MONO MONDAY - ORIGINS : WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Although I am “Honeycombebeach” on Blip, I am generally known as "Mrs. HCB"  and my husband, and long-suffering model, chauffeur and general dogsbody is known as "Mr. HCB".  In fact, so well known is he, that when we were at Waitrose on one occasion, a fellow Blipper approached us and asked if he was "Mr. HCB"  because she recognised him!

The name comes from Honeycombe Beach in Boscombe, where our son and daughter-in-law used to own an apartment.  Because we were retired, and they weren’t, we used to go down there quite often and had some wonderful holidays there - although as we often said to people, it wasn’t really a holiday, but more a “home from home” and we just exchanged living in Swindon for living in Boscombe.

My very first Blip was taken from their apartment on 1st January 2013, almost the same shot as today's, looking down on the Pier at Boscombe when the sun was setting.  After a couple of years, they bought one of the Penthouse apartments and there have been many other shots taken from there over the 6 or 7 years we visited;   in fact, I have lost count of the number of sunset and sunrise shots I have taken from both the apartment and down on the beach so it was difficult to choose one to go on a canvas.

Not only was Boscombe a great place to visit, but we made many friends, some of whom lived in the apartments and some in the places we visited, such as Urban Reef Café down on the beach and Little Pickle Café on Boscombe Road, and we are still in touch with many of them today.  However, we no longer visit Boscombe because our son and his wife bought a house further along the cliff and now that both their children are grown, they go down there more often.

We made friends with Erich and Lisa, the couple who lived in the next door apartment, and often had meals together, and also their parents, Doris and Matthias, who visited often.  We used to chat “over the balcony” and enjoyed a wonderful holiday with them at their home in Switzerland and are still in contact with all of them.  

Another person we met was a famous Russian ballerina, Galina, and her husband, Sergei.  Galina was staying at Honeycombe Beach whilst their children were studying in Bournemouth and Sergei visited regularly.  They invited us to go and visit them in Moscow, but sadly we never got there, although I am still in touch with her.

We have been truly blessed and my username is a wonderful reminder of the happy times we spent in Boscombe;  this picture, which is on a large canvas above our mantelpiece, is also a great reminder of those times.  Although the main shot is sepia, I have put one of the actual picture in as an extra, in glorious colour.

“What I like about photographs 
     is that they capture a moment 
          that’s gone forever, 
               impossible to reproduce.” 
Karl Lagerfeld

P.S.  The photograph of us in the frame on the mantelpiece was taken when we visited Blip friends in Guernsey a few years ago.