MONO MONDAY - THE ORIGIN OF MY BLIP NAME

I often begin to think about what I am going to write in my journal when I am still in bed, and today was no exception.  

I was trying to think, first of all, how I got into photography, and remembered that we became friends at church with a lovely couple called Paul and his wife, Sue, who was a very good photographer.  She encouraged me to buy an SLR, but this was before the digital age, so I always had issues with looking through the viewfinder, particularly as I wore glasses.  I remember, as many of you will, sending off my film and waiting for it to come back, only to find that I had many rubbish shots and only one or two decent ones.

Eventually, that changed - the sending off the film, that is, when I sold my SLR and got a digital camera - but once I had “gone digital”, I don’t think I got quite as many rubbish shots!

So moving on about thirty years, after our two sons had left home - our older son, who by this time was married, and his wife bought a lovely apartment down at Boscombe, near Bournemouth, and for about seven or eight years we went down there on a regular basis.  The reason I chose the Blip name “Honeycombebeach” is that it was the name of the complex where their apartment was situated - I was Mrs. HCB and then my husband became Mr. HCB!  In fact, many friends who read my Blips on Facebook have asked “Who is Mr. HCB?” not realising it was a shortened version of HoneycombeBeach.

We were both retired, so it was great to be able to go down there and it was really a “home from home” for us - we did all the same things we did at home, except there was no garden for Mr. HCB to worry about, but instead, there was a wonderful beach and the sea.  In fact, my first Blip photograph, on the 1st January 2013, which you can see here, is a view of a sunset over Boscombe Pier.  We made many friends down there over the years, and despite our son and his wife selling the apartment and moving further along the coast, we are still in touch with several of those friends on a regular basis.

I have taken many similar photographs at different times of the day - this view was the one from the main bedroom window and what a view it was!  Today’s Blip is a photograph that we have had made into a canvas and is now on our newly decorated lounge wall.  I have put the original photograph in as an extra, so you can see the sunset in all its glory because mono doesn’t really do it justice.  Sadly, we don’t get down there as often as we used to, but at least we can look at this beautiful photograph and remember all the happy times and the many friends we made.  Thanks to Dollykgray for making me think about this!

“Every sunset brings the promise 
     of a new dawn.” 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

P.S.  In case anyone is interested, the black Wedgwood vase on the mantlepiece was given to me in March 1971 by my boss when I left the Solicitors to have my first baby, the very one whose apartment we used to go to in Boscombe!