drawing | autumn {in herne bay, UK, part III}

it was on a late summer's day in 1985, when a farewell comittee consisting of one aunt drove me up the north sea ferry wall in oostend. my trolley took a dip and i hadn't even reached english soil. waving aunty's comments bye-byes, i left belgium. just 24 hours later my new life opened up before me, waking up in a canterbury b&b, planning.

reminding myself briefly of the previous night's downpour, i braved a cloudy sky and a bumpy busride into herne bay, an east kent seaside resort's name exactly the same as my hometown's (bar the bay, we have no sea at home). by the end of a promising day i'd landed myself both a job and a bedsit. the autumn sun had begun to shine brilliantly. i felt as if i'd come home. at last.

this is the second time since the eighties i came back to herne bay. i'd booked a room in a b&b called the priory, which in 1985 was called worth house and functioned then as a youth hostel for up to fifteen problem teenagers, in desperate need of some counseling and loads of tlc, joined by some fifteen staff. i became staff soon after my kitchen trainee days. 

i succombed gladly to many memory flashes in anticipation, and now as i'm back in belgium, memories flood still. i think fondly of cook mary, who patiently taught me how to make an english custard creme. i stirred a milky tea {for sentimental reasons only, because i don't like white} in my single room, bemusedly staring into the overgrown november back garden. if i remember the house lay out correctly i was given j's room. j was no easy chick to handle. how would j be today?
  

i searched and found back railway station back alley, still overgrown in exactly the same spots! i easily made my way back to both houses i lived in, and lingered in front of them.

i sniffed sea salty air, rotten weeds and broken shells, all seemingly washing ashore aplenty. not a single olfactery detail of the whole area, down to the petrol station's gasses, smelled different. a trip down memory lane can be so profusely repleneshing.

i've let this week's dc theme mingle with my trip and remembered just then i'd drawn an autumn leaf a year back. i decided to recycle that drawing. i played about a bit. {a postcard of the ° drawing is available in my shop.}

doesn't this repeat pattern version make you long for a proper bar of chocolate? it does me and i don't know why! ☻ ariane shows us more of autumn. as always, and please do, walk with me, through herne bay, UK.