Street Party 1953

Here in Poets’ Corner, a delightful enclave off the smarter end of Hoe Street, we are getting over the E17 Art Trail. Don’t get me wrong we loved the artistic flowering in this other Eden occasioned by the Art Trail. It was just so tiring!

Basket weaving, storytelling, lamp posts littered with kiddies’ art work, flower beds freshly planted up: you had to build in an extra half an hour just to go to the shops such was the cornucopia of delights on which one’s eyes feasted. 

We, of course, had to push out the boat. Not content with an extravaganza, an embarrassment of creative, orgiastic indulgence; Poets’ Corner had its, by now famous, Street Party.

The Gods were pleased with our efforts. The day began as it ended – sun drenched. The very air hung with anticipation; with the honey dew of promise and the buzz of enterprise. Hobbit like, neighbours bustled to and fro, disgorging culinary treasures from their larders delighting the most jaded of palates.

And not a Troll in sight: all was Elvan. Neighbours sat side by side, passing the time in gentle conversation, swopping tales of house price movements, the latest loft conversion spotted in our delightful roads and how their garden designer is so much more capable than the one doing up the front garden round the corner.

If music be the food of love: play on! Our streets were alive to the sound of music; intermingling with the joyous chatter and shrieks of darling water babies that cavorted in the paddling pool or constructed brutish, post modern concrete edifices in the sand pit especially set up for the Street Party.

The excitement, merriment and joyous outpouring of neighbourliness now a distant echo,  we sigh and sip a refreshing (large) glass of New Zealand Sav Blanc