Nostalgia

On Monday, I did a lot of travelling. I drove for just over 1000km. The weather in the morning was terrible. It was raining all the time.
I was collecting some photo-copiers for a project in Sri Lanka.
At lunchtime I was in the city of Bochum, where we used to live (1976-82). Elisabeth, my wife, grew up in that city. An old friend came to help me collect one of the machines in the city and the thing was so heavy, it nearly broke his back!
I went on to collect another and was going to go past Lippstadt. I used to live there too (1971-73). At that time I was still in the Army and lived in Churchill Barracks, Suedstrasse.
Thanks to my navigation-system I managed to find the street and was very surprised at the state of the old barracks.
They were in a magnificent condition. I suppose the British Army must have moved out there around the mid-90s. The buildings had been converted into flats.
The old cinema was a church. An open university is based there and it looks like the old Regimental HQ (which we referred to as the kremlin), was now a music school.
I belonged to 22 Signals Regiment. The place we were worked, garages where we kept our vehicles with equipment, were gone and other houses had taken their places.
At the other side of the camp other regiment was stationed - an artillery regiment (27 Regiment Royal Artillery). They used to have self-propelled guns, I think they were M110 or something like that. If I remember rightly they had 90lbs shells. Well, there a children's playground on the place were they used to be kept.
I walked around the place and memories began to be relived. I found my old room or at least the outside, I could see my old window.
During the two years I was there, I thought the time would never end. But in the meanwhile 35 years have past since I was last there.
As I pondered all the things that had happened over the last 35 years and at the same time the impressions of my time in Lippstadt were so present with me, I realised how quickly everything soon passes.
I wrote to our daughter in the USA, that even though she is so young, she need to make the most of every day.
Happy Christmas