That was the year that was

On the last day of 2012 newspapers, television and we ourselves look back over the past 12 months.

Thanks to following this process, I can remember every day of the year - at least the things I have chosen to remember as memory tags pinned to my mental calendar and the associated memories they enable me to access.

There are moments of change. The diagnosis that my too young niece has cancer. The results of an application. The slower transition of an overnight flight from one country to another. The milestone of moving into a new flat - and then moving out again.

But much of the time the change is as gradual as the seasons that provide the scenery through which I move. On many days my work routine is broken only by the ebb and flow of my relationship with my wife and my gradually improving running times and decreasing weight. Inexorably my hair grows - I have made a point of remembering my haircuts and have thereby cured myself of waiting two weeks too long between them.

For the year I have 366 images pinned to my mental calendar, which I can run through in my mind's eye in say an hour. If I remembered every second, it would take me a year, of course. These are my chosen selection of events and my view of these days is biased - and enriched - in ways I have been exploring on this blog.

If I had begun this process at the age of four, like the Brad Williams with hyperthymesia whose experience started me on this pathway, then I would have 43 sets of images to take me back to my childhood, past all the different people I have been as I have grown older and more experienced, and perhaps a little wiser. Waking each morning a little bit different, with new things to face as my world and the world around me changed.

In the retrospectives we will remember the people who are no longer with us. In some cases it will be a surprise that it was so long ago they passed away - I recall watching Whitney Houston's funeral service on the internet on 18 February 2012, it is my memory tag for that day.

Acknowledging every day that passes as I am doing makes me appreciate my days are numbered. As Thomas Hardy observed in one of his novels, which I devoured when at college, unbeknown to us every year we pass a date whose significance we do not know, the pre-anniversary of our coming death.

Holding the whole year of 2012 in my mind brings home how few days make up a life - and I have already lived longer than the life expectation of the not-so-distant past.

What I had for Christmas

Happy Christmas! I hope you received the presents you wanted - and some that you didn't, which are often more special.

I remember last Christmas well, but I did not make a point of remembering what I received from whom, or what I gave. This year I have decided to use the presents as a way of remembering the detail of the day.

This is an extension of a technique I have been developing. It involves remembering more than just an image to capture a day, extending into remembering key facts.

So when I attended the 20th reunion of a group I worked with in Africa, on 15 September 2012, I decided to remember everybody who made it to the event. When that date comes up in my reviews, I run through the 15 names.

I am using a freer version of this for my niece's wedding on 1 November 2012. Whenever I review the date, I try to think of a different aspect of the wedding, and if I have time, to relive several special moments.

Similarly for the work trip I made recently to India. I have a key image for each of the days spent there, but try to recall something extra each time, such as someone I met or something we discussed or did.

This year our Christmas gathering was on 24 December, eating late and staying up to open presents, as is the tradition in my wife's family.

I will try to remember a specific exchange of presents in each review. In this way I will carry the special moment of closeness with each relative who was there and retain a little of the spirit of Christmas for as long as I can remember.

Overlap

Now I am into the second year of remembering every day that passes.

I am not consciously changing the techniques I have developed to retain the memories, but something has changed organically.

I start my reviews from when I began this process on 17 December 2011, or the closest date after it, two days before the current day of the week. Today is Wednesday, so I run through the images pinned to my internal calendar for Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Automatically the layout of the calendar in my mind has changed. Until this week, those first dates lay at the start of the sequence of weeks. Now thinking back, December 2011 is separated as it would be in a real calendar. The January dates are at the start of the sequence, December requires a turn of the page.

In this way my mind is adjusting to the overlap of dates.

It seems it is the days of the week that align. 

Today, Wednesday 19 December 2012, lies over Wednesday 21 December 2011 - the day we arrived at my parents' house and went for lunch in town.

Of course, I know where I was on this date a year ago - and that because of the leap year it is two days earlier, not one.

The clarity remembering gives me makes the effort, such as it is, worthwhile.

Visiting my parents this year, they asked whether we had been together last year and when other members of the family had arrived. I know the answers. Though for the years before, it is a struggle for me to remember too.

One year on

And so a year ago today I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

I have images pinned to 366 days of my mental calendar, enabling me to recall key events as triggers for calling up each day.

From now on, I will know where I was and what I was doing a year ago.

There will be new challenges to retain and review this information, to avoid confusion between one year and another.

There will be new insights into how this perspective affects my life.

One thing: as Christmas approaches once more, I do not feel it has rushed around again.

So much has happened in the continuous sequence of days.

Do I really want to remember this?

Refreshing my memory tag for 21 March 2012 this morning, I found myself thinking, "Do I really want to remember this?"

The image pinned to my mental calendar is sitting in a café waiting for the exhaust to be adjusted on our car - it had been replaced a couple of weeks before and was knocking. I had just had a hair cut while I waited, haircuts being one of the things that I choose to remember, which has cured me of my habit of leaving it two weeks too long before thinking it is time for another.

But really. For the rest of my life do I really need to remember that I had a haircut on 21 March 2012?

Then I thought, why not? These are the things that make up life. The big things are easy to remember, but we spend most of our hours on the small things. Are those days when nothing more significant that a haircut occurred to pass into oblivion?

I am staying at a hotel at the moment. In India. A significant memory, perhaps. But thinking idly of the snack on room service last night, my thoughts strayed to staying in another hotel in my wife's country and all the receipts I had signed waiting for me when I checked out. I remember the moment and the hotel, but I'm not really sure of the occasion - was it a wedding anniversary? - the date, or even the year.

So yes, I do want to remember.

Cholesterol changes

I thought I'd have a blood test to see if there had been any change to my cholesterol levels since I began following the intermitant fasting regime on 30 August 2012.

This involves having two days per week with intake of below 600 calories. It hasn't been much of a problem sticking to this.

I have always exercised well and eaten pretty healthily and my cholesterol levels were just about within range when I last had them checked in 2008.

The key figures are overall cholesterol and HDL cholesterol. The latter is not a different type of cholesterol but a measurement of the cholesterol surrounded by High Density Lipoproteins. This is known as 'good' cholesterol because it causes less damage and even repairs artery walls, unlike the globules of cholesterol surrounded by Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL).

Both HDL and LDL cholesterol is needed. It is the way cholesterol is transported to the cells where it is deposited to make the cells waterproof. As cholesterol is a fat it is not water soluble. And that is why it needs to be surrounded by lipoproteins to be transported through the blood instead of clumping together.

So here are my figures:

Total cholesterol 154 mg/dl (2008: 152 mg/dl - Ideal <200 mg/dl)

HDL cholesterol 46 mg/dl (2008: 40 mg/dl - Ideal >40 mg/dl Protective >60 mg/dl)

LDL cholesterol 96 mg/dl (2008: 98 mg/dl - Ideal <100 mg/dl)

So not a great deal of change over the course of 3 months, comparing these two data points from different laboratories.

If I am aiming to increase HDL cholesterol then I'm heading in the right direction. Over 60 mg/dl is meant to correlate to reduced risk of heart disease.

However, I'm not getting too excited as it naturally occurred to me that these differences may well be within experimental error.

Indeed, I turned up this research paper which suggests readings are subject to error of ± 20%, so the same person can vary in consecutive measurements between at risk and low risk groups, even when following the guidance of 12 hours fasting before the measurements. See:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=652985

Which means it is impossible to really conclude anything from these tests, though I probably have no reason to worry about my cholesterol lessons and may or may not be moving them in a healthier direction.

Power of five

This is obvious, but it only came to me this week.

My review process is to recall a three-day window finishing on the current day of the week for each week from when I began this process.

So today being Sunday, I've whizzed through the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I say the date to myself as I do so to associate this with the image.

I've just realised the obvious: adding five to the date of Sunday, gives me the date of the following Friday (except when it comes to the next month, of course).

I've been doing things much more cumbersomely since I began this method.

Boundaries

I have a clear memory of laying in bed as a child, touring through the memories of the day and feeling connected to each person who figured.

With a sudden shock I realised that somehow I was separate from them. Though I could remember their words and actions, I could not sense their thought. My consciousness was contained within my own being. There were boundaries, where I ended and they each began.

It may have been that same night, it may have been another, when I thought the memories of my day - my life itself - was like a dream. Perhaps I could wake up (this was long before the film The Matrix had even been conceived, let alonge watched by my young self). The thought seemed immediately erroneous, because if I woke as some strange creature dreaming of being human, that creature too could surely wake. The life I was living, I concluded, was reality.

I don't know how old I was. No more than a few years, I believe.

This came to mind as I have introduced a new aspect to the review of the images pinned to my mental calendar that enable to me recall every day of the past 11 months since I began this process. I am now trying to recall not my view of the day, but that of my wife's. What she was doing, how she was feeling, how our life - and I myself - might appear to her.

