Hannah Swithinbank

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Do you remember when...

Arcade Fire made The Wilderness Downtown? Open up Chrome, type in your address, and watch what happens. And then go and type in this postcode and watch: TR27 6HR.*

The Hayle River

I was thinking about this short film this weekend, as the weather was so nice in London, which meant it was time to start playing The Suburbs on a loop (it’s one of the great evoking-of-summer albums for me). The song, We Used to Wait now provides a nice little moment of nostalgia for me, because I can’t hear it without flicking back to this short film, to the image of the runner running all the time, and the images circling of my childhood home, in the summer. Now, when I hear We Used to Wait I want to be running down my lane with the dogs, along the river bank, in to the village (and then maybe collapse at the pub with a drink). Which is a perfect example of the beautiful lunacy of nostalgia, as I have never done that. Ever.

We used to walk from school or my child-minder’s, down past the church along the river, to the pool to swim, we played, and laughed and swam on rope swings, and one time watched the older kids pull an old fridge out of the water. But now my head has mashed that together with the joy of an Arcade Fire song and created a whole new thing - part memory, part wish. Because next time I’m down there in summer, I’m putting on the trainers and getting out the iPod, and running that run, with at least one dog.

http://youtu.be/SYdJAi-BBrs

*not my exact postcode, but one that shows you a little bit of my village