New year chance to hoard some more memories

For most people, rolling over from one year to another is a time to look forward, but there are those for whom it is a no-holds-barred nostalgia-fest.

For some people, the start of a new year comes as a blank sheet. It represents a chance to draw a line under the previous 12 months, to erase mistakes from memory and to resolve to do things differently in the days and weeks ahead. People with this mindset are all about looking forward: forget dwelling on the past because be it good or bad, by now it's old news.

I, on the other hand, like to dedicate a good few hours at the end of each year to a spot of old-fashioned reflection. An opportunity to look back (misty eyes optional) and think about the things that have changed, remember a few favourite moments and generally get a bit nostalgic. Call me sentimental, or even self-indulgent, but it's just the way I have always been.

I'm a bit of a hoarder, you see. Back in the UK, in my parents' loft, there are boxes and boxes of what could be dismissed as worthless clutter - newspaper cuttings, old birthday cards (and their envelopes) and hundred and hundreds of photographs. These are some of my most treasured possessions. A scribbled Post-it note or a creased ticket stub from a gig in 2001 can, after all, act as a trigger for memories that might otherwise be lost.

And yes, some of them make you cringe (a diary filled with 13-year-old angst), while others (a primary school blazer covered with signatures and smiley faces for example) will no doubt make you sad for the friends with whom you've lost contact along the way.

One of my favourites, a snapshot of six smiling friends with their arms flung around each other on the day before graduating from university, rather makes me agree with the old cliché: they really are the best days of your life.

It is possible to take this kind of collecting too far, though. A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon what I believe had once been someone's last Rolo. Let's just say that the chocolate had suffered the same fate as my relationship with the person who gave it to me, disintegrating pretty much into nothing, leaving a slightly unpleasant smell behind.

My sister is one of the least sentimental people I know. It's not that she's uncaring; far from it - she works as a nurse, after all. She just can't see the point in keeping a card once it has been read. As you might imagine, this can be quite hurtful, especially if you've spent a bit of time picking said card or writing a letter to go with it. On the upside, though, it does mean that there is all the more space in the loft for my ever-growing collection.