Petrol and Coffee

"Until the environment is collectively dominated, there will be no individuals — only spectres haunting the objects anarchically presented to them by others. In chance situations we meet separated people moving randomly. Their divergent emotions neutralize each other and maintain their solid environment of boredom. As long as we are unable to make our own history, to freely create situations, striving toward unity will introduce other separations. The quest for a central activity leads to the formation of new specialisations."

Guy Debord

Critique of Separation 1961

Photograph: 'PETROL & COFFEE' - Paul Conneally - Dronfield Woodhouse - May 2017

Marta Oliviera-Child - Head Chef at the Bom Bom Patisserie

Marta Oliviera-Child is the head chef and co-owner of the Bom Bom Patisserie in Loughborough, Leicestershire, right in the heart of England.

Bom Bom Patisserie has been operating a few years but only opened the café part of the business in May 2016. It has proved to be a tasty, stylish and instant hit.

Marta comes from Brazil where her mother runs a restaurant. She came to Loughborough in 2006, like so many young people do, to study at Loughborough University. She always had a dream to open a patisserie and luckily for the people of Loughborough she has and what a patisserie it is!

after the pastry
the cream
on the end of her nose

Little Onion

Find out more about Marta and the Bom Bom Patisserie by visiting its website and hey, even better, the patisserie itself!

Photograph and text: Paul Conneally

Marta at Work - The Bom Bom Patisserie - Loughborough

Marta at Work

Here we see Marta, co-owner and head chef, hard at work at the wonderful Bom Bom Patisserie in Loughbohemia (some call it Loughborough).

The interior design of Bom Bom is understated urban, almost industrial, industrial wood not metal, so a softness to it. Minimal but comforting especially with the smell of the carefully selected roast used in the patisserie's excellent coffee.

Bom Bom Patisserie was set up by Marta and her husband in 2012 making bespoke artisan cakes and bakes for individuals, companies and organisations. In May of 2016 the Bom Bom Patisserie opened the doors of its Loughborough café, something that for Brazilian born Marta was something she'd wanted, her own café, since being a child.

Find out more about Marta and the Bom Bom Patisserie at the BBP website:

http://www.bombompatisserie.com

Paul Conneally
Loughbohemia
Sept. 2016

Not Quite Warm Enough

not quite warm enough
to eat outside
we do

Paul Conneally
Loughborough
Sept. 2015

A Few Stray Crumbs

sat at his work desk

high up on the fifteenth floor

Geoffrey eats his lunch

a panini delivered 

by the Brucciani van

eighteen eighty two

Luigi Brucciani

arrives in England

footsore after having walked

all the way from Italy

he travels on to

Scotland where he makes ice-cream

he works up in Ayr

before moving to Barrow

to set up his own business 

this ice-cream parlour

becomes hugely successful 

his kids start others

Morecambe and Preston get

their own Brucciani

Leicester has to wait

'till nineteen thirty seven

for Brucciani

to appear in large letters

on a shop in Horsefair Street

Leicester folk love this

'oasis in the city'

an ice-cream haven

that Luigi junior

puts his heart and soul into

throughout the forties

fifties, sixties, seventies

the business expands

a bakery in Bath Street 

to prepare cakes and pastries

cafés open, close

Horsefair Street closing in

Nineteen ninety two

but Brucciani still thrives

as popular as ever

two cafés serving

delicious ice-cream, coffee

snacks, cakes and pastries

all made in their bakery

still located in Bath Street

none of this knowledge

disturbs Geoffrey's lunch break  

a glance at page three

he just knows a good sandwich 

from a run of the mill one

afternoon shadows

he brushes a few stray crumbs

from his workstation

Paul Conneally

Leicester 2013