Elfrida's - - - Hope Cove . . .
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Once-Upon-A-Time, long ago, By the sands of Hope Cove, A Little girl, with tousled hair, Played on the craggy rocks. "Hope Cove" Original Poem ©Elfrida Simbari 2003 |
She talked to the Mermaids, And “snugglers” fierce, Who came to visit her ! “One day,” she thought, “I’ll sail away and cross the rolling Sea!” |
She dreamed she was a Princess, In a silvery robe, Perched on her jagged throne ! It mattered not if the Sun came out, Or the Wind was whistling by. HOPE began in Hope Cove - - - and Her Impossible Dreams !! |
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"Hope Cove" Original Sketch ©Matthew Conde |
Hope Cove was a small village, near Plymouth, where my mother, brother and I had a wonderful ‘summer holiday’ when I was 5. We stayed in a small boarding house just near the little bay.
My mother used to tell Toby (my 3 year older brother) and me wonderful and exciting stories about Smugglers and Pirates, and Princesses in distant lands !!!
She was magical ! and she would recite many many poems, in French, German and English, which somehow I understood! Though not a ‘singer’ (slightly off key!!) she taught me several French songs and one or two Japanese ‘children’s songs . . . and would talk to me in Japanese - - - which I understood, having lived in Japan until I was 4 and 1/2 !!!
Joan, my mother, had been an actress, before she married my father, and
everything she did was
“theatrical” - - - I loved being in her company !! So it was
very sad, when she left again, after our Hope Cove holiday, to join my
father in Japan.
We were not to see her again until she met us from the ship taking us
to the safety of Canada,
“The Duchess of Richmond”, which docked in Montreal - - - 2 years later
- - - Toby and I were “evacuees” from the bombings of WW2 . . .
| Maybe that is why Nicola painted me - sitting on a rock, in Circeo Was I the Greek sea-nymph "Circe" ? |
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BUT – THAT is another “adventure” . . .
Elfrida © 2012
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