A (neon) SIGN of the times?

I’m sitting in the dining room of Cullimore Cottage as I type these words. When I’m not actually typing, find myself staring up at an enormous neon sign that just about covers one entire wall. The legend reads, “it’s Happy Hour (again).” Which, warm and welcoming as it is, isn’t just some random uplifting and inspirational quote. It’s a line from a song I wrote with a friend many, many years ago. A song that has popped up time and time again in my travels, mainly because an astonishing amount of folk from far flung corners have heard of it. Which isn’t bad going for a song written by two young blokes in a bedroom who just wanted to get off the dole.

We haven’t always had this shiny neon sign, there used to be a lovely painting on that wall, a most marvellous abstract. But Mrs Cullimore got bored with it recently, so it disappeared one day while I wasn’t paying attention. Shortly after which, we visited our son and his wife and fell to admiring the enormous neon sign they had just put up in their house. (With different words on it, mind.) Didn’t take long to find the website they had used and before you could say, “copy cat, copy cat, sitting on the neon doormat,” we had one made up for our very own wall.

I mention this because last night as Mrs Cullimore and I were sitting in the room, quietly admiring the hot pink glow coming from this brand new addition to our wall, a sudden thought occurred to me. Every single item of furniture or solitary piece of equipment in the room had some personal history, was like a 3D page in our collective diary, a souvenir from a time gone by. Reminding us of how we were feeling, where we were in our lives, what was going on, when we acquired it.

Even the brand new sign has more than one gentle echo within it. Apart from being a tap on the shoulder from a far flung time long ago, when I was a youngster, full of hopes, dreams and strange ambitions, there are further layers to the narrative. Turned out, even though the website we bought it from looked as English as cream teas and clotted cream, in fact it was a Chinese company. And they are based in Guangzhou. An enormous city of several million souls which I visited for work several years ago. A place where most of the locals had obviously never seen a white ghost, which is what they call us westerners out there. Whenever I went out for a stroll, I would find myself being followed, pointed at, as if I was some exotic unicorn from a fantasy world. A crazy memory indeed.

Looking round the room my eyes fell on the mirror above the fireplace, bought as a surprise birthday present for my gorgeous young wife a few decades ago in our first big family house. She had seen it in a local shop and admired it greatly, but we had both decided we couldn’t afford such a luxury. Mainly because we had so many children to feed and clothe. However, after quietly saving up for some time, I had snuck back to the shop, got the mirror and smuggled it into the house without being seen. Hiding it under one of the kids beds until needed. Ah, happy days. Golden memories. Although, to be fair, last night they were more like hot pink, glowing, shiny memories. Such is the magic of neon.

Must say, sitting in our dining room, reliving old times was a very pleasant way to pass a couple of happy hours. Everything we looked at got us reminiscing, remembering those times gone by. Even a plain old dresser plonked in the corner got us both feeling a tad sentimental. It’s back story was simple. A local shop was getting rid of it, so had put it up for sale at a knock down price. We saw it, bought it and had it delivered on the exact same day we moved into Cullimore Cottage. Since when, it has sat quietly in the corner, going nowhere, but doing sterling work as a hideout for snacks, crockery and whatnots. Probably the most exciting thing about it is the colour, which was described to us when we bought it, as “Elephant’s Breath.” Those two words alone have given me hours of innocent sniggering delight over the years.

I could go on listing items of interest, but expect you get the idea. There is an amazing amount of fun to be had just by sitting quietly, thinking about the everyday objects that surround you. Can thoroughly recommend giving it a go.

Until next time, all the best