onionbagblog

And so sometime shortly after 4:30pm on Bank Holiday Monday, the sun was streaming into the bar at The Station from the eastern side, tired and emotional Bank Holiday types were just starting to become slightly more tired and emotional and the rather ACE @AdyJohnsonUK was striking up the first plucky chords of Pink Flamingos [spotify.]

This was a perfect Wivenhoe moment.

I closed my eyes, took in the marvelous local music and savoured the precious few seconds as the gloriously crisp Carlsberg (cripes) added yet more calm, but slightly less clarity, to the moment.

Across the bar and I could see friends and acquaintances. All were grinning; all were well on their way to having yet another wonderful Wivenhoe Bank Holiday.

Hurrah!

This was a fundraiser for the May Fair, and NOT as @AnnaJCowen observed, a “fundraiser for May DAY.”

Whoops.

The girl was drinking lightweight lemonade, and so her lack of attention to detail can be excused.

It is occasions like these when The Station makes for the perfect local music venue. Having lost upstairs at The Greyhound of late, and the old Park Hotel stretching back before my time, for such an artistic community, Wivenhoe is rather short on suitable live music spaces.

The Station is the type of pub that a promoter would best describe as “intimate.” The conversations taking place around me became part of the narrative, as Colchester’s finest played pretty much the entire duration of his wonderful, wonderful Tell the Worry Dolls album.

Accompanied by local muso Nelson on double bass, this was very much a front parlour experience. Expect something slightly more different later in the month, when Ady is hopefully asked to return to these parts to play the May Fair.

And then half an hour after the former Fuzzface lead singer has strummed out his first chords in The Station, the performance came to an end and it was time for more booze. Even the Folk Club corner clapped (Ady, not my return to the bar.)

Other wonderful local Wivenhoe acts of course followed (hellooo!) - a positive indicator of what is to come over the coming weeks. But as the brilliant Bank Holiday sun was streaming into The Station late afternoon, and with yer man Ady impressing all - THIS was Wivenhoe.

Wonderful.

I’ve been hearing great personal feedback from the passing artists that have been exhibiting at Jardine over the past few months. Sure, it’s nice to sit back and sip your cappuccino as you stare at some of the stunning artwork on the walls. But even artists need to eat.

Pictures have been purchased, no doubt leading to a celebratory meal at the old Park Hotel itself [um, are we still allowed to say that?]

Anyway - another month, another (semi) private viewing as the latest artistic type turns up on the corner of the High Street and Belle Vue Road. Essex man Marcus Krackowizer will be exhibiting at Jardine throughout May and June.

His exhibition will proudly be on show under the title of The Dimension of Stillness:

“His contemporary impressionist style makes extensive use of palette knives, which he favours for the speed and impulse required to work the canvas.

The result is a striking and vibrant collection of oil paintings, often capturing a fleeting moment in time in busy cityscapes.

Although the dreamy light and warm colours display a very positive view of the world, they also hint at a touch of loneliness, a sort of isolation in the otherwise constant buzz of a city.”

Gawd know what he will make of Wivenhoe…

A polite email to the very good @JoJoColchester should gain you an invite for the evening of the 9th May, between 7:30 and 9:30 pm. The kitchen will be closed, but the bar will be open.

A pleasant lunchtime stroll up towards the top of the town, and a fine midday meal at The Flag. Living in lower Wivenhoe and it is all too easy to overlook local life north of the Cross.

The Flag has always signified for me the traditional starting point for the Wivenhoe Run as a student. It was a pub in which to warm up, before the real booze fest entered into all its undergraduate folly.

Which is such a shame really, seeing as though The Flag is a rather charming, traditional, old Essex pub. To pass through en route as simply the warm up act ahead of annoying the locals (and once again, please accept my sincere apologies, albeit twenty years too late) is a failure to appreciate what The Flag has to offer.

Being served up for our lunchtime treat was a hearty gammon, pineapple and chips for the gent, and then the ladylike chili with chips for the fragrant @AnnaJCowen. Oh, and a couple of pints of Guinness as well.

Chin Chin.

Both meals clocked in at just under £14; both diners left feeling incredibly satisfied, with an even slower stroll back down towards lower Wivenhoe.

We weren’t alone in enjoying the fine company of Landlord John and his helpful staff. A busload (blimey) of elderly citizens also popped in for a lunchtime treat. Seeing the staff take great care to talk and joke with the diners isn’t an experience you’re likely to find heading towards Colchester and beyond.

With the spring sunshine starting to shine through (seriously) on the stroll back down town, we stopped off at a front garden table sale. A bamboo shoot for £1, and then four strawberry plants for the same amount - quite a pleasant little find to complete the lunchtime away from the office.

Oh - and there is something just rather warming about finding an honesty box to take care of local business within Wivenhoe.

So yeah - The Flag has officially been taken off my mental list as a place to simply chase a Guinness with a double JD, ahead of the misguided misdemeanors elsewhere within Wivenhoe.

I’m working on my perception of the old Park Hotel as a place in which to fall asleep at the bar all afternoon. Something tells me that the splendour of the lovely Jardine might cause something of a booze blunder.