Seven Holiday Souvenirs

I realize that I haven’t written about our holiday in August. We spent 2 weeks in Scotland and a few days down south in Bournemouth and Isle of Wight.

I keep planning to write about the holiday but that involves photographs, and somehow, I just don’t seem to have the time to go through hundreds of pictures. So I keep putting it off. Now, it would take me a lot of time to go through hundreds of pictures, but I figured how I could manage a post. I could talk about souvenirs.

There was a time when we used to come back with loads of souvenirs, all sorts of stuff which gets put away for the moment or displayed the moment we get home. These days, things have changed a bit. Or may be we have got a bit jaded. A lot of things seem similar or repetitive. I prefer picking up something really different, rather than the same old stuff. But that’s us. Daughter, on the other hand, can’t have enough of souvenirs. So we let her pick up a few things.

1. Fossilized Shark Teeth.

She is going through a phase where these are the things that interest. Fossils, stones and dinosaurs. All set in her plans to become a dinosaur scientist, apparently. I’m certainly not complaining. I’m so glad that her Barbie and all-things-pink phase has faded away.

2. Shells from various beaches. Some from Scotland, some from Bournemouth. All equally precious for daughter.

Those bits that look like little corals are actually crushed shells that look like coral. We had been to a coral beach on the Isle of Skye and it had these instead of sand. It was lovely and different!

3. Stones from pebble beaches. One of the beaches we went to, had the prettiest stones. Needless to say, Daughter had a ball. Some of the stones that she collected. The rest, I’m afraid, I might find only when we move houses 🙂

4. Souvenir Gemstones. Daughter picked these from one of the souvenir shops, and she spends hours playing with them.

5. Dinosaur Fossils, or so she believes. We went to Isle of Wight, which is the dinosaur island of Britain. Now they say that it is easy to find dinosaur fossils on the beaches if you know what you are looking for. Daughter found these which she is convinced, are dinosaur fossils.

We thought we were the only ones with a dinosaur mad daughter, when another family walked past, with a little girl picking up stones and exclaiming, full of excitement,’I found another dinosaur fossil!’

6. A fridge magnet.

We have a huge selection of fridge magnets from places across the world that we visited. The only places we don’t have any from is the UK and India. Guess the grass does seem greener across the fence. So now I have one from the UK. Although I have to say, this isn’t the best. I’m certainly on the lookout for more interesting ones. The best ones I had were from Paris and one from Las Vegas. Both, I seem to have misplaced. I just need an Indian one now.

7. Pictures! But of course. That has to be the best part of the holiday, trying to capture all the memories we can, and then reliving it. Sigh. Nothing, absolutely nothing is as good. A lot of times, the pictures don’t come close to capturing the beauty or the emotions that we felt, but they still serve as memoirs of a happy time.

Most of the stuff we dragged back are things which Daughter dug out of sands or selected from millions of pebbles in a pebble beach, but I suspect what she will remember is the fun she had collecting all this.

So are you a souvenir enthusiast? What kind of souvenirs do you look for?

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 1st – 7th September 2013. Hop over to see more Day 2 posts.

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