Tuesday 9 April 2013

In Case Of Fire

Yeah, if you do accidentally set fire to your frying pan, probably best to grab the kids and leg it, but I was reminded last night of a question we always asked when I was at school. If your house was on fire what would you grab to take with you as you run out of the door?

If you had time to grab just 3 things (and everything living is safely out on the lawn already - including the fish and the Yukka plant), what do you take? This isn't real, this is fantasy, so 'the bath' is a real option.

When I was 15 it was band posters, tour t-shirts and my midi system - of which I was very proud and it cost an entire 60 quid! Back then £60 was the equivalent of a million pounds - well, to me it was.


Now I'm a weeny bit older , I actually DO still have my tour t-shirts and posters (not the cheap tinny midi system though). Up in my loft is a mildewed programme bearing the autographs of Michelle Shocked, Billy Bragg and Michael Franti. I've got a poster that Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera has signed and written 'Sorry' on because I was crushed at his gig at Rock City. I've got programmes, maps, tickets and wristbands from every festival I ever went to. I even have a flyer from when me and 7 other people went to see My Bloody Valentine at The Dial in Derby on a Tuesday night for £2.50. None of it would make it into my top 3 though....

No.1 ~ Photo's of the kids. Real photo's, the kind I used to walk into town to collect and it cost me £2.50 for the film, and £3.00 for developing and I'd have 3 blank photo's, 2 shots of the floor, 1 picture half superimposed on another, 6 shots so blurry you couldn't see anyone, 4 where the heads were cut off and (if I was lucky) 3 where the subject was actually looking at the camera. We didn't even get a computer until my oldest was 7, so my real photo's mean a lot to me. (Good job this is fantasy because that's 2 tea chests already).

No.2 ~ All the 'treasure' I've collected from my children over the years. The certificates from school, the paintings, the cord clamps (everybody saves them, right?), first teeth and shoes, birth certificates, first passports, GCSE work they threw out and I rescued from the bin, birthday cards, programmes from plays and assemblies, bits of paper with the first 58 times they drew a recogniseable human on them......all that.

No.3 ~ The Jewellery Box my partner bought me for Christmas the year before last. I love it, it reminds me of one my Grandmother had and it's very beautiful. It has my treasure in it - ear-rings and gift tags and little Lego boxes with tiny things in, and on top are some cuddly things that my children and my partner gave me....

It's also possible I might just be able to fit in 4 or 5 band t-shirts at a push....


I guess that time and experience teaches us what is actually important, things are just things really, and anything that can simply be bought can usually only ever have limited value.


What would you save?



12 comments:

  1. ooh - that's a hard one... I reckon my wedding rings, my laptop (has all my photos and everything on it!), and my box of old photos of which there are no digital copies ;) see - I'm a softer at heart... bet you were thinking more gin, gin and gin! lol x

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    1. No, I knew you'd get out of the house and then ring someone to bring alcohol and sympathy - that's what I'd do anyway! :D x

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  2. Such a hard question but I agree as you get older things change. I think like you, important things I have saved from my children like drawings etc. I would save the laptop too as it has all our pictures and videos on right from the start of mine and my husband's lives together. Oh and obviously my actual children!! Other than that everything else can be replaced.

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    1. You really should consider cloud storage or back up somehow! I don't have anything from my own childhood, maybe that's why I view my childrens things as so important?

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  3. The laptop. My life is on there. Including eleventy million photos of the children. A reminder. I must look into cloud storage!
    Our boxes of treasures. That's a hypothetical one thing but in actual fact it's probably about six boxes. I heard everything.
    My jewellery box. It has some really precious things in, this that I've had as gifts and a bracelet made from the gold in two of my Great Grandmothers' wedding rings. Really irreplaceable.

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    1. It's all about the treasure isn't it? We have bits of special edition Lego and Playmobil and stuff, but when it comes to it I'd rather take a little worthless brooch my Grandmother used to wear :D
      You definitely need to look into additional storage!

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    2. I do. We have it backed up on an external HDD but that can fail too, I mean, in theory it can al fail but the belt and braces approach can't hurt.
      I meant to say before, I love the band t-shirts - some great ones there. I knew I liked you!

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    3. I was quite disappointed with what I could find! There must be a second bagful somewhere :D

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  4. What a wonderful post. First up: I can't believe you managed to see MBV for £2.50! Lucky lady.

    We have boxes and boxes of photos and treasures from over the years. If I was going to save something, those would probably be the only things. But, to be honest, if we'd all got out alive, safe and well, then I'd probably have collapsed in a grateful heap, too overcome to go and rescue anything else!

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    1. Aww, thank you! I probably agree about the heap thing... :)

      I nearly took the MBV thing out, I thought 'no-one will read this who will even know who they are' - thank you for proving me wrong! :D

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  5. Definitely the boy's memory boxes with their first outfits, new baby cards and everything else in and my laptop as I don't think I could function without it! And thirdly . . . the contents of my chocolate stash cupboard as I would certainly need it if my house was burning down!

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    1. Hahaha....that's true! If you didn't grab Wally Mummy's gin then chocolate would also be good to calm the nerves! :D

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