It gave me that sensation from long ago in reverse, breaking down the boundaries of consciousness, of where I end and she begins.

It is giving me a fascinating fresh perspective on each day and our relationship.

It also makes me very grateful that the effort put into this process gives me this opportunity.

This time for love

I mentioned a while ago about using speed reading techniques to run through the images pinned to my mental calendar to keep down the time my reviews take.

But sometimes I feel a slower review is called for. The period I have been doing this covers the entire time my wife and I rented a flat in my country, which was one of the happiest times of my life.

So a couple of days ago while doing my usual morning review, I made a point of remembering my wife, what she was doing, how she was feeling, how we were getting on.

She doesn't figure in every memory tag, so for those days I might not remember anything specific.

But she figures in plenty.

Sometimes it is said people live on in the memories of those that love them.

This exercise brought home to me what that means.

In some ways it is beautiful to hold someone in your mind, but in others it is very frightening, because even remembering so much more than I used to, the memories are merely moments representing many hours.

I might add, I also realised my memories of someone reflect how I see them.

In the rush of life - and the rush of my review process - it is sometimes good to focus on the love.

How long does it take?

I run through the images pinned to my mental calendar pretty quickly these days.

I'm usually done in the time it takes me to wake up properly.

Recently (16 November) I did a day-by-day recall of the past nearly 11 months (I began this process on 17 December 2011) during my 30-minute morning run. It was plenty of time.

Eleven months

I now have over 11 months of memory tags, helping me to remember every day that passes.

In fact, as we left my wife's country on 19 November 2011 for my own, and had an eventful time when we arrived, I have added memory tags retrospectively for days before I began this process.

It is kind of nice to see where this is going. As time continues its relentless transit through the days, I will know exactly where I was and what I was doing on the same date the year before.

But I'm wondering how my current review method will bear up.

I'm not confident enough yet to let go of recalling three days per week from when I began this process on 17 December 2011 to a month before the present day, then every day for the past month. But it takes longer each time.

Hopefully some new method will emerge as the days overlap with a year ago.

Visceral fat

Some years ago I was tested on a sophisticated body-fat scale which passed currents of different frequencies between hands and feet to build up a picture of where body fat was deposited.

This was when I learned that I had an unhealthy level of visceral fat, that is fat around the organs, such as the liver. From a health point of view this is worse than subcutaneous fat deposited under the skin.

Even though I didn't look fat, I long wanted to lose this fat.

The intermittent fasting diet seems to be doing it. That is not only shown by the less sophisticated body-fat scale I last used in the local pharmacy, but because I feel my stomach cavity deflating.

Indeed, my memory tag for 19 October 2012 is suddenly finding I am able to flex my belly muscles without feeling I am having to pull in a resisting mass of organs.

It is a satisfying feeling of recaptured youth.

A change of scene

I am now beyond the 300 day milestone in this processing of remembering every day that passes.

It continues to go surprisingly well.

I am really appreciating having the memory tags stretching back into December last year as there has been a change of scene. We reurned to my wife's country a little over a week ago. One espisode has come to an end and another has begun.

With such a sharp break, it is as if a book has been slammed shut. I was a little worried that it would suddenly become much harder to review the days spent in the previous episode of my life.

As when we moved to my country, it doesn't take long at all to feel like I have never been away. The experience of now joins with the experience of last time, which can squeeze out the time in between.

However, with my morning reviews of some of the images pinned to my mental calendar over the past 300+ days the eventful time we spent visting family, travelling to the Olympics and Paralympics and so on remains vivid and real. As do the more mundane events. In fact, every day is there.

One month weight loss

It is one month since I began the intermittent fasting regime.

My weight this morning is 81 kg, which is a loss of 5 kg over the month.

I'm feeling better for it, even if this is much faster than I expected.

Running is becoming easier and 10 km is now my standard distance, with a time of one hour - not fast, but my focus has been on finishing and not hurting myself, rather than speed. The calories burned by running three or four times a week has also been having an impact on my calorie deficit, of course.

Low calorie days have been easy to fit into my routine so far, and no great hardship. Half my usual breakfast leaves me feeling hungry by 6 pm, which a light snack is enough to take off. Fruit teas, an afternoon coffee (to stop me getting a caffeine withdrawal headache) and possibly an apple, keeps me within the 600 calories limit.

On non-fasting days I eat well, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and a bit more meat, fish and cheese than normal as I think I need to keep protein intake up.

For the next week we are staying with my parents before leaving to visit my wife's country and I've been eating particularly well since I've been here. How much that will impact on the downward trend remains to be seen.

This puts my BMI onto 23.4, at the upper end of the green on this calculator from the UK's NHS:
http://www.nhs.uk/tools/pages/healthyweightcalculator.aspx

I want to lose a further 5 kg and then stabilise. How that will work out remains to be seen.

Reminiscing

We closed the door on the flat we have rented for the past 9 months on 27 September 2012 for the last time.

It was a poignant moment. After a busy and somewhat stressful time of packing, we paused for a minute or two in the living room before leaving.

On the drive to my folks, where we stay for 10 days before heading to my wife's country, we reminisced about our time there.

Instead of casting around for disjointed memories, I was able to go through the sequence, sometimes by the day, other times by the weekend, when life had been a little more mundane.

The visitors. The milestones. Days of extreme weather.

On our last morning I had taken my last 10 km run, a distance that has now become my standard. Over the course of the hour I went over every day, pulling the images from my mental calendar. Sometimes there was a particular resonance - it was on 15 July that I pulled a muscle in my calf on this same track and had to hobble home, for example.

Much has happened.

There is something deeply satisfying about being able to remember every day of it.

The boy who can't forget

This documentary on youtube was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK. It investigates several people with hyperthymesia, including British student, Aurelien, and American, Jill Price.

I thought I was doing well being able to manage every day of the past 9 months since I began this process, but these people are amazing. Perhaps if I had began at four years old I would have developed the ability fully too. Or perhaps it is something inate. Certainly at present, I am more like the memory champion interviewed who can remember past dates, but it takes some effort to tag and review each day.

Weight going down, balance going up

I began my intermittent fasting routine on 30 August 2012 and have aimed to eat below 600 Calories on at least two days per week.

Sometimes these days coincide with runs of up to 10 km, which would consume around this number of calories, meaning a full deficit of the guideline daily amount of 2200 - 2770 Calories.

Here are my figures, with the baseline results from 30 August in brackets.

Weight: 82.5 kg (86.0 kg)

BMI: 24 (25)

Body Fat: 23.8% (24.7% - measured on the same local chemist's balance)

Balance: 22 seconds (12 seconds - standing on left leg holding right ankle, with eyes closed, average of three times)

Pace over 5 km: 5:00 min/km (during a race on 9 September 2012. Was 5.31 min/km on 2 September)

Days of future passed

The title, of course, alludes to an album by the Moody Blues. I bought it half a lifetime ago. It has their most famous song: Nights in White Satin.

Looking back over the nearly 11 months spent in my country gives me the strong sense of future days passing.

There was so much we had planned to do that has now been done.

People we have visited. Vacations we have taken. Our visit to the Olympics and Paralympics in London. A trip with my parents. A series of work events: planned, delivered, history.

There have been surprises, of course. Unexpected pleasures, as well as problems to be handled.

I try to keep feeling the wonder and gratitude for each new day.

But sometimes in my reviews of long-planned days that are now in the past, I am unsettled by the knowledge that my internal calendar stretches both forwards and back. As I stand on each day that is today, I am just filling in the details.

Which reminds me of something written by Thomas Hardy in one of his novels.

We mark the day of our birth each passing year. But, unbeknown to us, each year we also pass the date of our future death. So best not to be complacent.

Every day is a gift and one day will be my last on this Earth.

Ground rush

Soon we will be departing for my wife's country.

I am experiencing the ground rush of a far off event suddenly arriving, the months turning to weeks and now to days. We leave on 7 October.

I wonder how my memory of the days spent here will feel when I am in that alien environment.

Usually when we visit her country, very soon it is as if we had never been away.

I wrote about the same experience about coming here back in February in my post: Here we are again.

Already one foot has crossed the ocean as that foreign land pulls me back, uprooting me once again.

I'm a little nervous that it will become harder to recall the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar when now seems a distant place.

At the same time I feel excited at the prospect that I will be able to remember and be able to say: "This time last year we were...."

Body reboot

I've been practising intermittent fasting for just two weeks - that's a total of four low-calorie days - and have lost an impossible amount of weight.

According to my standard set of bathroom scales, weighing at the same time (immediately after getting up), I have lost 3 kg (down to 83 kg), which doesn't make sense.

A kilo of fat is equivalent to about 7000 kcalories (compare it with butter). Four low-calorie days is a deficit of, at most, 8000 kcalories, which doesn't add up to 3 kg loss.

