'That's where the music takes me...'

When I'm sitting at my computer I don't usually listen to music as I find it too distracting but, if it's a really mundane admin job, there's nothing like a trot round YouTube for some good tunes. And what I find is that music can transport you to some great memories like nothing else.

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to matter whether a particular song is by a favourite artist or genre, if that was the song playing when something great happened, it stays with you. And playing it again takes you right back there.

For instance, I can't listen to 'Fly Me to the Moon' without remembering a certain group of would-be Rat Packers including my beloved blacked-up as Sammy Davis Junior (after he had eaten all the pies, obviously) giving it their all with some very dodgy words at a party a couple of years ago. Likewise, I realise I don't look like a regular fan of The Cure but, finding ourselves in a restaurant in Temple Bar in Dublin a couple of years ago, I felt the need to stand up and duet 'Friday I'm in Love' with a dreadlocked waiter. Of course, when I have had a drop or two of the black stuff, I totally believe I know all the words which when sober, strangely, I don't! Eighteen months or so later when we were back in the same restaurant in Dublin, daughter number 1 spotted a short-haired waiter who looked familiar and asked him if he had once had dreads. He had and yes, he did claim to remember the painful duet with her lunatic mother - or he said he did, which was very polite! At Christmas, the same daughter bought me a t-shirt with some of the lyrics of 'Friday I'm in Love' on the front and even though I strongly believe that women over a certain age should not have things written on their chests, I wear it - though never on a Friday.

I suppose I should be glad that I didn't stand on a chair on that occasion, unlike my recent birthday when I felt the need to stand on the chair and make an emotional speech on the wonderfulness of my family. Luckily I didn't go on too long and everyone's attention quickly turned to the aforementioned Rat Pack group who sang their latest single (!) 'Sweet Caroline' - which is another song I shall remember for perhaps not the reasons that Neil Diamond intended!

So in the words of the tall blond one in Abba, 'thank you for the music' - and the all great memories it brings.