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Friday 18 April 2014

Lost image - 21 August 2013

My wife and I stayed at my parents' house last week. I had to make an overnight business trip and when I returned my parents said they had taken my wife to a restaurant she had never visited.

I had been to the same place once before, last year. Normally these days I would be able to give the date of such an event and relate the circumstances, but I drew a blank. I knew the name and that I had been, but could not remember when: it had not featured in any of my reviews of the images pinned to my mental calendar and so was faded, vague and floating free.

Worse than this, I remembered that after visiting I had decided to include the restaurant in my memory tag for the day. Somehow it had been replaced by something else. Sometimes I have more than one image pinned to a day, but I usually sense if I am not remembering them all in a review.

In this case something had gone wrong: I hadn't thought about visiting this restaurant for many months.

I did know it was while my wife was visiting relatives in her own country last year, so decided to go through all the dates she was away when I was visiting my parents. There were three blocks of time, but I could not say which of these was the one so went through them all.

Going through day-by-day recalling the images, I found the memory in the third block.

On Tuesday August 20, I went to the running club I sometimes attend while home. On Wednesday I had a vague tag about going for a solo run with aching legs after the training session the day before. I realised this was the day I had visited the restaurant and this had been my original memory tag – it suddenly hit me that the name of one of the runners in my tag for the Tuesday – Charles – had been my prompt for remembering the name of the restaurant - Carlo's.

But there was more that proved to me this was the day. We went to the restaurant after a reconnaissance mission to the hospital where my mother was due to attend a memory clinic for assessment of the deterioration of her short-term memory. My memory tag for the following day - solidly pinned to my mental calendar and present in my reviews - was the outcome of that visit.

Now the visit to the restaurant is restored to its correct place on my mental calendar, thanks to the surrounding clues.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Anniversary memories

This process of remembering every day that passes continues to enrich my life.

How often would I otherwise have remembered the events of 28 March 2012, when I visited an radio telescope facility with my parents, wife and nephew. My memory tag is sitting at the café with the enormous dish looming over us. One of those special days that I appreciate as being one of the happiest of my life as I live it and do not want to forget.

In my review technique that image and the feelings of the day come around on the 28th of every month. 

In fact, as my reviews cover days going back three years now, there is always something to make me smile and be grateful.

It is even more special when the day falls on an anniversary as then I can justifiably say to my wife, "Do you remember where we were on this date two years ago?"