I'm not measuring my IGF-1 level - the hormone that determines whether cells are in go, go, go division mode or repair mode - but perhaps it is dropping already and that is moving my body towards a new equilibrium.

Theme week

As I've noted before, in this process of remembering every day that passes, it is sometimes the most recent days which can prove the most elusive as I try to recall the images pinned to my mental calendar.

So it has proved this week, until the theme of the week struck me. Not every week has a theme, but some do either because of a change in location or routine or simply because I manufacture one.

The theme emerging this week is simply meetings. Each day, either for work or personally, I had a meeting, including on Wednesday 5 September a fitting for contact lenses I need for running. That's a date I would like to remember for when people ask how long I have been using them.

I find obstacles to remembering in the reviews of my moving window of past days are often overcome when I recall the theme for the week.

Base line data

I have completed my first two low calorie days in the intermittent fasting regime I began following last week.

I thought I would note some of the base line data for health and ailments to see how things change over time. This doesn't include any blood or other medical tests.

Weight: 86 kg

BMI: 25

Body Fat: 24.7% (measured on local chemist's balance)

Balance: 12 seconds (standing on left leg holding right ankle, with eyes closed)

Pace over 5 km: 5:31 min/km (during a race on 2 September 2012)

Occassional ailments

Colds (I've suffered a few recently, including a cough over several weeks in May)

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome - usually linked to stress)

Acid reflux (usually linked to stress and excessive coffee and chocolate consumption)

Colon pain (horrible pain in the arse, linked to dry stools, sometimes with bleeding - rare occurence over past twenty years, which I have had checked out)

Neck pain (for the past 6 months or so I've been experiencing quite violent clicks when moving my neck sometimes, which seems to be related to stress and working at the computer for too long)

Clinical tests have shown my blood pressure to be fine and glucose and cholesterol levels to be in healthy limits.

I take no medication.

Running

I decided to take my running up a gear and enter a race.

That is part of my memory tag for Sunday 2 September 2012.

It was a 5 km circuit, a distance I knew I could do comfortably. I opted for this rather than the 10 km option as it would be the first time I had run in a group.

I was conscious of the need to not go off too fast. After the start I was towards the back of the group of 11 that had turned out. I paced off a runner in front of me, then overtook her during the third km, repeating this on the next runner in the fourth km, to come in fifth with a time of 26:09 min.

The iPhone app MapMyFitness gave the distance as 4.8 km and a pace of 5:31 mins/km.

The app uploads the details to the website where you can see the split times.

I went from 5:39 pace early on to 5:10 at the finish.

This is much better than the around 7 min/km on my jogs, which are usually between 8 and 12 km, though in training this week I introduced a "go for it" short route of about 3 km, which I did at 5:26 min/km pace. My breathing and effort seemed much more manageable in the race than in that fast training route, however.

So 5:31 mins/km is now my personal best for 5 km (perhaps a better measure than overall time if course lengths are goiong to be a bit variable).

Coffee addiction

I think it is more appropriate to use the term "low calorie" day than "fasting" day in the intermittent fasting regime. According to the eat, fast and live longer Horizon programme, it is possible to take up to 600 calorie for men. It also sounds less extreme to explain to others that I am not eating due to a low calorie day.

So my second low calorie day was Sunday 2 September 2012.

I had tea with milk and one weetabix for breakfast as I was going to be taking part in a 5 km race in the morning. The race should have burned up around 300 calories, so had a couple biscuits immediately afterwards. Later I had a milky coffee to ensure I didn't suffer the caffeine withdrawal symptoms of my first day, which had given me a terrible headache. Soup and a couple of slices of bread for lunch. Then just fruit teas until a cup of tea with milk and a biscuit before going to bed.

No headache or stomach issues to report.

Unbalanced indicator

Intermittent fasting (IF). That is what I have learned to call the eat, fast and live longer regime explained in the Horizon documentary.

One of the indicators of ageing, which IF is supposed to delay, is the sense of balance. This deteriorates with age and can be measured simply by standing on one leg with your eyes closed and timing how long it takes to fall over.

The presenter in the programme managed about 6 seconds, typical for someone approaching 50, apparently.

I am going to use this as one of my progress indicators. IF leads to lower levels of IGF-1 growth hormone in the blood, which in turn prompts cells to repair themselves. So can following IF repair the age-related damage to my inner ear and improve my sense of balance?

I tried the balance test this morning and came up with wildly different durations from 6 seconds to 25 seconds. This was with my right foot hovering above the floor.

To try to make something more standardised, I decided to hold my right ankle behind me. Like this I managed 12 seconds three times in a row. The same time when I swapped legs.

So that will be my first unbalanced indicator.

First day fasting

And so my memory tag for 30 August 2012 is the first day of my fast, following the eat, fast and live longer regime.

The specific image is weighing my body fat on the special balance at the local chemist, at 25%. My target is to bring this down to 18% or less. These scales are apparently not very accurate, but presumably I will see some difference. My weight, with my shorts and t-shirt on (I was in public view) was about 5 kg above my accurately measured weight of 86 kg. My accurate BMI is 25, at the upper limit of the recommended range, so it would be good to bring my weight down to 80 kg or a little less. I run regularly and would love to feel a little lighter on my feet (and joints).

The other image pinned to this day on my mental calendar is feeling totally whacked by the end of the day. I don't think this was because of avoiding food. I missed breakfast and lunch, taking just fruit teas as refreshment. After arriving home I had a small meal of rice and vegetables and a small piece of beef, leftovers from the previous day, and then some fruit and yoghurt for dessert. Together it should have been within the 600 Calories limit.

I felt hungry during the day, of course, which is why I added dessert to my meal, not to suffer too much. Unexpected was the terrible headache and exhaustion to the point of falling asleep while watching television. During the night the headache also troubled me when I woke and my stomach felt knotted.

I realised what it was in the morning: caffeine withdrawal.

I don't drink a great deal of coffee any more as a few years ago it started giving me problems with stomach acid. So usually just a milky cup in the morning and perhaps a second in the early afternoon. If I'm out and about, I might have a latte at some point. Not a lot, but every day.

Having a cup of coffee this morning brought my headache to a quick end.

I had thought to make my first two fasting days consecutive, but decided against it after waking so rough.

I will probably make Saturday the next fast day - but I will have a cup of coffee and a biscuit as part of my 600 calories.

Repairing neurons

This is a fascinating investigation of how diet influences how our bodies deteriorate - and repair themselves.

It is a serious exploration of the science of cell division and repair, including of brain cells.

According to the emerging science, it is not so much what we eat, but how we eat. A normal intake of calories puts cells into 'go, go, go' mode, where they divide, we lay down fat, genetic errors may occur (leading to cancer) and blood sugar rises.

Periods of fasting not only use up blood sugar and start to break down fat, they reduce the levels of IGF-1 growth factor in the blood which switches cells into repair mode. The effects of that can be astounding.

Watch the programme broadcast in the BBC Horizon series below. I will be following the regime suggested at the end of the programme and recording here what happens. My memory tag for 28 August 2012 is watching this film.

Speed reading

As a teenager I read a booklet on speed reading.

The basis of the technique is not so much to read quickly, but to learn to glide over the words on a page and register key words to gather the gist.

I sometimes try to apply this to recalling the images pinned to my mental calendar, now that there over 250 of them since I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

My current strategy involves remembering the three days leading up to the present day of the week, beginning from when I started this process. So today is Wednesday 29 August, so I begin with Monday 19 December 2011, then the following Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I jump to Monday 26 December 2011, the following Tuesday and Wednesday. And so on until I reach a month ago, 29 July 2012. From then on I recall the images for every day until yesterday.

Most of these images come with little effort, using the techniques I have been developing.

I'm trying now to speed up the whole process of the review by using the speed reading technique of registering a flash of the images, rather than dwelling on them. Not on every run through and not for every week. But certainly for those that are now well entrenched and come to mind easily this will hopefully be enough to stop them fading.

Catalog number

Out shopping with our recent visitors I was despatched to purchase something from a catalog showroom.

My sister-in-law showed me the seven-digit number and said she would write it down.

I immediately said I woud remember it.

I don't think this process of remembering every day that passes has given me a photographic memory, but certainly in the past I would not have had the confidence to remember a number without writing it down or endlessly repeating it to myself.

Funny thing is, I still remember the number now.

Where did the money go?

We had a relative and her friend visit from my wife's country and were showing them around, including some of the sights in the capital.

They gave me some money for their hotel room, which I paid for on my credit card so as to have the cash.

By the next day most of it had gone and that night I had the horrible thought that I had left some of the money in the envelope, which I had discarded without double checking.

However, I thought if I am able to remember each of the past 218 days since I began this process, then surely I could remember the every time I had spent money over the past two days and add it up.

And so it proved.

Which left me feeling like the guy who runs into a pub and rushes over to the landlady.

