While my parents are not the kind who, if Facebook had existed in those days, would have been on there posting clichés, it is still true that I have amazing memories of days out, or holidays, that they organised and went to a good deal of trouble to organise. Those memories still help to bond me and my brothers nearly 50 years later.
Maybe there is something wrong with my memory, but I don't just remember the problems and inconveniences. I remember 6 people camping out in one rather small dinghy and waking up in the small hours, very cramped, to see a seal swimming past. I remember using our old shed for a barbecue and the flavour of half-burnt, half-raw frankfurters. I remember sitting in a ferry cabin with my younger brothers while my mother tried to hammer enough English into our heads for us to get something out of John Gielgud at the National Theatre (and I can still remember individual actors though this is over 40 years ago). I remember train journeys across Europe in the days of the old sleeper trains where you shared a cheap 6-berth compartment with total strangers, and the excitement of waking up in the middle of the night and peering out to see where you were. I remember walks in the woods in all kinds of weathers. I remember the old tin pot my mother squirrelled away money in to be able to take us travelling, and the pride on her face when she brought it out and surreptitiously showed it to us ("your dad doesn't know, it's a surprise").
Of course I don't wish she had been in other people's face about our family's memories. But do I wish she had never bothered? No, I do not. I think it was precisely her sense of excitement, her sense that the world is full of adventures that meant that we did not grow up into the kind of people who only remember inconveniences. She was (still is) a woman who could feel excited about going into town on the bus. It's a quality worth hanging onto.