Colourful Shopping - Sepia Saturday

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph features market scene with a colorful display of fruit  & veg.  I had to ransack  my collection to find some images, so my theme here is "Colourful Shopping" - not just food.  

 

 

What  could be more colourful than this market scene - even the bright sky contributed!  Taken in Boston August 1965 as I was about to start work o.n an exchange scheme at Radcliffe College Library  in nearby Cambridge, Mass.

 

 New England this time on my first return visit  back in the 1990s.    I just had to stop and take this photograph of  such a cheerful colourful display of pumpkins.

 

 A shop display 

 

Onto Europe 

Crowded displays in Munich Christmas Market c. 1995  

  

 

 

 

 

Onto Austria  

                                      

                       

I love the traditional Austrian costumes, worn for weddings, Sundays and a familiar uniform for staff in hotels and restaurants.  

 

                     You will need a bag for all those purchases!  

 

Attracting the Shoppers In.......  

                                 

A Shop in Bad Ischl, Austria advertising its handmade biscuits - Lebkuchen, 

 

Picturesque shop signs - for a hatter,  optician and travel bureau. 

 

And ending where I began in the USA  wh this colorful sign on  the island Martha's  Vineyard, New England.  

 

Scrimshaw is the craft of decorating or carving whale bone or ivory, done by sailors as a recreational  activity.   

 

Edgartown on the island of Martha's Vineyard off Cape Cod was founded as a colony by  Thomas Mayhew in 1642.   The settlement was later named after King James II's young son Edgar who died at the age of three in 1671.   By the 19th century Edgartown was one of the main whaling ports on the American Atlantic coast, with whaling a key factor in its prosperity. 

 

A Fascinating Fact - Maintaining the link with whales, Edgartown was used as the main location for shooting the  town of Amity in Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster "Jaws". 

 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history.

 

 

 

Click HERE to read posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers  out shopping.

 

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Windy Weather and Hands on Head - Sepia Saturday

Relax with a Convivial Drink - Sepia Saturday

Raise your glasses with a convivial drink  is this week's popular theme from Sepia Saturday's prompt photograph.   Some fresh images from me alongside  favourites from past blogs.  

 

 With work colleagues after a hard day at a training conference. 

 

 I took this photograph in a cafe bar in Munich Square, in Bavaria, Germany. The two men looked so genial sitting there with their huge beer tankards. Combined with the sign, this seemed such a good photograph to take to typify the Bavarian scene. Meanwhile we were indulging in a drink and "kuche" - (cakes). 

Here raise your German  Beer Stein!  This ornate one, with a pewter lid  is decorated in the  Bavarian colours of blue and white.   And yes - it was bought as a holiday souvenir.   

 

 

 

We enjoyed the good life  in Bavaria and Austria and loved to eat outdoors (not a regular occurrence in Scotland!) , visiting beer gardens  and Konditorei  - the  equivalent of a French patisserie with absolutely delicious cakes and pastries.  

 

 

 

The Cafe/Konditorei Zauner, founded in 1832 in the spa town of Bad Ischl, Austria.  It more than met my expectations of an elegant, old fashioned  Viennese style cafe. 

 

 

Enjoying a refreshing drink against the background of the  

the Stubai Glacier in the Austrian Tyrol

 

Below  - another  invitation to indulge  with a cream cake, coffee or hot chocolate.   

 

 

  

 

 

Celebrate the grape  - with this wall mural on an inn in Austria.  

 

 

 

 

 Or have a drink with this fellow in a restaurant in France. 

 

 

Or follow the signs for the Beacon Hill pub in Boston  

that inspired the TV programme  launched in 1982.  

 

 

Much nearer to home  - visit the old Black Bull Inn in my home village of Earlston in the Scottish Borders. 

 

 

Or be attracted by the wonderful flower displays in my nearby town of Melrose.  

 

 

  

 

           

  

Enjoy a dram!  A sign painted by my father-in-law,   who was a painter & sign-writer in Edinburgh . 

 

I have only one truly vintage photograph that relates to this week's topic -  and one that has featured before on my blog. 

 

This is the only photograph I have of my great grandfather James Danson (1852-1906), the bearded figure on the left,  sitting merrily in the ancient stocks at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.  By all accounts of his family, he was a bit of a ne'er do well, but clearly having fun in what could well be a staged photograph. 

 

And finally - James great great great granddaughter enjoying her mug of milk.   

 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history

 

 

 

 

Click HERE  to see how other bloggers are enjoying a drink.  

An Array of Arches - Sepia Saturday

  This week’sSepia Saturday prompt picture shows a street busy with traffic, but my eye was caught by the striking arch above advertising nearby theatres.   So take an historical journey through  an array of arches down the centuries. 

 

 

 

An  archway across Carnaby Street in central London.   Just off the thoroughfares of Oxford Street and Regent Street,   it became in the 1960's the centre of "Swinging London" with its pedestrian area of small boutiques and cafe culture. 

   

 

  

 

The graceful late 18th century bridge spanning the Leader Water  links the neighbouring estates of Carolside and Leadervale, neqr Earlston in the Scottish Borders. 

