Cleaning out the closet

Been with my Dad these past few days, hauling out an old stash that we have kept for years at a friend's house in Northern Jutland. The stash dates back to when my Danish childhood home was sold about 5 year ago - but a lot of the items date back to the 70s and 80s and early childhood. Our first cleaning only sifted so much away of old rubbish. This time around we were a lot more determined. I only got caught up in old books and memories once...my Dad quickly kicked me out of it again.

Odd feeling, discarding books that you remember being fascinated with when you were 5-6 years old. A few of the most precious I have kept. Also there are several really old children's books and cooking books that were inherited from my grandparents. They are something like 100 years old and I don't know whether they are worth much but you simply cannot just tip them off at a dump site, knowing they will likely be burned.

I also found my old writing books from when I attended English International School in Doha, Qatar. I see now that I kept several journals in class, "My writing book", "Qatar topic book", "My maths book" and one or two others. I wonder if they do this anymore. When I read them today I can feel and almost remember the enthusiasm that these things were made with. I also se the teacher's comments now and again, like "Your writing can be much neater than this". Good discipline there! I'm fairly certain Danish 6-year-olds don't get that kind of direct message nowadays. It's all wrapped up in "Could you be so good as to kindly try to improve your 'A's a little bit, if you have the time and motivation, of course, Sir?"

A nice passage in the back of "My Writing Book" tells a bit about my state of mind at that time. Both my Dad and I laughed out loudly when we read it:

Today is saturday 25th June 1983. I am laeving for the summer but I am not coming back to Qatar. First I am going to Greece and I think I am going to Denmarck after that and after that I don't know Where we are going.

We travelled a lot in those days...