Windlight

A New Sunset















A New Night

















A New Dawn

Moment of Silence

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

Dodge City

Knees Up Mother Brown

Skating with the snowman (and dancing the can-can) has aggravated my Housemaid's Knee.

It's a condition I have suffered with many a year due to scrubbing the floors of the Workhouse as a young lass.

I was lucky to leave there when I did. You have to be thankful for small mercies I suppose...

I sometimes look up at the bit of blue sky
High over my head, with a tear in my eye.
Surrounded by walls that are too high to climb,
Confined like a felon without any crime,
Not a field nor a house nor a hedge I can see -
Not a plant, not a flower, nor a bush nor a tree...
But I'm getting, I find, too pathetic by half,
And my object was only to cause you to laugh;
So my love to yourself, your husband and daughter,
I'll drink to your health with a tin of cold water:
Of course, we've no wine, not porter, nor beer,
So you see that we all are teetotallers here.

James Withers Reynolds

An unfortunate man who spent some time in Newmarket
workhouse later became known as ‘the workhouse poet’.
This is how he described life there in a verse letter to his sister,
‘Written from Newmarket Union’, 1846

Countdown to Christmas

Christmas is generally a busy time in the Household so before all the madness begins, I thought I'd have some fun.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen...

I'm not a Kitchen Maid by trade. I can easily burn a pan of water without trying very hard. However I do enjoy singing, (quite badly and mostly out of tune) whilst making my own words up to songs as I dust.

The following can be sangalong with "I'm in the mood for love"

I'm in the mood for soup
Simply because I made some
And simply because I made some
I'm in the mood for soup

Vegetables that I fry
Prior to adding water
Cumin and coriander
I'm in the mood for soup

My pot in winter weather
It'll see some soups I've made
We've put our veg together
Now in the pan, I'm not afraid

And I feel proud because
If it should boil, we'll let it
But, oh please, don't forget it
I'm in the mood for soup

Pour toutes les saisons

With grateful thanks to Henri Toulouse Lautrec (and his artwork) for inspiring me.
For more information visit here

Voulez vous Can-Can

Having read up on burlesque, I decided to visit Le Moulin Rouge.
It's an option I suppose. I like to dance.

History of Can-Can

Can-can first made it's appearance in the working class ballrooms of Paris in 1830.

Further reading shows:

"who knew that the French cancan had revolutionary roots, and the dance is coded, physically coded? It's a language. It's a grammar among a group of people...it was incredibly defiant but coded so the dancers wouldn't all end up in the Bastille. The cancan is entertainment, but behind the entertainment is a much deeper and smarter meaning"

More reading

"Many composers have written music for the cancan. The most famous music (and probably the most well-known melody from any opera) is French composer Jacques Offenbach's galop infernal in Orpheus in the Underworld (1858).

Other examples occur in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (1905) and Cole Porter's Can-Can (1954). The cancan has often appeared in ballet, most notably Léonide Massine's La Boutique Fantasque (1919) and Gaîté Parisienne. A particularly fine example of a French Cancan can be seen at the climax of Jean Renoir's 1954 film of the same name."

Don't put your daughter on the stage..

The Theatre in Caledon Penzance.

I wonder what entertainment will be on offer? The Theatre isn't officially open as yet (neither is the sim), but I had a wander by on my rounds. Duster in hand, of course. There is a bit of construction dust but as it's work in progress, I didn't spend much time cleaning as only more dust will appear.

I sneaked a look inside and my, it does look very grand.

Research shows that Burlesque was popular in the Victorian Era.

Originally, burlesque featured shows that included comic sketches, often lampooning the social attitudes of the upper classes, alternating with dance routines. It developed alongside vaudeville and ran on competing circuits. In its heyday, burlesque bore little resemblance to earlier literary burlesques which parodied widely known works of literature, theater, or music.

Possibly due to historical social tensions between the upper classes and lower classes of society, much of the humor and entertainment of burlesque focused on lowbrow and ribald subjects.

The genre originated in the 1840s, early in the Victorian Era, a time of culture clashes between the social rules of established aristocracy and a working-class society.

The popular burlesque show of the 1870s though the 1920s referred to a raucous, somewhat bawdy style of variety theater. It was inspired by Lydia Thompson and her troupe, the British Blondes, who first appeared in the United States in the 1860s.

Surprisingly, early Burlesque was produced, written and performed mostly by women.

Here are some interesting links to read .

The History of Burlesque
http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm

Popular Entertainment in Victorian Britain
http://www.victorianweb.org/mt/index.html

Important Dates in Burlesque History
http://www.anatomyofburlesque.com/datesframe.htm

c.1890 Young Man's scrap book of pictures
http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/galleryimages/1890sloperia/index.ht

Singalong

Oh I love to go a-dustering
Around sweet Caledon's land
And where I go, I love to clean
With a duster in my hand

Val-deri, Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri, Val-dera.
My duster in my hand

I love to wash all the glass
Enhance all that I see
Polish all the wood and brass
then have a cup of tea...

Visiting the Titanic