"The Statistical Account of Scotland" of 1834  gives us a beautiful description of Carolside.  

"Poised on a green plateau beside the River Leader and sheltered by surrounding slopes of its own extensive woodlands, as a sweet and secure asylum from the toils and troubles of the world'."

 How could that final phrase not but apply to us today?  

 

A fine row of arches in the gardens of Abbotsford House, Melrose, once the home of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). He was a noted Scottish novelist, poet, historian and collector of Border ballads. His home is now a popular visitor attraction. 

 

 

 The arched bridge at Craigsford , near my home in Earlston built in 1736.  

 

 

 The bridge over the River Tweed  marks the boundary between Scotland and England  and opened in 1767, built at a cost of £6000  - £725,000 in current values. (www.measuringworth.com).  It was paid for  by a government grant, local subscriptions and loans from Edinburgh Banks, to be paid back from the bridge tolls.  

 

But Coldstream Bridge Tollhouse at the north end of the bridge,  was more than just the location for collecting taxes.  For it was akin to Gretna Green towards the west as  the location for a Scottish  "Irregular Marriage".  This was in the form of a verbal declaration by the couple  giving their consent  before witnesses and did not require a clergyman, but anyone who took on the role for a fee.  No notice, such as banns,  was required, no parental consent  and no residency requirement.  Such marriages were valid in Scotland but were increasingly frowned upon and became less  and less acceptable. 

In the meantime, however, many English couples in particular,   eloped to places just across the Border,  to escape the stricter English marriage laws and obtain a quick, easy  and cheaper marriage.     

 It was on the bridge that Scottish bard  Robert Burns had his first glimpse of England, as marked  by a plaque.  (Wikipedia)   

 

 

 

The Scottish Borders is a region steeped in history with four ruined abbeys built in the 12th  century,  and in the Middle ages, it saw years of Anglo- Scottish in warfare and border raids.  The ruins of castles and towers bear witness to this turbulent period, many with arches a feature  of their architecture.  

 

                                                                          

 Hermitage Castle, near Hawick century.  Built in the 13th century on the Scotish-English Border,  it witnessed murder and mayhem. Once a stronghold of the Douglas family,  William Douglas imprisoned and starved to death  Sir Alexander Ramsey.  In 1566 Mary Queen of Scots rode across the moors from Jedburgh to visit James Bothwell,wounded in a raid.  Soon after he became her third husband - and set in train the events that led to her execution. 

 

 

  

 

Jeburgh Abbey was one of four Border Abbeys established in the 12th century by King  David 1 of Scotland. Lying only 10 miles north of the Border, the abbey was repeatedly sacked by English forces, most notably in 1544 when the Earl of Hertford's army raided the region in what was known as the "Rough Wooing" - an attempt by Henry VIII to enforce the marriage of the young Mary Queen of Scots to his son, the future Edward VI.   After  the Protestant Reformation   in 1560, the monks were allowed to stay,  but the abbey was used for a long time  as the parish kirk for the reformed religion until a new parish church was built in 1871. 

 

 

   

Three miles from my home is Leaderfoot Viaduct  spanning the 90 mile long River Tweed  near its junction with one of its many tributaries - the Leader Water.  The viaduct, built to carry the Berwickshire Railway,   stands 116 feet  above the river bed and each of its 19 arches has a 43 foot span.  The railway bridge opened in 1865 with the last  train running over it  just a hundred years later. when the line was closed

 

 

 

Hundy Mundy - an 18th century Gothic folly at Mellerstain, near Kelso, built by William Adam, the famous architect who also designed Mellerstain House. 

 

  

 

A bridge with family connections - my brother standing in front of the cast iron arched Ironbridge in Shropshire,  where our father spent his childhood.  It was the first ironbridge built In 1799 and often described as "the birthplace of the English Industrial Revolution.  It is now a World Heritage  Site.  My grandfather walked  for 35 minutes each day to cross the bridge to get to his work at the Coalbrookdale Power House.

 

 

This  photographs comes from my father's album.    During the Second World War, he   served in the RAF Codes & Ciphers Branch and was seconded to General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group HQ.  He was stationed in Luxembourg in winter 1944 prior to  the Battle of the Bulge. Dad  had fond memories of the city and the people he met there. The Bridge, here built between 1900 and 1903,  became an unofficial national symbol, representing Luxembourg's independence  and  was named after Grand Duke Adolphe who reigned Luxembourg from 1890 until 1905.  

 

 

  

 I love photographing decorative details on buildings and here is an arch pattern on the entrance gate to Floors Castle, Kelso.  

 

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 London and the gateway into St.James' Park, near Buckingham Palace. 

 

 

From a city to the countrywide and an archway of trees near my home.    

 

And Finally  

 

 

Image from Wikipedia.   

 

Sheet music cover of the popular music hall song "Underneath the Arches" written by Bud Flanagan in 1932 with many artistes recording it since.   

 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity

to share their family history through photograph

 

Click  HERE to see more of this week's tales from 

Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

 

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