Aurel's laurels

Here are two entries from "As much as I can remember", an, as yet, hidden blog.

When I was about five, in the study, at Frognal, there was a bottle lamp, you know, a large bottle in a straw basket with a lamp on top. Hanging round the part of the bottle, where it spread out, was a piece of red cord, and ON that cord was a metal amulet encrusted in small polished turquoise stones. I was fascinated by it and was told not to touch it. Of course I did and I was told, above all, not to open it as this would produce bad luck. I opened it. It had a square box on the back, which came away much like a tin of marbles. Far better than marbles, inside was a piece of folded parchment. Carefully, so that I could replace it exactly as I had found it, I unfolded the old paper. On it was a block print, a black on white version of what you see below. Was I hooked then? Or was it years later when I saw the same sort of signs again? Rimpoche said the things he was telling his devotees were like candy in brightly coloured wrappers. The bright colours make you want to unwrap the candy, you eat the candy and you want more. For me the wrappers were mandalas.

My earliest memory is of holding on to my mother's leg. She was wearing a raincoat made of transparent blue plastic. We were on a beach, looking out to sea, in Ireland. She had left me and my brother there so that my father and she could take a much deserved holiday, having not had one for the six war years. I have an earlier memory of being shown the cream on top of farm milk, but that memory was established later by being reminded of it. It is not as clear, personal and emotional as the memory of clutching her leg. I was so glad to have her again.
My older brother,Gareth, and I lifted the floor board at Hadley Highstone, we looked down on a neighbouring area, where, it seems to me, people were sitting at open air tea tables, I found myself in the rough earth of our cottage garden in the middle of the night and, of course, the time my brother got me to stand up on top of the garden wall, to walk along, as he was doing. I was nervous and fell into the neighbour's garden and a man carried me all around to our front door. Some of the time I may have been unconscious, but I remember feeling horribly sick. These are my earliest memories of a time when we lived in Barnet. After I was three, we moved to Hamstead and a much fuller group of memories begin.
It was in Frognal that I discovered my friend and advisor, Jorgus.