A watercolour from Prague - Show and tell

As I said in my last post, I do not get about as much in winter and so I have had to think of one or two other things to post during this chilly season, one of them is "Show and tell". There are probably lots of bloggers doing this or something similar but the one that I stole the idea from was WRITER CRAMPS. Well here is one of my treasured possessions and a little about it.

A watercolour from Prague

It was in 1992 that I first took a trip through central Europe, with two friends. Our first stop was Prague, in what was still then Czechoslovakia. On the first day in the city we came across a watercolour painter in the center of the city selling his wares. Myself and one of my companions took a liking to his paintings and asked his prices. Language was a bit of a barrier but we soon worked out that rather than buying a painting each, we could have three paintings for the price of two, which we did. I really liked this one and only wanted one and so we split our little bundle accordingly.


The thing about this holiday was that it was happening at a time of transition. Communism had crumbled but it ghosts could still be seen in the countries that we visited (especially Poland). I have traveled through central Europe since then but the lingering cold war atmosphere and the feeling of things changing at a supersonic rate have gone and the countries have settled down to work on their growing democracies and westernization. This painting represents the memories of a trip that could never happen again. The memories of this trip are still strong in my mind, they happened in a moment of history, the likes of which we will never see again in the same way. This painting reminds me of what I saw as the world changed on a mammoth scale.

BBE