Sorting out

For the last few days, I have been sorting through bags and bags of family photographs and other stuff.

Quite what to do with it is the issue that has been on my mind.

We have about a dozen albums back from when we moved in with other in 2007, albums showing our life together, our holidays and my time surveying Indonesia, finding volcanoes and beach bars. As you do.

We have no looked at those in a decade, so some of them, our of them in fact, are being stripped of their pictures and replaced with albums of shots from my life, my parent's lies and that our their parents and grandparents.

There are shots dating back to the 19th century, those featuring Granddad's family, the Beamishes, are easy to spot as there is a family "look" about them. Both my Grandmothers are easily identifiable, and then there is the pile of shots of distant families, friends and the who knows.

I sorted the shots into several piles, then sort each further into roughly chronological order, then replace the holiday snaps with the family shots.

What I have learned is that both my Mother's relations, the Meades and Beamishes were great photoraphers, the Meades especially, and my Grandmother is the subject to dozens and dozens of pictures; in swimsuits and in fashionable clothes in the late 20 and early 30s. Quite odd for me whose parents mostly only used photography to record holidays to find that Nana was quite the fashionista back in the day.

I guess I have an hours sorting out on her pictures to complete, and the task is done. I have to sadly report, a huge stack of shots of unknowns were consigned to the bin and have gone. This is because if I don't know who they are, no one will, and I have no one to leave them to, so it doesn't seem important.

Once completed, the albums will be put back on the shelves and left there, to be thrown away once we're gone.