Kings, beach huts and poetry



The Union Jack Block is available via my Etsy store.

I recently spent the weekend in Brighton visiting the seaside palace of King George IV (Royal Pavillion).  I stopped overnight and was lucky enough to have a sea view from my hotel window.

Early the following day as I sat by my window looking out on a cold, grey April morning, I saw a group of hardy swimmers taking to the water. 

 “I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought...”

  

The sea must’ve been very cold because when they came out of the water their bodies glowed bright red from the cold.  They walked quickly up the pebbled beach towards a beach hut where they had left their clothes and towels.  Instantly I was transported back to sunny, childhood days when friends would make afternoon tea on a primus stove which they kept in their beach hut (along with teapot and crockery). 

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude...

Not so much a couch as a sewing table........  When I returned home I didn’t think much more about it and got back to a sewing project I was working on.  But something was pulling me.  My sewing proceeded as expected but in my mind’s eye I kept returning to Brighton.  So one evening I let my mind sketch. 

That same evening I transferred my sketch to the Word program on my computer and created a draft pattern.  The next morning I still couldn’t concentrate and so I gave in to creation and two hours later, this is the result:

"And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

Or in my case –      

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

As fabric captures childhood thrills.
 

(Okay, so I am not Wordsworth ..... but you get the point!)