Been feeling oddly vulnerable the last month or so.

You may not recall this post from a couple of summers ago:
http://doosouth.blogspot.com/2008/08/yesterday-art-librarian-h-bemoaned.html

But I've been on display again. This time my bright idea was to use the four shelves to display artifacts and memorabilia from four different times and places in my life: the two and bit years I lived in Virginia, the five years I spent at boarding school, the year I spent in Nigeria, the two years I spent in South East Asia...

Give it a posh title 'Remembrance of things and times past...' or something and get the arty types to select and 'display' everything and hey presto, one miniature exhibition. Thanks to H for liking the idea enough to host it and thanks to V and D who've done a marvelous job of setting out everything.

Of course my somewhat cynical wife has titled it 'junk from the attic' and won't deign to come and see it, but my Mom and Dad came over today with my nephew and niece they were looking after for the day. They were quite taken with it as of course lots of the objects brought back memories for them!

It has been odd how 'vulnerable' I guess is the best word, that it's made me feel. I wasn't expecting that. Having things on display such as an exercise book in which I 'catalogged' 438 of my books [1], or a notebook with short stories written as a teenager, or even just cub scout badges - makes me feel oddly naked in front of work colleagues.

But it's certainly fascinating to see my life laid out as a musuem piece!

[1] Of course that same catalogue is now an Access database and recently added its 4300th item.