Tuesday 28 January 2014

SHE SELLS SEA SHELLS...

                                                             
...sometimes, at antiques fairs, but quite often she can't resist keeping antique seaside souvenirs.

Like these Victorian glass sand bells, paperweights filled with coloured sands from Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight.
 
This one is eight inches tall, and heavy enough to be a door stop.
 
 
I love this primitive sand painting of The Needles, created by master mariner William Carpenter, again from local coloured sands, in about 1850.
 
An antique Sea-Weed Basket, with a poem.
 
Call us not weeds - we are flowers of the sea -
For lovely and bright and gay-tinted are we,
And quite independent of sunshine or showers;
Then call us not weeds - we are Ocean's gay flowers.
 
Not nursed like the plants of a summer's parterre,
Where gales are but sighs of an evening air;
Our exquisite, fragile and delicate forms
Are nursed by the oceans and rocked by the storms.
 
The Joys of the Sea.
 
 
You can take the girl away from the seaside, but you can't take the seaside away from the girl.
 
***

14 comments:

  1. These seaside treasures are so special. I love the sand painting, but everything reflects someone's love of the seashore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I cannot resist these antique souvenir - I wish I lived at the seaside, but family keeps me land-locked!

      Delete
  2. That picture of you is adorable.
    Jean x

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love to be beside the seaside, beside the sea! I have never seen a picture made out of seaweed, quite fascinating. I love the picture of you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes - Victorians were expert at thinking up ingenious ideas for making pretty things. Clever people like you follow their lead, I think!

      Delete
  4. Oh how I agree with you, Nilly. These pictures are so gorgeous - I had a tube of sand from Alum Bay when I was young,,,long gone now though. I used to want to be a seahorse...possibly still do.
    Axx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So tender and fragile - seahorses. I dreamed of being a mermaid but couldn't quite forget the scary Hans Anderson story "The Little Mermaid".

      Delete
  5. I do love to be beside the seaside, too. Lovely collection. Unfortunately I now live in one of the UK's cities the furthest from the sea. I don't think I appreciated it growing up in Norwich with the sea only c20 miles away.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree though, thank goodness, nowhere in the UK is very far from the sea. A sea view every day is still my dream.

      Delete
  6. The sand painting is gorgeous, I especially like the needles looking like something from the dentists surgery.
    I have a fascination with shells, bits of coral etc.
    Such a sweet photo of you with your little pigtails and wearing a knitted bolero.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too, I still can't resist beach combing for pretty pebbles, shell, sea-washed glass etc.
      (Ha ha, you remember boleros too!)

      Delete
  7. ~ I can smell the sea just looking through these beautiful pictures...such treasure..and so pretty are you on this picture...I always wanted to be a mermaid, but alas I just can't swim and I'm kinda scared of deep water...But days at the sea side bring happy memories...
    Hugs Maria x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can swim, but just the breast-stroke, I'm afraid. My father was much more adventurous - he swam in the sea every day, winter and summer, until he was 75.

      Delete