Friday 28 February 2020

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”



... 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

Friday 21 February 2020

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

Sunday 16 February 2020

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