My younger days

I'm at home for Easter at the moment (edit - I was when I wrote this anyway). I use the word home with a bit of hesitance; so much has changed here since I went to university that only certain rooms are recognisable. Not much of the stuff I use a lot is here, so I try to help my parents clear up the house room by room. It's weird: they always used to be on at me to tidy my room, but now I see they're a lot worse than me - refusing even to throw junk mail away until they've both fully read it. This time the lounge was the room under scrutiny. Tidying consisted of sifting through the mountains of tapes and CDs, sorting out the dreaded photo draw and the shelving unit under the new LCD TV. A lot of the photos have ended up in albums, but the ones that didn't (and all the negatives) just got shoved into a draw or to the back of a cabinet. Among the many packets of photos were images from my childhood and sorting through them brought back a load of memories. School trips out, my German exchange, trips to India and family pictures. These go back to a time when 6x4" prints were what posh people got. There were even some of my old photos that showed how bad I was at keeping my hands still. The amazing thing is how much my appearance changed over time. Even pictures from a time when I thought I looked much as do now revealed a visibly different version of me - mostly less embittered - and yet the memories of these events seems so vivid. Of course, the immediate difference is the hair. I'm amazed and horrified at the state of my hair in most of the pictures; it's so big! At the time my mother cut my hair so I blame her (even though I never combed it). Unfortunately even when I started going to a barber, the situation didn't improve as I made the mistake of choosing an unfortunate centre parting that for some reason stayed until my 2nd year at uni.
The hardest this realising that the events in these photos happened so long ago, many from the 80s. Even those in the 90s are now getting on for 10 years ago. The most worrying one though was the picture of me, sporting a new gown (over a fleece - bad idea) in front of a massive Welcome to Trevs banner. 1999: seems like yesterday, it will be 7 years ago come October. Scary.
The other thing that triggers memories are the sounds that I am used to hearing. The sound of the washing machine reminds me of school holidays (for some reason especially the Christmas holiday). The sound of someone using the shower from my room reminds me of Sundays and there is just a feel about the house. I can't really explain it - there's something about the atmosphere that means if I close my eyes I just know I'm in the house I grew up in. Maybe it's the terrible carpets we have at Trevs, perhaps the extra comfort of a decent bed or maybe even the slightly cooler temperature. Who knows? One thing has grown to be the norm of my trips home - when I arrive I wish I was back in Durham and then when it comes to leaving I really don't want to leave. Even in Trevs so much has changed - carpets, networked rooms, refurbed bar, new beds, newly refurbed rooms. Will I even recognise it in 5 years? But that's probably another story.