"Did I come in here yesterday, get drunk and then offer to buy drinks for everyone until the 500 bucks I'd just been paid had run out?"

"Yes, you did," replied the landlady, with a fond smile at the business.

"Thank goodness," he replied. "I thought I'd lost it."

The day I die

I believe that being angry, annoyed or stressed is more often than not counterproductive.

When a negative recurring thought distracts me from either enjoying life or getting on with what I need to be doing (or both) then I sometimes try to put it aside by telling myself I will think about this on the day I die.

I imagine spending a moment on that day – if I have the opportunity to reflect – being grateful that soon I will no longer have to suffer such injustices, annoyances and stress.

In truth, if the situation allows, I would rather remember all the good times, perhaps with a run through all the memory tags pinned to my internal calendar.

But I find the idea comforting all the same.

Limbering up

I am now over 6 months into this process of remembering every day that passes - the counter on this blog says I began 185 days ago.

Every day of my mental calendar has a memory tag pinned to it.

Recently I have found the most evasive tags are those for the past month or two. More historic memories, which I have reviewed more times, are now well established.

So I have varied my review technique, which I generally employ in the morning as I wake up or when cycling into work.

I scan back through the tags for the past two or three of weeks. The tags may not come to mind immediately, but as I can generally remember the events of each day wholesale, it is more a case of remembering the particular image I had selected to represent it.

I then review this day (Tuesday, for example) for every week until I began this process. More recently, I've been including the two preceeding days as well (so recalling Sunday, Monday and Tuesday tags for each week).

My new technique is to reverse the order. Instead of scanning back through time, I start with the historic memories and work towards the present.

It doesn't take much time as the images come so readily to mind, although the various sensations and perspectives that this review gives me continue to surprise me and make the process so enriching.

When I come to the more ethereal memory tags, my mind is well and truly limbered up.

Broken finger

So we visited our friends in Southbeach on the weekend of 19 May.

Damien told us about the surgery to have his broken finger stapled backed together.

"Did Sarah tell you I had broken it?" he began.

She had - plus they had both visited us soon after it happened, yanked to breaking point when he was walking their dog. We sat next to each other in a café on 17 March when his young son accidentally pulled on it as he got up, raising a great cry from Damien.

"Yes, you visited us soon afterwards. Do you remember the café in Easton where Adrian nearly broke it off for good?"

"Ah, yes."

I felt smug at my improved memory.

But I still managed to forget about his recent surgery when I shook his hand as we were leaving.

Funny leaflet - love every drop

This is a funny image of a genuine leaflet from the UK water company Anglian Water.

Love every drop. Make the msot of your sewerage services.

Yum.

Packages of memory tags

So 168 days into this process of remembering every day that passes and I've still not lost a day.

I have various techniques for recording memory tags on my internal calendar, reinforcing them and recalling them if they are elusive.

One method that has emerged recently is packages of memory tags.

So Sunday 13 March was a sunny day and we walked to a beer garden by the river.

The weather them for Monday 14 March was it chucked it down with rain and my memory tag is sheltering with my wife at the bus stop.

And Tuesday 15 March, we had a freak hailstorm and I had to shelter in a pharmacy, where I had gone for cough mixture as that is something that has been afflicting me recently.

If I have any trouble recalling any of those days, remembering the surrounding days reminds me of the weather theme and that's it.

I'll get back to you

I've commented before on how I am sometimes niggled by my failure to remember the image tag for a particular day - even if I can remember some of the things that happened.

So it was this morning, running back through the past days when I woke up early and wanted something to occupy me to send me off to sleep again. Two days evaded me: 12 April and 17 April 2012.

I told myself to remember the dates and the images would come at some point, probably when I had properly woken up.

The first date was a Thursday and I knew I was in the office and collected my wife from her evening class, but there was something else special. It came to me as if my memory was saying, "Oh, here's that thing you were asking about earlier".

A television crew had come to the office to film an interview. So not a minor thing, and hopefully something that it now more firmly pinned to the date.

The 17th had a certain feel to it. It was a busy week, the week of my international trip and horrible meeting on the 19th. That's what brought it back to me in the end. We visited friends on 17 April to arrange a lift for my wife as I wouldn't be able to collect her from her course.

So that's it. All 142 days since I began this process are accounted for.

Two days at a time

I am now using a new technique for reviewing the memory tags for past days.

I scroll back through the past ten days or so, then switch to remembering the image pinned to my mental calendar for the same day of the week back through the nearly five months since I began this process. What I have added is reviewing the day before too.

So today, for example, I remember all the Fridays and Thursdays.

Tomorrow I will go back through all the Saturdays and Fridays.

The common day in the review from one day to the next is providing a useful burst of clarity.

Puddles

This is a particularly satisfying memory tag, pinned to my mental calendar for 29 April 2012: puddles.

The word invokes three images. The first is stepping in a puddle as I exit the car at a garden centre we have driven to in the rain. This has been a sodden week of rain.

The second is running past the puddles on the path by the river as I complete my first 15 km run, reaching the landmark bridge first achieved on 24 April 2012, but returning the same route instead of completing the circuit.

The third is again encountering a puddle as I get out of the car in the evening to walk to meet my wife at church. She went early while I was out running.

Puddles. Three images.

Adrenalin junky

Faced with an ordeal on 19 April 2012, I found this process of remembering helped to stop me becoming more stressed than is healthy.

As I wrote yesterday, having the clear vision that this was a day on my mental calendar that would pass into history put it into perspective.

Linked to this was the realisation that this day would be one of the great jutting monoliths on my mental calendar. A landmark that stands out. It is a date etched in my memory in many of its aspects simply because of its significance.

There is a certain pleasure in that, given other days are marked by mundane memory tags, such as completing my first 10 km run since getting back into the habit (24 April 2012), or watching a film about the sinking of the Titanic on the anniversary of the event (15 April 2012).

Taking an international flight to stand up in front of a hostile crowd to make an argument they did not want to hear - and I knew the majority would reject - would have to be significant.

As it loomed before me and I prepared for it, the fact it would be a memorable day made it strangely welcome. Perhaps being scared and forcing myself to be brave for a higher purpose made me feel more alive.

We that I thought I want more special days.

They can be significant in more pleasurable ways, but days that break with the mundane, push the boundaries, cause a rush of adrenalin, are live affirming.

All things must pass

And so 19 April 2012 has come and gone. It was a day that loomed before me for some time.

A day involving international travel to a hostile work meeting. One where the best outcome was to come away knowing I had at least said my piece, even if this had been disregarded for the most self-serving of motives.

It is difficult not to spend time anticipating such a day and running through different scenarios. That is not a bad thing in itself, I find, as this is also called planning. But it can be tinged with adrenalin and become distracting.

At such times I reminded myself that 19 April 2012 is just another day on my mental calendar and on the 20th it would be history.

When the day actually arrived, I told myself to enjoy it, rather than wish it to be over. I would be flying in and out of a beautiful country. I had worked out what I needed to say and thought through possible reactions.

At the same time, I reminded myself of a mantra from my early twenties when much in life had been a challenge: something will happen.

The day would pass.

So it has.

Accumulating memory tags

My memory tag for 31 March 2012 is driving home with my wife and nephew and playing car games as we did so. His favourite was choosing a colour of car and seeing who could count the most. Top tip: choose white.

Another game was a memory test, where each person added an item to the list of things we were taking home.

When we went home we took some sandwiches.

When we went home we took some sandwiches and some fruit.

When we went home we took some sandwiches, some fruit and a vase for flowers.

And so on.

Reviewing memory tags for a specific day, as is my practice, has some similarities with this. Each day I am adding another image to the list for that day of the week.

Even though there is a week between each round of this memory game, it is not so challenging as the car version. In part this is because the events are real and significant, and in part because the surrounding days provide context which helps with recall.

Otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to accumulate the number of memory tags I have.

Seeing the end

The counter on this blog tells me I have 114 days on my mental calendar with memory tags attached to them since beginning this process.

I am able to recall every one of the memory tags. Even if I have a momentary lapse, the various techniques I've been developing call up the image. I've learned not to worry about it.

So it was this morning, thinking back through past Mondays. My recollection of 12 March 2012 didn't feel quite right. I could remember something that happened that day, but it wasn't the tag I'd chosen (which was the cry of delight when I surprised my wife with the mobile phone she thought she had lost).

I realised I was still a little groggy while trying to remember, having had a bit more alcohol to drink last night than is my usual habit. It will come back to me eventually, I told myself. As I had no rush to get out of bed, I ran back through the days sequentially and that limbering up of my memory muscles did the trick - seeing her phone on the table of a café we visited a couple of day prior to her losing the phone reminded me of the tag.  The familiar sense of satisfaction of things snapping into place was my reward for remembering.

But it occurred to me that perhaps the day will come when the grogginess is permanent and the feeling of memory loss will be permanent. There will be no burst of clarity as an image pings back onto my mental calendar.

