Symi Wind
We get it from time to time. I mean the Symi wind, and we had it for three or four night’s running at the end of last week and over the weekend. The days were a little blustery, but the wind turned to force five, rising seven from the northwest and west in the late afternoon. That caused the shutters on that side of the house to panic a little, and we ended up with most of them closed. It was warm enough until after dark, and even then, not cold, but it’s blown the vine about a bit, and the bougainvillea petals now adorn the corridor inside the house like bridal confetti. As soon as you sweep them up, more blow in because now it’s warmer, the door is open.
By Sunday morning, however, there was no wind, and we had a glorious sunrise.
While out a wanderin’, I often come across an amusing oddity, and I’m not talking about any one person in particular. I am talking about things found by the side of the road. A glove, a solitary boot, an empty medicine vial on one occasion, and today, some polka dots on a plastic… something. I have made it my mission to now photograph these distractions and post them when I find them. So, today, I bring you a green polka dot jug in a tree.
As you know, I live most of my life in another world writing stories. At the moment, and for a year or two now, I have been living in the past, 1888 and 1889, to be precise. Recently, I have been in 1890, and for my current work in progress, I am investigating the Hackney Workhouse as it was around that time. I’ve found some very useful online resources, but not yet a physical book about workhouse conditions and experiences from the late 1880s, so if anyone knows of one, please do let me know. On Saturday, I was checking out an old plan of the place and realised I have actually been inside it. Not as it was then, but as it was 100 years later in the 1990s when I lived in Hackney. Part of it became the Hackney Hospital (where Marc Bolan and Ray Winstone were born) in Homerton High Street. So, it was interesting to see the map of how it used to be.
Another interesting picture that popped up over the weekend (below) shows the house I lived in in my later teenage years. This is in New Romney and was once a large, grand dwelling. It’s still an impressive building though divided into flats. We had the top floor in the roof. The large window on the left was the kitchen, the turret was part of the sitting room where my piano used to sit in the large bay window, and the bedrooms were at the back. I am not sure when this photo was taken, but since then, there has been an extension on either side, and the ‘hat’ on the turret has been changed and isn’t as pointed.
On that note, I’ll leave you to start your week and return to 1890.
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