I had the pleasure recently of shredding years worths of receipts. It was interesting, good to get rid of them, tidy the office, tidy my life. I broke the shredder about 5 times in my keenness to feed it paperwork showing where I’d been and what I’d done, what I’d bought, how much I’ve spent. One unexpected joy of the whole process was to find receipts and items in envelopes which brought back memories, memories of dinners (entertaining clients and therefor tax deductible I claim), memories of souvenirs bought, cameras bought, lenses, film and chemicals (remember them ?), and memories of travels undertaken. It was amusing to shred receipts from Albania and Eastern Europe, scribbled undecipherable markings on rough paper, bits of paper which instantly put me back in certain hired cars with scary drivers, of arguments with translators, of dodgy hotel rooms.

Anyway, I kept a few receipts, for old times sake, and some other things I came across, including items such as the one below- old Tarom ( Romanian airways- do they still exist I wonder ?) baggage claim stubs. From the days when Bucharest airport was dark, smokey, scary, and threatening, the days when taxi drivers would hassle you on the wrong side of immigration, the days when to see gypsy men in fedora hats and gypsy woman in long skirts was exotic, exciting, like stepping into a cold war movie….