neither of us liked coaches, we preferred the freedom of our car. In the last year though we drove less than 500 miles. We stuck to places we knew and enjoyed.
Why am I mentioning this? Watching TV, seeing a destination that I might still visit, but without him? What’s the point? He was my partner, life time companion, friend, and I want him back!