We are the World Blogfest # 34: Preservation societies …

Anxious times … so many devastating happenings yet we have wonderful volunteers, helpers, people who go over and beyond … that I was swamped with ideas – yet … which were most relevant in today’s ‘erratic’ world of fires, floods, disputes, horrors …

I was going to write about rural communities reviving their villages – bringing hope to their dwellers … but with the extremes that are happening now … peoples will always pull together – thankfully …

But out of this … a song came to the fore … for someone as unmusical as I am – it always surprises me what the brain manages to remember … which brought a smile – a pertinent smile with relevant thoughts for us in Britain …

… while also translatable / adaptable to places around the world …  each country has communities …  where people help and support others …

Comberton, Cambridgeshire

Very  British lyrics … the Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society words seem to be worth remembering and thinking about - for all their apparent irrelevance …

The lyrics can be found by looking - mine came up via LyricFind, but no link per se … and the Youtube link … for the song ... 

 

The Kinks - studio album

We need to laugh, to keep our values … yes to think forward, but help others who do not have that capacity …

I read a note from the Migration Museum reminding us that wherever we live and work … we are alongside others and are always forming relationships – every country does the same …

… we integrate, we absorb … we are only one generation: our history must show we care -  we should leave a world ready for generations to come …

We are the World Blogfest

“In Darkness, Be Light”

For further information on The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society 

... and stay safe, think kindly ... 

Where else in the world would you find a line in a song ... "We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium" ... but here in the UK?

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Write … Edit … Publish … Bloghop/IWSG hop: Café Terrace …

Cecile had dropped her off at their favourite cafe, since her husband had died she was adjusting … 

... but a visit, perhaps her last, to this their secret hideout … where the world was put to rights …

Edouard Manet at the cafe (1925)

Her Pierre … so dapper, so kind … always well-dressed – a white scarf around his neck, his fancy hat – ready to be doffed to the ladies … they were of a previous era …

Lobster Bisque

Cafe Terrace was where they so often ate – now if Madame remembered her – she would have their usual meal … a bowl of lobster bisque, some French bread, ...

Spring vegetable stew

... fresh Spring vegetable stew, followed by a crème caramel with their speciality: shortbread flavoured with geranium … all so French, and d’accord’ home made.

Creme Brulee

The table was empty, her seat awaited – she spread her sea-jewelled coloured scarf (a gift from Pierre) over the back of the chair, for now in the shadow … but, as she knew, the sun would come round to warm her. 

Scented geraniums

Madame’s beautiful café had been in the same family for years … they had always delighted in it –the trailing plants, masses of geraniums from which the perfume from a crushed leaf would linger …

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner -
Davos cafe (1928)

… the memories flooded back – their times together – their love of art … their visits to Davos – which she could no longer make. 

Summer in Davos, by Kirchner 1925

For now her memory recorded odd snippets over their lifetimes … she would bask in the sunshine, eat slowly as the glimpses of time passed her by …

She'd always loved the
colours the sun scattered as
its rays came through the glass

… followed by a short walk around the square, into the church for some solitude … perhaps the organ was being played, a look at the magnificent stained glass windows letting in the rainbow lights …

Women on the terrace in the evening
Degas 1877

… then Cecile would appear – ready to collect and drive her home.  A perfect day out … in her own space, with so many memories … she had fulfilled one last wish to visit the Café on the Terrace.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Birthday feedback … part 4 – just to tidy up …

Final days of the hotel … 

... as it was in 2017:

The fire – burning November 2019 …

Peeky-boo hotel …

Burnt out side …

Fallen middle …

Demolished – empty space … no photo – Storm Dennis is around … but architectural corbels saved from the Grade II* listed 70-room hotel ...

Eastbourne's Martello - known as the Wish Tower -
against which Pierre Bistrot 'sits' ... 

Along the Channel coast are vestiges of Martello towers: 74 of them, and 2 Redoubts – Napoleonic fortifications … some still around, others gone …

Rathfinny’s Vineyard … use extra thick green glass for their Sussex Sparkling wine … remember those apothecary bottles … green, blue and amber … then clear ones too – where if used the contents would deteriorate more quickly … as the light infiltrates and oxidises the contents …

I wonder how Rathfinny’s will find trading across the Channel and how other overseas areas will pan out – now that we’ve left the European Union: we are in a state of flux – being led rather fast forward into our unknown as I see it …

While the frontage was still in tact -
til it was demolished - thankfully before our next
storm, which is happening now ...

I had the poor old hotel battered by storms struggling to stay upright when ‘its corsets had been burnt’ … though it, nor I, have corsets around anymore … my brain is addled at the way the world is turning …

Thankfully Denise Covey’s WEP/IWSG Café Terrace prompt arrives soon … and I need a coffee to relax in the sun: it’s been awol recently …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories