Concerning nostalgia and sentimentality.....

"is it possible do you think to be hugely nostalgic but not in the slightest sentimental? Or is that a contradiction? "

An intriguing question from @cteditions, not least because when I began to think about it I couldn't decide whether I actually knew what those words mean or if I just thought I did. A swift march over to my library (the area of my lounge near the bookcase – I've started renaming parts of my flat to sound more impressive when I'm on the telephone) told me that the dictionary definitions of the two words are linked:

Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

Sentimental: Characterized or swayed by sentiment; Affectedly or extravagantly emotional; Resulting from or colored by emotion rather than reason or realism;

Appealing to the sentiments, especially to romantic feelings: sentimental music.

All very Brideshead revisited, but both definitions do chime with what I already felt the words mean. Nostalgia would appear to be a specific form of sentimentality, dealing with the past (nostos – to return home and algos – an ache) "homesickness" is a verbum pro verbo translation of the word and, to a large extent, the feeling.

This led me to the conclusion that the answer to the question is no, in that it is no more possible to feel nostalgic without feeling sentimental than it is to own a 1976 Austin Maxi (my first car) without owning a car. Satisfied, I made my way to the kitchens (kitchen) to get cook (me) to make me a cup of coffee.

I usually try to buy coffee from areas of the world well known for their production and consumption of cocaine, on the grounds that the local citizens are more likely to be fussy about the quality of their stimulants. As it happens, this particular batch is from Papua New Guinea, not a huge cocaine snuzzling zone but pretty decent coffee made by people who do not, I understand, take any nonsense. In any case it's good stuff for sparking an inductive leap.

As the caffeine hit, I began to doubt my reasoning. One of my eyes began to twitch as well. It occurred to me that something approaching the feeling described must, in fact, be occurring in the soul of @cteditions or the question would not have been asked. A visit to my I.T. laboratory and examination of a previous message suggested that the context of the question may have concerned the kind of feeling one might have for "the old home town" (my words, not hers). Ah, I thought, there's probably something more complex going on here, I'd better have a think in the drawing room.

I thought it might be useful to examine my own feelings for my old home town (this is in the Black Country a place of stern faces and steel, not known for H.E. Bates type wistfulness). I haven't been back for a little while, and I am overdue for a visit. I certainly would like to see my friends up there, but I wouldn't call my feelings sentimental. I will not be visiting the graves of memories when I see them, nor if we hit the old pubs will they be monuments to our faded youth. We don't think like that, we're too busy having our present experiences. The fact that they're in the same places adds an extra depth to the pleasure but not in a wistful way.

This, I think, is probably the feeling described. A desire to see some of the old faces in some of the old places, not in a museum sense, but in their new context, to see what's changed, see how people are getting on. This isn't a desire to visit the past, the desire is entirely for the present, it just happens to be going on in the same geography in which memories were formed, and with some of the same people.

I may be on completely the wrong track of course, this was all based on inductive reasoning brought on by being jacked up on strong coffee harvested by Papua New Guinian farmers who would probably beat the shit out of me if they read this. 

 I think I might take a turn around the grounds...