present to my mum from her father
my grandad died suddely of a heart attack a few years back at the fairly grand old age of 83. he was generally in good health so it came as quite a shock to my mum, so i volunteered to clear out his flat for her, sorting the stuff we wanted to keep and getting the rest of it to the charity shop. one thing i didn't give her, or even mention that i'd found, was a big box of old cine films from the 70s. I took them home, begged a projector off a mate and went through the lot. absolute gold mine that had me in floods of tears. I set about digitising the lot (don't send it off to be done, it's incredibly easy to do yourself), editing it down into two dvds, making menus and all that nonsense.

gave them to my mum for christmas - the first one was full of footage from holidays my parents had been on with her mum and dad to the isle of wight, cornwall and all that, some with me and my sister as toddlers in, all very cute, but the second was a recording of a large chunk of my parents' wedding - a recording that they had no idea even existed. can't really imagine what a shock that would be, but my folks were utterly speechless. the end of the footage is the only time where my grandad gave the camera to my nan to do a bit of filming and it fades out on him grinning warmly into the camera. even typing this is choking me up a bit.

don't think i'll ever really be able to top that to be honest, so i'll probably get her some smellies and a drawing done by my kids this year.
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 12:20, 6 replies)

Awesome
Best present ever - must have been a great feeling :-)
(Bappage, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 12:35, closed)

That's fantastic...
A great present and no doubt some great memories.

*click*
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 12:39, closed)

Absolutely fantastic.
Nearly had me in tears, reading that.
(TheColonel, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 13:03, closed)

That's truly lovely
Have a hug and a click.
(harrumph, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 14:30, closed)

Choking me up reading this. I tip my hat to you mate.
( Evil Bastardo, Fri 27 Nov 2009, 16:28, closed)

Have well-deserved clickage!
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 28 Nov 2009, 15:39, closed)