Promenade anyone??

Thu 5 Mar 2020, 18:31

I think it's a great idea Rod.  The Playing Close?  Warm Friday nights?

Wed 4 Mar 2020, 20:27

I think it's common in the med - Italians have a name for it passeggiata. However you are meant to wear your latest designer wear to show off. A few years ago we were watching the locals on Campo Santo Stefano in Venice - chatting and dipping in to bars and having a really good time. They all had red trousers. I'd be all for it, and I have the trousers!

Wed 4 Mar 2020, 17:20 (last edited on Wed 4 Mar 2020, 19:54)

Maybe it was Van Morrison who set me thinking – ‘promenade, promenade….’

 Anyone who’s ever been to a Greek island – which I’m guessing includes a lot of Charlburians wherever they were born or grew up – will remember how the locals ‘promenade’ on a warm summer’s evening for an hour or so along the main street or sea front. 

 As a young, slightly buttoned up Brit, I loved it, the sight of families and friends of all ages, greeting each other and chatting, the tinies clinging to parental legs, the schoolkids making faces at each other, the shy teenage (or middle aged!) glances, the elderly remembering...  Who knows what ran beneath – but to an outsider, it read as a community at ease with itself, looking out for each other.

 Global warming – to give climate change its real and more scary title – may not give the UK such predictable weather in the summer and we may not have a sea front – but we do have a wonderful, roughly south facing outlook along Grammar School Hill/Park Street, from where the summer sunsets can be amazing.

 So how about a new Charlbury ‘tradition’??

 When?  June – Aug? Fridays & Saturdays too busy – but by Sunday evenings we should be pretty chilled, non?

 Where?  So close off from the top of Church Street – more room for idling and chatting - and refreshment may be needed after all – up to Fiveways and we’re there.  A bit of bureaucracy involved but (Richard! Liz!) not insurmountable, surely?

 Fun idea – or am I just pining for a lost youth??