Hopefully exercising my memory will postpone that day. Various studies seem to suggest it should help.

But it was unsettling to think this is how it might feel if my memory does start to deteriorate.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, a date fixed by the movement of the moon around the Earth to mark the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

We watched a passion play over the internet from the church my wife attends when in her country.

As it built to the emotion of the crucifixion and the willing sacrifice of Jesus as a scapegoat for our sins, I am incredulous once again at the message of this religion.

I am told this was a loving act of God, sending Jesus to die in our place.

But I wonder at the concept that this loving God wanted me on that cross, wanted me to suffer and die, for the sin of being born into His creation.

I  am amazed that this underlying message of unjustified wrath is simply ignored when we are told Easter is about our salvation.

When I think back to reading the Bible as a child, the requirement to sacrifice animals to atone for our acts struck me as barbaric and ignorant, a groping in the dark.

Yet, if Jesus had not yet come, this would surely still be demanded of us by Church ministers, telling me I am born into sin and so the lamb, the goat, the fatted calf, has to die as a sacrifice to appease God.

God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, we are told. If we weren't sitting in Church looking at the cross, we would be sitting in Church as the priests slaughtered the animals we had brought. That is the difference: Christ being the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

Even though I was once sincerely a Christian, I could never accept the idea that God wants me to suffer and die as Christ suffered and died, as sacrificial animals before Him suffered and died.

The God that became a real presence to me many years ago is nurturing, showing me I am part of Creation, not a visitor to it to be punished for existing.

That day, I spontaneously cupped my hands to fill them from the mountain stream by which I sat and said again and again, "I drink your water", and was thankful.

Writing my story

Looking at my life as a book, the day that has passed is a page written by time, but I realise I have some leeway over how it is laid down in my memory.

Tuesday 3 April 2012 was a day of mixed fortunes.

A charity I have set up to support an African village received news of a small grant. Unfortunately this was a third of the sum asked for to enable a project to commence, meaning I now have a commitment to the funders to deliver the project, but need somehow to find the rest of the money.

At work, a totally unrelated charity, we had news that a major funder will provide a grant next year. But a smaller funder has told us they will not be able to provide a grant expected soon due to their own funding shortfall. So we have a black hole in the finances to fill if we are to reach next year.

Personally, I've been experiencing violent cracking from my neck as I spend so much time at the computer trying to keep on top of things.

On a more positive note, I received an iPhone that day for free. My old phone died on Sunday 1 April 2012 while I was in town with my nephew waiting for my brother. On 2 April, my memory tag is looking at second hand phones on the market for a cheap replacement - money is tight. Fortunately, it occurred to me to check with my service provider and I found I could have a free iPhone if I commit to another two years of my existing plan.

This and more are on the page of my life for that day.

My memory tag is meeting my wife in a café after a lunchtime concert she had attended and I caught the end off. My new phone is on the table and as I am relaxing with my wife, I am thinking that's three good developments today: a free iPhone, money for the African project and a big grant for work for next year.

I will carry that with me and look to future pages carrying the story of how the other problems were solved.

Maybe a little less stress will help my cracking neck.

Turning the pages

Something remembering every day that passes bring home to me is just that - they all pass.

It would be possible to conceive of my life story as turning the pages of the future into the past.

I exist is on the page that is the present.

There are things to face in the future that I would rather avoid. Big things like the deaths of loved ones, smaller ones, like an ordeal I have coming up for work on 19 April.

However, difficult they may be, they will pass. Until the book of my life is closed.

Living intensely

One of my early reservations about this process of remembering every day that passes was whether it would result in my focussing on the past instead of living in the present.

In practice, I am finding the opposite to be the case.

I seem to notice more about each day as I am living it. In part this is because, consciously or subconsciously, I am noting significant aspects or moments that may form part of my memory tag for my internal calendar. So today I registered that it was particularly warm and the leaves had sprouted on the horse chestnut trees along a familiar road. This is an appreciation of the here and now, made more pleasurable because I know I will remember it.

It is not just about noticing things to remember, but making the most of the time.

A while ago I came up against an obstacle to remembering as my mind seemed to rebel at the heightened awareness of my own mortality this process brings. The plus side is that this awareness stretches to appreciating this day will exist only once and then will reside, unchangeable, in my past.

As someone once said, at the end of my life I won't be reflecting on the days spent in the office, but the special moments shared and the unusual and exciting experiences.

Flavour of days

Part of my routine of reviewing days already lived is to think back on what I was doing on the same day in past weeks.

Some days have a particular flavour to them. Saturdays and Sundays are a break from routine and so the images pinned to my internal calendar are more distinctive. They are often tied to each other and surrounding days, for example, if we have had visitors or made a trip. It is a particular pleasure to scan back through these days.

Thursdays currently have a special flavour too as my wife is doing an evening course and taking and/or collecting her will figure in the memory of the day, even if not the specific memory tag.

Anniversaries are significant by definition. The 14th is the monthly anniversary of our wedding, and we at least comment on it, usually meeting for lunch or doing something else to mark it. When a day coincides with the 14th it generally makes it much easier to remember.

Busy times

It has been a busy few days.

This presents interesting challenges in this process of remembering every day that passes.

With so much going on, I am selecting my memory tags with care. I want one, or at most two, images pinned to each day of my mental calendar and so they have to connect to key aspects of the day.

So for 27 March 2012 the image is sitting at a picnic table as my wife waves to me. I am working on my laptop. My wife has just arrived with my parents and nephew. This reminds me that I was able to meet up with them at a park around lunchtime between meetings. It is a genuine event, not a construct. I never invent the image, but select it.

Another consideration is I can choose the feelings to associate with the day. On 26 March 2012, my wife and I spoke at a conference. My wife was speaking in her second language and became a bit lost in her notes. I was willing her to do well from the side of the room. My memory tag is someone coming up to her afterwards to discuss her talk. She had made a good impression. I want to encourage her in future and this positive memory is much more valuable than the nervousness I shared with her.

There is a danger of losing past days when too much is going on. I didn't have the time or spare energy to carry out the reviews that are part of my usual routine. When I was able, there were blanks that took a while to fill in. I'm not too concerned about this as long as I can fill in the blanks when I do have the time and energy. I don't want this process to be a distraction from living.

The final point is that being able to remember these full days is important. I am better equipped to do so now.

Something is missing

I am now well used to the feeling when I am missing the memory tag that I had chosen to remember a particular day.

When looking back, sometimes I find the day is blank on my internal calendar, even if I can remember some of the other aspects of the day. Sooner or later the image I had pinned to that day comes back to me.

That feeling of something being missed served me in good stead last weekend. My wife and I were leaving home for a conference, planning to call in on my parents on the way past.

As we sat in the car I had that same feeling of something missing.

I knew I had turned everything off that I should be off and locked up. I was certain we hadn't forgotten anything and I resisted the urge to give in to uncertainty and check.

But this time, I recognised my mind was telling me that I was not remembering the full story and I should go back. What I needed to see was not the things my conscious mind told me were fine.

So I went.

On the doorstep lay my wife's leather jacket. I had dropped it when I locked the door.

I went back into the flat as well, just in case. I had been correct to believe there was nothing wrong there.

This is an important lesson. If I had been more alert, I would have realised that my wife's jacket was missing when I placed mine on the parcel shelf of the car.

I did not realise consciously, but this process of remembering has made me more sensitive to when I am not remembering what I need to. And to trust that feeling.

New reality

How long does it take me to meld with my location?

It seems that three months makes me well entrenched. Our new flat now feels like it is ours, perhaps helped by the visitors we have had in recent weeks, who do see it as our flat.

This morning as I snoozed, I tracked back through all my memory tags with no difficulty.

Indeed, the start date of this process of remembering every day that passes - 17 December 2011 - is no longer a cut-off as I have reclaimed most of the time back to when we left my wife's country on 19 November and have tags for most of those days until then.

The time before we left is still a blur of mixed memories, distant in space and time. But at some point I will make a project of reclaiming those days too.

This is my new reality: where I am now and being able to remember what has happened.

Boing

Its definitely not worth worrying if a memory tag evades me when I'm reviewing the past days.

I worked late last night and was tired when I went for a run by the river this afternoon. So recalling the images pinned to my mental calendar was not taking place under the best of conditions.

I was stuck for 20 March, just last Tuesday. I remembered the day, what had happened, that I had been in a rush to leave the office because... boing! The image pinged onto the calendar.

I met my wife at a café by the river. My image for the day was chaining up my bike outside.

Eight days a week

I find it useful to think back to what I was doing this day in previous weeks, until I began this process of remembering every day that passes.

A week is a useful period of time, but it is the one aspect of the calendar that is totally arbitrary.

A year is given by the time it takes the earth to orbit the sun - and before the earth's orbit was understood, it was given by the cycle of seasons that results.

