Afternoon Tea

 Dear Reader

                                                            Mexican earrings

 

This week I have been trying to write a poem describing Vincent Van Gogh's bedroom at Arles, painted in 1888.  But it is not easy.  Nevertheless I will do it by next Sunday.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30th, 1853 and died in 1890. He was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history.  In a period of ten years, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings most of which date from the last two years of his life.

He was not commercially successful in his career and suffered from severe depression and poverty which eventually led to his suicide at the age of thirty seven.  He did not eat properly and drank heavily.  His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor, when in a rage, he cut off part of his left ear.  

He is remembered as an important but tragic painter whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.  Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

                                                              

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From Horace Walpole, June 14th, 1791 in Middlesex

'It froze hard last night: I went out for a moment to look at my haymakers, and was starved. The contents of a English June are hay and ice, orange-flowers and rheumatism.  I am now cowering over the fire.'

From Francis Kilvert, June 15th, 1873 in Wiltshire

'The sun and the golden buttercup meadows had it almost to themselves.....One or two people were crossing the Common early by the several paths through the golden sea of buttercups which will soon be the silver sea of ox-eyes.  The birds were singing quietly.  The cuckoo's notes tolled clear and sweet as a silver bell.'

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Afternoon Tea

If the woman had had
choice of mother,
she would have chosen
one who liked afternoon tea,
with scones, strawberry jam,
sweet biscuits, and hot Darjeeling.

But the mother of the woman
did not like afternoon tea.
She liked cocktails, excitement
after dark and its secrets,
stirring things up, mischief,
and life's excesses.

As the woman knew
that the choice of mother
was not negotiable,
she chose her friends
with four o'clock in mind.

 

Best wishes. Patricia

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My novel : Victoria Scott's Dilemma is available here. It is rather a charming romantic tale with lots of laughter.  Look on Amazon under books:       

Patricia Huth Victoria       

and it will come up.

 

                                                          VICTORIA  SCOTT'S  DILEMMA

 

 

Patricia Huth