Three Line Tales : Candyfloss and Parma Violets

photo by Dmitri Popov via Unsplash

photo by Dmitri Popov via Unsplash

 

A terrace of pink and lilac houses – candlyfloss and Parma Violets – clings to the hillside just as it did years ago, paint paler with age, a little streaked, a little stained.

Below lies the seafront, the same shops selling buckets and spades, sticks of rock and postcards, the photographs decades out of date.

This was our old stomping ground, the amusement arcades, the cafes serving ice cream floats and skinny chips in cones, us sucking the cardboard until soggy, the grease all gone. The only thing that’s changed is us.

 

Written for Sonya at Only 100 Words’ Three Line Tales. See the photo and write a story to go along. See here to join in and to read the other stories.

This picture reminded me of the painted houses that you’ll often see at the English seaside, and even in my own dear Bristol …

Harbour, boats, painted houses

Image : Pixabay

43 thoughts on “Three Line Tales : Candyfloss and Parma Violets”

    1. Thank you! That pic is of Bristol’s harbourside, one of my favourite places in the city. Love to wander by the water, watching the boats bob, eating ice cream 🙂 Thanks for reading

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    1. Mrs Griffin, is it you? Thanks so much for stopping by 🙂 Never really took to Parma Violets or candyfloss – I’m more a Love Hearts girl. Could just go some chips in a cone though. Take care x

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    1. And a lovely mermaid too – beautiful if sad. I love the idea of being paid in mermaids too – there has to be a story in that! Thanks for reading Pola 🙂

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      1. I thought you’d like it. Modern slavery though! I imagine a sailor and a circus owner, but the question is, who won her after the poker game, and what will the loser do?

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      3. Aha dear Lynny Lyn Lyn…. no. I haven’t written a sequel for that scenario but on the 27th I do have another mermaid poem. (Highly unprecedented but it happened!) I’ve got mermaid on the brain. Just now I worked out a hijab compliant mermaid outfit. I’m going to be a mermaid for winter.

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      4. For the whole of the winter? Even if it gets icy and the ponds freeze over? Thinking about it, winter must be such a pain for mermaids – maybe they all live in the Seycelles or somewhere else lovely and hot? I’ll look forward to another mermaid poem. They are fascinating creatures – when they’re not mooning over handsome sailors 🙂

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      5. Ach, no, men come and go, there’s some frenzy in a rip tide and then you’re left high and dry. Probably not ALL winter. It does indeed tend to be a summery trend but I am a contrarian, what CAN one do?

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      6. I like the idea of a winter mermaid – what kind of tough cookie do you have to be to be a mermaid in the Northern Hemisphere, round the Pole, swimming under the Aurora Borealis? Must have claws to break through the ice … They’d be terrifying. You go with the mermaid outfit and crack out my grass skirt 🙂

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      7. It’s actually very simple – Cream chiffon headscarf with tiny rhinestone edge and a pearl head band, sea green turtleneck over a long sleeve aqua tee, green harem pants, my new silver scale effect shoes.

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      9. I actually had some khaki chinos with a scale print on but they’ve dulled out and now look grey. It’s all about layering, we are queens of layering and Autumn Winter is the only time we don’t look odd doing it.

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      10. Queens of Layering – like it. I love a layer or two myself, winter being the time I’m most comfortable, clothing wise. Nice to cover up 🙂

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      13. I started sketching to create a fashion template. I will post introductory dabbles next week Thursday. It was fun actually, kind of like the beginnings of a mindfulness colouring book. Watch this space! ~ P ~

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  7. I thought maybe the change was we didn’t eat the fat — transfat’s banned over here in the former colonies and the former-former colonies. Never had a home place other than others, so don’t get the same sorts of nostalgia’s except for the ocean, the salt tang and the such.

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    1. We don’t have a blanket ban here, though apparently most manufacturers have taken them out of their food. Salt tang sounds like something to be rightly nostalgic about 🙂

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      1. Oh, I can be nostalgic. It’s often folks are nostalgic about a house they grew up in or a place of fond memories. I love the sea, but the house that brought me close doesn’t hold memories I want to cherish.

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      2. I don’t have a nostalgic house to visit either. But I can be nostalgic about the seaside, want to be there and I know I’ll be nostalgic about the harbour here in Bristol as we’ve spent so many lovely times there.

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      3. Oh I agree. Some times I get a bit cynical. My memories of walks on the beaches, running in and out of the cold Atlantic waters, looking for beach treasure — as an adult and as a child are special, they are just haunted by a melancholia that doesn’t come completely from nostalgia. Given a choice, I’d be by that part of the sea, and memories be damned.

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      4. Difficult when your memories are mixed. I feel the same about some places in my past – lovely but bad shadows hang there too. But the sea … Draws those of us who had it in our childhood, doesn’t it? Us in the UK being an island nation – I think there’s a bit of brine in our DNA 🙂

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      6. We do love the seaside (never the ‘beach’ for us!) Glad to hear we might have spread something positive around the world 🙂

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