A month is given by the time it takes the moon to complete the passage of its phases, linked to its orbit of the earth.

A day is given by the time it takes the earth to revolve once on its own axis.

All were observable by all cultures.

But a week is not set in the heavens, though it is set in the old testament of the Bible of Christians and Torah of Jews.

Other civilisations have used other lengths for the cycle between a day and a month, from four to ten days, apparently.

Seven days almost fits into a lunar month four times, but not precisely enough to be a realistic explanation of its origin.

It may have more to do with our capacity to remember sets of data, which has been said to have a natural limit of seven - though plus or minus two according to some research.

The Beatles sang of eight days a week as cramming in more love than a week normally allows, but there is no clear reason why the week is not eight days. It was in ancient Rome under the nundinal system, until Emperor Constantine adopted the biblical seven days.

Not gone

Our friends from Southbeach came to visit at the weekend, one couple with their two sons staying with us in our flat, another couple camping nearby.

We cooked breakfast for everyone on Sunday 18 March 2012, then went into town, where there was a science fair.

We said our goodbyes afterwards and I returned home with my wife to the flat, the mess and the quiet.

As I washed up and put away the pots and plates, I thought back over the weekend.

Before beginning this process of remembering, I think there would have been a hint of sadness as the glow of energy and happiness of the weekend started its slow fade.

But now I realised it was different as I reviewed the day and selected the key images that would be the memory tags to pin to my internal calendar.

Adrian, four-years-old, at the science fair, where he had joyfully run from experiment to experiment, having his photograph taken dressed in a white lab coat and over-sized goggles.

Simon, six, spotting a one-legged homeless man in a wheelchair playing a tin whistle and running after his mum for a coin to give to him.

This was a glimpse of their natures that will become part of my memory of them as I watch them grow from afar.

The past is over, but it is not gone if I remember it.

Thanks for the memory

After a week of feeling this process of remembering every day that passes was reaching a natural end, I was given a boost last weekend by the rewards it brings.

Friends from Southbeach visited and on Saturday 17 March 2012 we went to Easton, calling in at a nearby deer park first for a walk.

One of my friends asked when I had last been there and was impressed that I was able to say immediately, 14 January.

My wife and I took our friends to the café we had eaten at that day. I had made a point of remembering the car park options and so we were able to discuss whether two hours in the short stay car park would be enough, or whether we needed the more distant, but cheaper, long stay.

I remembered where we had sat in the café and what we had eaten. Perhaps not too remarkable as it was only two months ago, but my wife didn't remember and asked if I could.

This memory successs was a stark contrast to reminiscing about our friends' last visits. We tried to remember when we had visited the nearby town of Sanver. I had it down as years ago, but it was only last year. I have added a memory tag to my mental calendar for 2011 so I should remember that visit more accurately in future.

Back on track

After several days of feeling I was slipping on ice as I tried to access the memory tags that were once firmly attached to my mental calendar, I feel I am back on track.

Just considering the idea that my mind was rebelling from remembering because doing so brought home my mortality seemed to put an end to the problem.

Laying down to sleep, I went for a big review, scanning back through the days and recalling the same day each month. So, what wer my images for 15 March, 15 February and 15 January. Then back a day.

It was all still there and only a few days didn't come back instantly, just requiring association with the surrounding days to bring back the memory tag.

The perspective of the passage of time through this exercise is often surprising and, in that, rewarding.

Remembering is definitely better than not remembering. I have to accept my days are numbered and remembering them is part of relishing life.

I hope that means I am over this wall.

Mind rebelling

I am wondering why this process of remembering every day that passes has hit a wall.

Is my mind rebelling from remembering because doing so reminds me of my mortality?

I am repeatedly struck in my reviews of the days since I began this process nearly three months ago how relentless the flow of time is.

As the great philosopher Ozzy Osbourne once sang: "Today was tomorrow yesterday.  It's funny how the time can slip away."

Is forgetting most days once they are done - as I did until so recently - part of our survival mechanism?

Focus on the present and the choice memories of the past, but not every day as it slips through my fingers. Is that it?


Knowing where I was last week, last month and a growing sense of the years before is a reminder that now is a point an a timeline where in the future vitality will be increasingly lost and in the past opportunities have gone forever.

I will never have a child. My friend David is a little older than I am and his daughter is five weeks old tomorrow. I married late and the few short years where it may have happened have gone. With the birth of David and Sandra's Laura, being childless, which I accepted, is now a much starker reality.

Looking back, I do not regret the decisions that have led me here. Indeed, if I had followed a different path I would have been married and started a family in my twenties. I could have children now at university, probably a divorce and perhaps years of regret.

I would certainly not have lived the life I have. And there are many opportunities I did take that have not only given me memories, but made me the person I am today, with the skills, knowledge and, to some degree, wisdom.

But can I face remembering it all? Is my mind rebelling because we are supposed not to?

The wall

I am hoping this post is a marker of an obstacle that I will overcome, rather than the beginning of the end of this experiment in remembering every day that passes.

But I have to admit that these past few days I've found I keep coming up with blanks as I review the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar. I thought it was too much wine and not even sleep, but less of the former and more of the latter hasn't resolved the problem.

When I have difficulty it is with recent tags rather than old ones, which makes it feel that it is this process of remembering that is breaking down. A few times I've felt it better not to review past days than to suffer the frustration of missing images. The pleasure of the perspective remembering every day has been giving me changes to distress on these occasions.

I've felt I'm tempted to let the days go, to accept a few blanks; or to write down the memory tags before I forget some of them forever.

So far I've not given into that temptation; laying down to sleep last night I was able to scan back through the past three months, finding all the images.

But there is no point making this experiment an ordeal; I may be forced to accept that despite the feeling that remembering was becoming easier, I've come to my limit.

At the moment I feel a bit like the narrator in the story "Flowers for Algernon", who was given a drug that boosted his intelligence, only for it to drop away again.

I may be returning to living with a fog of memories, unable sometimes to remember what I was doing this day last week, this day last month. It makes me sad to think that may be true.

But I hope my brain will develop a better way of forming memories, that the process of remembering will be transformed. I hope I have hit a wall that will crumble if I persevere.

Drawing a blank

Too much wine, not enough sleep.

That's what I blame for the unpleasant feeling of drawing blanks yesterday for several days in the review of the memory tags on my internal calendar.

Those older than a month now seem to be firmly entrenched. It was more recent tags that gave me a problem, even those for last week.

At times like this, I remind myself that it will great feeling when they come back and not to worry about it.

I also told myself it was probably down to having a glass or two of wine for too many consecutive nights while working late and missing out on sleep. I was tired.

All the techniques for remembering came into play and the missing four or five images were recaptured.

With a couple it was an echo that finally helped the missing tags come back.

I went to sleep still drawing a blank for the image for 13 February. This morning it was still blank. I could remember the surrounding days and remembered some of the things I had done on that day, but not the specific image I had chosen to mark it out.

It was only when picking up a Charles Dickens book to read with my wife that it came back to me. It had been a while since we had read the book. With that thought I remembered that on 13 February I picked up my guitar for over a year (I had only recently collected it after we moved back here to my country).

It felt great to remember and I mentally embossed the date onto the neck of the guitar.

Nearly three months into this process of remembering and I've not yet had to give up on any day.

It felt close this time, but hopefully that was just down to the wine and lack of sleep.

Collective memory failure

I met friends in Southbeach a few weeks ago (okay, 24 February - I might as well be specific, now that I can).

We tried to remember the details of our meeting up over recent years, what we had done, where we had walked.

It was hard. Events merged together and were misremembered. Collectively we could paint a fuller picture, but it was a little scary how much of the past was a mish-mash of vague snippets.

In the future I hope to be able to remember all we did this last time, even if reclaiming the memories from before I began this process remains a challenge.

Funny words

When I caught the wrong bus on Wednesday 7 March, I was intending to get off at the cemetery stop.

This prompted remembrance of childhood fascination with words. Why did we bury people at a semi-tree?

And why were people called human beans? Were they related to baked beans?

I still have to think before saying the word "gesture". As a joke my father used to pronounce it with a hard g. How was I to know that was wrong?

I read avidly as a child and would sometimes bleep over words I didn't understand, knowing I would start to see them everywhere and would work them out from context. Or eventually I'd reach for the dictionary if it was too much of a distraction.

It meant sometimes I knew a word, but not the correct pronunciation, which could last for many years.

The director of a play I appeared in about 12 years ago complemented me on my first rendition of the speech that was to open the play, but had to tell me where to put the stress on "plethora".

There is a word that continues to sound strange to me. Whenever I say it I feel I must have swapped the consonants over, even when I haven't: car park.

Remembering bus routes

I dropped the car at the garage yesterday for its annual service and caught the bus home.

