Finished business

I am a terrible one for starting projects which interest and enthuse me, then letting them lie unfinished when some newer excitement comes along. This results not only in a cluttered mind, as you flail around mentally trying to decide between what you want to do and what needs doing, but also in physical clutter in an ever-widening circle around your workstation. Eventually there comes a point where you scream to yourself - (internally if not actually) - that this can't go on, you can no longer function, and something must be done! So last weekend I decided to zap two of these unfinished projects and get them off my conscience and off my work surfaces.

I had, on different occasions, promised to send old photographs from my collection to organisations who were building up archives of the past. The first offer was to my old school, St Christopher's in Letchworth, about which I have written in my other blog. The Old Scholars Club has a website now and they are trying to build up a gallery of old photographs.

This composite picture of the buildings and history of the school was painted by architectural artist Carl Laubin. Some of you may be familiar with a similar composition he did of the National Trust Properties, entitled National Trust Capriccio. If you want to see some of his other work look here.

The second and similar offer was made to the heritage centre in the town where my husband and I had our first home. I visited there recently and wrote a poem about it. I had offered various old booklets and programmes for their records, and photographs which they can scan into a computer in their Discovery Centre, where people can come and look at them.

This unexceptional little snap is part of my record of a Festival which was held in Bollington in 1968; I have delighted in finding it again because of the capture of my third son joyously releasing his gas-filled balloon.

All this has meant a lot of selection and scanning to be done by me. And then I had to find suitable containers in which to pack up the various photographs, booklets, and CDs safely. In the end I found myself vandalising my stocks of stationery and stuff, to release some nice flat boxes that would hold the items rigid inside a padded envelope. After four days of concentrated application to the tasks, both projects were complete and went into the post yesterday. I am left with a great sense of satisfaction, and a touch of what I presume to be Repetitive Strain Injury in my right shoulder.