I’ve been doing some mild decluttering in the loft. Nothing major, just going through the odd box or bin bag. It’s mostly old paperwork: bank statements, utility bills, empty envelopes (?) and bags of clothes that hadn’t made it to the charity shop. I’m just going to work away gradually as I feel like it, and hopefully I’ll have a much more usable space up there by the end of the year.

On one of my recent attic forays, I came across my mother’s old manual typewriter, tucked under the eaves, snug in it’s carrying case. Well, that was work stopped for the day, I can tell you. I brought it down, and cleaned it up. Surprisingly the ribbon wasn’t too dry, so I spent a merry couple of hours bashing away.

James was intrigued. “Where’s the return key?” he puzzled, struggling to press firmly enough to make a mark. “This is hard work!”

We had a bit of fun with it for a few days, leaving typed messages for each other, but I don’t think he’s going to abandon his laptop for the analogue life anytime soon. I’m really enjoying it though, and it now has pride of place on my desk as I ponder ways to integrate it into the way we live now.

It brought back so many memories: of my mother, of school, college, first job applications, and also, reminders of the “act” of typing.

I’m obviously a bit rusty - there are quite a few spelling mistakes and I definitely don’t think this would pass muster in Mrs Duncan’s class, but hopefully you get the jist. ( I’ve just noticed I misspelled turquoise - that sticky Q key caught me out!). And I remembered that to make an exclamation mark you had to use the apostrophe key then backspace and type a full stop! We must have been a lot less excitable in those days, lol!