10-Day Challenge: Day #3

I may have had the foresight not to commit to 100 days of positivity, but I genuinely didn't imagine that it would be hard to get beyond day 2. Today has been distinctly challenging. 

However, there is little point in trying to improve my outlook, if I instantly give in and start cataloguing the negatives of the day. So instead, here's a little bright spark...

Throughout my early childhood, my parents owned a super-8 cine camera, and my father used to film family holidays, outings and occasions. These would be trimmed and editted down to (mostly) only contain those events that had successfully been captured in focus and with the light meter set correctly. Every now and then we would have a "film night" at home, and set up the projector and screen to re-live family highlights. I still remember the flickering click as the tail of the film flew threw the feed reel and spun frenetically until the projector was switched off.

A few years ago* I found a local video editting company who were able to transfer these old cine films to a digital format, and I've had the digital files sitting on my computer ever since. I have finally got round to copying these onto a memory stick to send to BrotherBear. This has necessitated me watching clips of the old films, just to make sure the copying has worked properly, you understand. Which is how I came to watch my own first birthday - opening presents in bed while a black-and-white cat played with the wrapping paper. More or less the same as my forty-sixth birthday in truth, except I didn't chew any of my birthday cards this year.

Aside from the enormous joy and privilege of having a moving record of my own family's life from 1975 onwards, this has given me a moment of pure gold that I feel I should share with you. I am six months old.

My mother has always claimed that I was only reaching for her beer because I had just come out of hospital after surgery for congenital hip dislocation. Sadly, this excuse doesn't stand up to scrutiny, as further clips at ever increasing ages can attest.

* I admit, from looking at the dates on the files, "a few" appears to be "ten".