For many years, when my husband and I went on holiday, we would buy a fridge magnet to remind us of where we had been. Once we got home the magnet/s were placed on the door of our fridge freezer and we took a minute to remember the place that we had visited. We were lucky enough to have many trips to interesting places and a fridge freezer that could take all the magnets. 
 
When we moved house last year, we had a massive clear out. We simply could not take everything with us, and the local charity shops benefited from our decluttering. It was quite cathartic, but we also found that it was very challenging. What to keep, what to give away was a constant question. We are not great hoarders and there was an attic to clear. Nevertheless, we still found ourselves with an awful lot of stuff! 
 
William Morris once said, ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’.

I think that this is sound advice, although I may not always follow it. When it came to the fridge magnets I did wonder if they were beautiful, yes, in the main they were. But were they useful? Perhaps they were just hard to clean dust catchers. But then as I looked at them I realised that they were useful. They fulfilled an essential purpose. They were reminders of where we had been, what we had seen and who we were with. They were conversation pieces, prompts to remember. They helped us to create memories.

 And they didn’t just create a memory for us, they did so for others as well. Even if friends had not been to Venice, they were reminded of a time when they ate pizza in Naples. They might not recognise that view of Barcelona, but they do remember a fantastic trip to somewhere else in Spain. And there was always that moment when we looked at one and we could not for a moment remember where it was that we visited. And then suddenly, the light would dawn, and we were transported back to that time and place with an exclamation of ‘of course, how could we forget that!’
 
The world feels very chaotic at the moment and the influence of social media is enormous, and not necessarily in a good way. We are all so busy, running around doing a million things that we forget to stop and just take in our surroundings. On a recent trip to the Royal Palace in Madrid I noticed that most of the people on the tour saw the splendours of that building through the camera on their mobile phone. They were so concentrated on taking selfies that they only saw what was behind them. I felt sad because I couldn’t see how the memory of that visit could be imbedded in their consciousness.
 
I firmly believe that memories are incredibly important. They are what sustain us when life is challenging, they are what can give us joy when we are sad. And I am not convinced that they can do this unless they have some personal meaning for us, they need to belong to us. We need to know why we took that photo, what we saw in that painting, piece of furniture or view. It can’t just be because it was the most popular thing there.  
 
And so, I carefully cleaned and wrapped up all our fridge magnets and they travelled with us to our new home. At first, I planned to take one out every month and place it on the fridge, but I then realised that it’s much more fun to just pick one out for no reason other than the fact that I feel like it. And on my recent Madrid trip two new ones were added to the collection. Not that I need a reminder at the moment, but they will be a lovely prompt when I notice them in six months or a year’s time. They are my memories and they give me joy. What more could I ask for.
 
 P.S. The magnets came with us. A year on an that is where most remain but they are definitely not forgotten.