Roses at the Station

Birthdays are odd things. I don't really celebrate mine and I never have - don't know why, I'm more than happy to celebrate other peoples' birthdays, but not mine. My birthday has never meant much to me and as a consequence very few people actually know the date. I think it's part of the 'fuss' thing, not wanting to be the centre of attention and all that.

But sometimes it's nice to be made a fuss of, a small fuss. Like receiving a wonder bunch of deep, deep red roses, all wrapped up in ribbons with greenery to bulk them out (including palm leaves - I recall being twatted on the head on Palm Sunday in Barcelona by palm leaves), all carefully wrapped and looking lovely. I've been given flowers before (rarely, it's true) but this is the first time I've been sent any. And a jolly nice feeling it is too. You know who you are, you phantom flower sending daft ha'peth.

Thank 'ee ever so much, you ha'peth and a half.

So what about the station in the title? Well, it's a song in 'Grand Hotel,' a grand musical with the ghost of a dissolute and now dead young baron clasping roses for his beloved Elizaveta, a fading ballerina with whom he fell in love the night before. And he sings,

I'm here Elizaveta at the station//Here with the roses at the station//I'm here Elizaveta at the station//Here with the roses at the station

All my life I have wanted to be here//All my life I have waited to be here//At the station//With these roses!

Roses always make me think of that song. The baron and Elizaveta finding love after all those lonely years and then lose it as he dies but in his mind he is where he promised to be - at the station with roses for his beloved. Nothing can keep him from the station.

Click on the link above to hear a sample of the song (and other songs from the cast recording).