I took the bus at the shopping and cinema complex we sometimes visit in town.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that although the bus passes by the stop at the end of our road, it sails on by as it is the link bus to the out-of-town car park.

I had a long walk in the rain to reflect on why this vital fact had slipped my mind.

My memory tag for the day includes this walk so I remember not to take that bus again - particularly when I'm with my wife.

Hopefully remembering the experience will be more effective than remembering the map of bus route.

Dying every day

If we are the sum of our experiences, then the person I am now is different to the person I was yesterday.

I can look back, day by day, to when I began this process of remembering, like a clock winding backwards.

Further back, the dates are more likely to be blank than filled with memories.

But I see myself growing younger, becoming a child. My loved ones rejuvenating.

Those days are gone. Those people changed.

Every day I die and become a new person in adding a layer of experience.

Older and, if I learn from my mistakes, perhaps wiser.

My parents

My parents visited for the weekend. My father is 79 years old and drove the 180 miles to see us. He is very active, despite still suffering from injuries sustained as a child in the second world war. He is a writer and has embraced computers in recent years, which is particularly impressive given he does not use them intuitively but writes detailed notes for every procedure.

My mother is 72 and not as active as she used to be. Since we last saw her, she has taken to pushing a shopping trolley everywhere for support due to arthritis in her knees. She doses herself with pills and cider vinegar that are supposed to help, and gives herself electric shocks with a thumb operated device.

My mother has always been a talker, but tells her stories to so many relatives she has often repeated herself. It has struck me how my father doesn't really seem to notice this. For years they have had the habit of telling me the same stories time and again, as if for the first time, even on consecutive days when we are staying with them.

My mother's memory was noticeably worse this time. She asked perhaps twenty times if we had visited our friends in Seaton since we had arrived back in the country and if they were coming to see us.

While she is forgetting things, she also has false memories. She was convinced she had been with me in my car when someone crashed into the back of it two years ago. In retelling the story, she has placed herself at the scene.

Her spatial memory is being affected. She won't travel into town on her own anymore to visit the shops because she is worried she won't find her way home.

But she remembers more active times without rancour, reminding us as she pushes her trolley of our long walks on family holidays.

Remembering remembering

Perhaps I was becoming complacent after finding it much easier than expected to remember every day that passes.

Looking back over the past 10-day window, the memory tags for Monday and Tuesday were a blank. I should have made more effort to consolidate them.

It was not so much that I couldn't remember what I had done of those days - they were still fresh. It was the memory tag that eluded me.

Sometimes I remember the act of remembering, of deciding - usually as I review the day as I lay down to sleep - that the memory tag for today will be a particular image.

Sometimes the day links with other days, joining the dots of the narrative of the story of my life. I remember how it struck me at the time of remembering that the day was linked to another.

Sometimes during the course of the day I take a step back and consciously decide to capture the image of the moment. This happened on 3 March as I sat with my wife and my parents, who had come to visit, enjoying tea and scones outside a café on an unexpectedly sunny day, watching sparrows, blue tits and chaffinches hop onto the tables to peck up crumbs near to where we sat.

I not only remember the moment, but deciding to remember the moment.

My memory tags for Monday and Tuesday came back to me soon enough.

Now remembering they were a little difficult to remember helps me to remember them!

Joining the dots

A new aid to remembering every day of my life has emerged recently: joining the dots.

My principal technique for remembering is to pin an image that captures the essence of the day to my mental calendar. Reviewing these memory tags in subsequent days entrenches them in my long-term memory. All the same, sometimes looking back it takes a moment or two to remember the image for a particular day. The fact there are no plot holes in life helps me to bring back the image in the end.

What I find is also helping is joining the dots between memory tags.

As an example, it was 10 February when our friend Sandra gave birth to Laura. On my mental calendar a line stretches from this day to 29 February, when my wife and I had recovered from our colds and were able to visit Laura for the first time.

This is a step beyond being able to view the narrative to a story in my life. It is an aide memoir. If I am stuck with remember 29 February, I can feel there is a line stretching back to 10 February and Laura's birth. Sensing the line - the fact there is a line - helps me to recall the image that was temporarily out of reach.

It is a short cut. Stuck for the 29 February? Remember 10 February.

This wouldn't be useful if remembering these linkages between days was an extra burden. It's not something I'm forcing. There are few days on my mental calendar linked by these lines.

The joins that do exist between the dots have emerged naturally.

They are another way my mind is helping me to remember.

Remembering to listen

Conversation between couples can degenerate into arguments with undignified rapidity because a phrase invokes memories of past conflicts.

They have been described as "toothpaste" arguments, where a comment about leaving the top off the toothpaste leads to a tennis game of volleys about the faults of the other.

I've seen bickering couples and they are all the same. Offense is taken not at what is said, but how it is said. A comment can be the start of a familiar chain of criticism and sometimes it seems quicker to jump to offense being taken without the journey to get there.

Saddest of all is rehashing the argument in an attempt to convince the other where the fault lies: "I said... then you said..."

I so don't want to be part of that couple.

But I had just that feeling when I took the wrong bus in the Capital two weeks ago. Because of my error we had to walk for 5 minutes rather than dropping right in front of our destination. A simple mistake - I recognised the number of the bus because it was one we took often. What I forgot was we needed to go a little further on this occassion.

Even writing this I feel the emotion of hurt at the unwarranted criticism and patronising instruction to check in future. I struggle to think of anyone else who would speak to me in such a way, coming up only with my parents or a teacher when I was six years old.

At the same time I am angry because I know that with friends - or in past relationships - such a mistake would be no issue at all. Instead of sucking joy out of the day, it would have passed in a second as nothing of importance.

I am breathless at the injustice. With the situations reversed, I would have accepted the mistake cheerfully. I know for a fact that I accept far worse errors with words of reassurance not castigation.

Explaining I don't want to be spoken to in this way does no good. In fact, it generally leads to a circle of justifications and recriminations. "I said... you said..."

Nooooo.

Then I had a thought.

The hurt I feel, I think most partners feel, in these situations is fundamentally because I cannot understand how my wife could speak to me in this way if she loved me.

That old chestnut of it is not what is said, but how it is said.

My responses are no doubt as hurtful, even if I know that I wouldn't go down this bickering path if she hadn't started it. "You said... so I said..."

The clue, however, surely lies in the fact I am made to feel that I am six again.

In truth, it is not my wife that makes me feel that way. It is my reaction to her in these situations.

Certainly that childhood feeling of injustice, hurt and anger is real. But I am no longer six.

So I decided the next time not to argue back but to listen to the criticism. To explore it. I may be disappointed that my wife is sometimes so annoyed by little things, but is the underlying cause that she does not love me? Or is it just her feet are tired and she's really pissed at the thought of having to walk even five minutes more?

My memory tag for the 21 February is one word: listening.

It was the first opportunity I had to put this approach into practice. It passed off okay.

A blow to the head

There is a memory that has haunted me: injuring my father by slamming the trunk of the car down on his head as he reached in.

It wasn't deliberate; I thought he had taken out the last item. I was trying to be helpful.

An added aspect to the horror of this memory is a gang of children from my school were walking by. I was a little self-conscious standing there with my Dad. I intended to slam the trunk down and then turn to greet them as coolly as I could.

Instead the trunk banged onto his head. He shouted and ran into the house howling. I followed while the gang from school looked after us.

During the years since, I have remembered the incident from time to time and cringed.

Then one day over a meal my father related the story of when he had gone into work with a great gash on his head.

He turned it into a funny story about his worry that his colleagues would think his wife had hit him with a frying pan.

The horror and embarrassment at the memory of the thud as the trunk hit his head sent me dizzy once more.

But my father finished his story explaining he had done it to himself by bringing the garage door down upon his head.

"Hang on," I said. "It was me slamming the trunk of the car down on you."

He looked at me as if I was crazy and denied it flat. He had done it to himself.

He hadn't. Probably he had invented the garage door story to avoid blaming either his wife or me when he went in to work. The official story had replaced the truth in his memory.

Suddenly it seemed that all the times I had lamented causing my Dad great pain that day were somehow pointless. If he said I hadn't done it, what was I feeling bad about?

From that day on, rightly or wrongly, the memory bothered me no more.

Remembering by distraction

I am now attaching full date information to the image I pin to my internal calendar as a memory tag for the day.

So, for example, on 25 February 2012 I was walking round a lake with friends and we sat in a hide to watch the birds on the water.

My memory tag is the view across the lake with my friends seated and standing beside me. The date is there in black font in the sky above the lake. This image calls up the other events of that day.

Thinking back over the past few weeks and adding the date information to my memory tags, something struck me. Somehow having the date to focus on made the image more vivid.

Memories can be slippery things. The more I try to focus on a particular memory and call up details, sometimes the harder it is to latch on to.

For a while I couldn't remember the image for 2 February 2012, so I just focussed on the date. The image then came to mind, fading in behind the date.

