ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 159

Yesterday I was searching for photos of Fatima and also came across these three polaroids and it brought back forgotten memories of when we went to stay with Matt Hulse’s mother who had recently moved to the Isle of Mull and Matt, Lucia, I can’Lucy and I drove there.

It’s all a bit of a blur but as I remember things, more things come to my mind and I will try and write these memories as they come.

I remember a beautiful film Matt shot on Super 8 about his mother.

I can’t remember what year it was. probably 1990 but I do remember it was in June as I remember the nights being so short we often missed them. The house had no toilet and we spent a lot of time talking and drinking and I remember peeing outside and trying to work out if it was dusk or dawn.

The house was at the tip of the island and from her house you could see Iona and I think we did go there once. There was a pub not far and I remember asking for a whisky and the guy behind the bar needed me to be more specific, I remember looking at all those Whisky bottles and choosing “Sheep Dip” and I have just googled it and it actually exists so my memory seems to be working.

I remember documenting the trip with my Polaroid camera, i remember each polaroid being quite expensive so used sparingly. The three Polaroids I have are numbered 24, 28 and 31 and I don’t know what happened to the others, I’ll keep on looking and hopefully I’ll find more.

I think they came in packs of 10 so probably the whole trip was documented with 40 photos.

24 It’s captioned “Having a Philosophical conversation with a friend”. I’m pretty sure it was outside Matt’s mother’s house.

28 “Scotland by Night”. I imagine this is an unsuccessful photo of what was a glorious sunset or sunrise.

31 A photo of Matt and I at a caff, I imagine on the island but it could be on our way back. We’re drinking tea and smoking Marlboros. I can’t work out what’s on my plate, it looks like a small orange club. I can also see the box of Polaroids.

Matt looks hungover.

This was a very special trip and I wish I could find more of those Polaroids but I also quite like the fact that this trip is summarised by these three odd photos.

7.6.2020.

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