January Squares: Mixed Lights

I’m sharing a few days’ January Squares, with twin themes: places where we can eat and/or drink; each picture to represent a word ending in light.

The first could be daylight or windowlight (apparently that’s a word). I was interested in the colours – how the light seems to leach them out from the modern stained glass and paint them on the sills and surfaces, and the way the barstools carry them through into the room. The hanging lights have coloured wires too or appear to have through a trick of the light.  

Around the corner (a few corners, but you get my drift) we’d discovered a bar bright with string-lights, glass bottles and glasses adding their refections into the mix. I don’t know whether I’ll have any credibility if I contend we were there for breakfast and had merely ordered full English with coffee?

We did have a drink in this Clitheroe bar. I’m claiming spotlights (good, heavy ones that would not be out of place on an old film set) for this. The lights in the roof ought to get a mention, but I’m clutching at straws, having ruled out skylights and strip lights. How about slat lights or, setting the challenge aside for a moment, pinstripe lights?

Several word choices could fit the parrot with smoking guitar we found painted on a door at The Green Parrot Dive Bar in Key West. Songflight, perhaps, as when a bird sings as it flies to attract a mate. I could well imagine this green parrot has seen so much nightlife that it courts its mate a little differently than your average parrot. But lest anyone judges that idea too much of a flight of fancy, I settled on in-flight entertainment.

For years, my sweetheart has wanted to take me to the State Fair: his version of songflight, perhaps, with not just sounds, but tastes and smells too. In 2019, I was over there at just the right time. I didn’t try the alligator-on-a-stick and scrunched up my nose at the idea of rattlesnake sausage (more sausage than snake, I’m advised). Even the corn alarmed me because after the cob was charred to softness and peeled it was completely dipped into a vat of melted butter and handed over, still dripping. It seemed like too much fat, but I was wrong. Sprinkled with parmesan-style cheese and hot spices, it was so delicious we went back the next night for more.

As twilight fell, bunting fluttered and the cable cars turned into silhouettes, things became more atmospheric and I could see why he wanted me to be there.

I couldn’t resist ending with a landscape shot of the fair, especially since it seems to capture a classic flying saucer gliding in to land. Nobody who has experienced the State Fair would be all that surprised by one of those turning up.

Shared as part of January Squares.

Aside: I’ll bet I’m not the only one Becky’s challenge has prompted to wonder about language. Why are some forms of light written as two seperate words, others as one, while yet others are hyphenated? I can understand walllight might be a stretch, though WordPress’s spellcheck seems happy with its three consecutive Ls, but why would windowlight, moonlight, candlelight or torchlight be one word, but not ceiling light? Why do we write traffic-light (if we do)? Why is it unlight but half-light and full light? I suppose that’s part of what makes English so loveable – it goes its own sweet way, guided by the majority as time unravels, whether we like it or not.