It may be an illusion, but it seems easier to pick up on extra details when I have the date there to direct my attention to, as if they are in the corner of my mental eye.

Full date tags

For over two months I've been adding images to my mental calendar as memory tags to be able to remember each day.

I have realised I need to think of the full date when I review the memory tags.

I am in danger of becoming confused when scrolling back using the number of the day alone.

For example, I quickly remember that the 15th was when I met up with my brother in the Capital, but what month?

It doesn't take long to work out, but as the days pile up it will be far easier to have the month and year immediately associated with the image.

It is not just enough to see the image on the page of the calendar.

I'm now stamping the full date on the image when I first store it in my memory and each time I reconsolidate it in reviews of past days.

Narrative

One of the joys of being able to remember every day of the past two months since I began this process of remembering is narratives emerge and are much easier to follow.

I now have enough material pegged down to specific dates.

It was thinking of my friends having a daughter that crystalised this for me this week.

Laura was born on 10 February. I remember receiving the call at about 5 pm in the living room of our flat and handing the phone to my wife so she could also give her congratulations to the parents.

All the times we met them up with them over the past three months come to mind.

They are in my first ever memory tag in this process of remembering on 17 December, going out to lunch with Sandra heavily pregnant.

After Christmas we met on 8 January at their place for lunch. We ate salmon and shared fish-related stories over the dining table.

We met at the café in the library for lunch on 20 January, and shared visa stories: Sandra's aunt was applying for a visa to visit.

We had them round for dinner in our new flat on 25 January - a Wednesday. I can picture them on the sofa as we talk about the imminent arrival and how they have prepared their home.

On 5 February, I travelled with David to the airport to meet her aunt's flight.

We intended to call round on Tuesday 7 February, but Sandra was kept in the hospital after visiting for her check up. My memory tag is sitting with my wife in the car deciding where to go instead.

Their daughter Laura was born on 10 February. I hope to remember her birthday forever.

My memory tag for 11 February is sitting with my wife in a favourite café writing messages in the huge card we had bought them.

We have still to visit as we have colds and don't want to take germs to their house.

Beyond the three months, there are also memories, of course. Hearing about the pregnancy. Meeting Sandra for the first time. Being unable to travel to their wedding. Hearing about her from David for the first time. Some of these memories are foggy. Some are clear, but of unknown date.

I prefer the new way of remembering the story of our lives.

Bugs Bunny at Disney World

It is recognised that people can honestly believe memories that are false. False memories are a challenge to the criminal justice system. They can even develop into a syndrome affecting relationships if particularly traumatic.

I want to avoid settling for "must have been" memories in this process of remembering every day of my life. One approach is to recognise that a false memory sometimes presents a niggling doubt: I feel like I'm trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Experiencing this feeling earlier this week and thinking about false memories reminded me of a study which I read when a teenager. The subjects in the study were shown a brochure for Disney World and then asked if they remembered visiting as a child.

Those that had were questioned in more detail about what they had seen and done. Either voluntarily or when prompted a large number remembered seeing Bugs Bunny. Although Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character, he appeared in one of the photos in the brochure and this had been incorporated into the subjects' recall of their own trip.

They created a false memory incorporating something they thought must have been true. Meeting Bugs Bunny became as real as any other memory.

I remember the report was published in New Scientist magazine, which I read regularly when at school and again when working in Africa in the 1990s.

I know the study involved Bugs Bunny and Disney World.

However, the detail about the brochure is something I have invented, because it sounds feasible; it is not a genuine memory of my own, but a false memory I've created to fill a gap in my story. I recognise this at the moment. Perhaps in the future I will recall my plausible invention as a fact. It could become a false memory.

There is a curious footnote to this posting.

I thought I'd search our great collective memory of the internet to see if there is a reference to this study, even though it predates widespread use of the internet.

I found page after page of search results referring exactly to the Bugs Bunny at Disney World story. Here's one http://www.rickross.com/reference/false_memories/fsm49.html 

The only thing is, these reports date from 2001 and I am convinced I read about this study in the late 1970s. Possibly it was when I was in Africa in the 1990s and also reading New Scientist, but it feels longer ago.

I know where I was in 2001 and placing the memory of reading about the study then feels like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Can I trust this feeling and conclude the study reported in 2001 was a repeat of something from years before? Am I a reliable witness?

If anyone knows for sure, that will help me know whether I can trust this feeling or not.

I will keep looking.

Avoiding false memories

I can remember every one of the days of the last two months, since beginning this process.

The fact the past does not change certainly makes it easier.

However, buzzing back through three months of Thursdays yesterday to reconsolidate those memory tags, I hit a blank when it came to 12 January.

As it was a Thursday, my wife would have been attending a college course. Taking and/or collecting her from college figures in every Thursday, even if this is not involved in the specific memory tag.

So somehow that must have been part of the day. But using that as a prompt to recall my memory tag felt like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. I just knew there had been a radically different image for the day.

I don't worry anymore when I hit these blanks.

I have learned that remembering will give me a buzz so rather than panicing, I tell myself relax 'cos there's a buzz coming.

It was the conviction that it was a very different sort of Thursday that reminded me in the end.

It was the one time I hadn't been in town to take my wife. I had gone to the Capital for a meeting. My memory tag for that day was riding a hire bike across town to the train station to make my way home. I was back in time to drive to pick up my wife, but the bike ride was my memory tag, now reconsolidated on my mental calendar.

It would have been easy to just drop in a generic sort of trip to my wife's college and create a false memory.

I have learned from this that I should trust the feeling that a memory is not fitting and not invent must have beens.

Synaptic plasticity and magic pills

"Memory-Boosting Drugs Could Be A Step Closer" the media is declaring, with a picture of pills to make the point clearer.

This relates to research just published in the Public Library of Science biology journal with the title: Facilitation of AMPA Receptor Synaptic Delivery as a Molecular Mechanism for Cognitive Enhancement.

It is interesting stuff and very welcome it is published in an open access journal.

Rats treated with a peptide designated FGL had improved spatial learning. This was evaluated by how well they could find their way around a water maize.

The improved learning ability remained even after the peptide had been administered. It had apparently sensitised the brain to lay down memories more effectively.

The authors (who declare having a small shareholding in the company that synthesizes FGL) explain:

The human brain contains trillions of neuronal connections, called synapses, whose pattern of activity controls all our cognitive functions. These synaptic connections are dynamic and constantly changing in their strength and properties, and this process of synaptic plasticity is essential for learning and memory. Alterations in synaptic plasticity mechanisms are thought to be responsible for multiple cognitive deficits, such as autism, Alzheimer's disease, and several forms of mental retardation. In this study, we show that synapses can be made more plastic using a small protein fragment (peptide) derived from a neuronal protein involved in cell-to-cell communication. This peptide (FGL) initiates a cascade of events inside the neuron that results in the facilitation of synaptic plasticity.

Which in my simplification means the physical change that takes place in the brain to form memories take place more readily once FGL has been present.

How FGL arises naturally in the brain and whether it plays a role in the improved spatial memories of taxi drivers is another question. After all significant brain changes have been found to occur when taxi drivers learn the routes they need to obtain a licence, as the BBC reported in December 2011.

The FGL was actually administered to the rats using "A 22-gauge double-guide injection cannula ... fixed with two screws in the skull using dental cement".

Whether or not FGL has a role to play in future treatment of degenerative disease, there is a way to go to get the FGL to the correct location via the stomach using the pills that are pictured in the media stories.

Remembering not to cheat on my wife

Every day I see attractive women. Attractive because, by definition, I am attracted to them.

I have never done anything about it when I have been in a relationship. I have never cheated on any partner. Even my Second Life avatar did no more than flirt with a few female friends I made when this became a temporary obsession - I had actually joined as a place to meet my wife when we were in our respective countries for a few weeks, but she was never taken with the idea.

Today I see an attractive women waiting at a bus stop with a child in a push chair. I am not lustful - or at least not solely. I think, I hope you have someone who loves you, treats you well and looks after you. I have a twinge of regret that it won't be me.

I will never have a relationship with her or the many other women I might want to be with, to share our lives, to make laugh, to support when they are down.

I know that any affair would sooner or later pass the electrifying pleasure of finding feelings reciprocated and evolve into familiarity and the risks that brings. That is what happens. I remember.

Fourteen years ago I first caught sight of my wife at a crowded meeting and everyone and everything else receeded. Our relationship began and strengthened to the point where time apart was too much to bear and we resolved to spend the rest of our lives together, through thick and thin.

Seeing an attractive woman sometimes reminds me of that day - and the many days since when I have looked at my wife as if seeing her for the first time, seeing her individuality, her wholeness, and the love between us.

I remember the feeling that I wanted to be the person who loves her, treats her well and looks after her. Today is another chance to do so.