#1327 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Elvira’s Cafe. Beryl Cook 1997

It is not often that an Exhibition of a famous artist’s work chimes so closely with my own life. I will write a more arty blog after another visit but today 3 paintings give me an easy feed into anecdotes. Elvira’s Cafe is very close to home. Before we moved here and were fully aware of the clientele of this cafe I ordered ‘ The Marine ‘ breakfast. Big mistake, I thought, stupidly, that the Marine word meant close to the sea. Oh no, the cafe is very close to the barracks of the Royal Marines. The breakfast was designed for military men with big appetites. I gave it my best but not very successfully. The meat sweats some hours later was a learning experience.

Another small picture caught my eye.

Walkies Beryl Cook 1988

Two women standing in front of The Belvedere on Plymouth Hoe.

My son and I both graduated from Plymouth University one year apart.

The Belvedere is the white structure. During graduation ceremonies a huge set of marquees are erected behind the Belvedere. The Belvedere has panoramic views of Plymouth Sound and benches to sit on. Two forceful women in our families settled the family group comfortably on the benches and set off on a hunt for canapes and prosecco. The first year they were very successful, the second year extraordinarily successful. Waiters came to top us up, I cannot imagine how they arranged that.

They looked nothing like these two women but they did have very similar conspiratorial looks on their faces, having pulled off a catering and viewpoint coup.

One of them has been dead for ten years, the other for a couple of weeks. I loved seeing this picture which reminded me of a moment.

Picnic at Mount Edgecumbe. Beryl Cook. 1990

Picnics at Mount Edgecumbe, walks at Mount Edgecumbe, cafe visits at Mount Edgecumbe. I’ve done it all with friends, family, children and now my grandchildren.

A place that creates joy on every visit

For a proper experience of this exhibition follow the link below.

Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy | The Box Plymouth | Bloomberg Connects

#1426 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

It is not like me not to question the origin of a festival or tradition. It seems I have been somewhat lax in that regard to Valentines Day.

I have always found it to be a bit uncomfortable. Icky even, and paid it little attention. Many reasons.

This year by coincidence 5 of us went for supper on Valentines night. Five laughing women on a big table surrounded by many couples on little tables. The table decorations were lovely fluffy hearts added to the usual cacti that adorn the tables . Rather a metaphor for the whole love thing which is never without its prickly moments.

Unusually, Valentines Day is not a sanitised or convenient appropriation of a Pagan festival. On this occasion the early Christian Church pinched this one from the Romans.

Early Christians named the Day for St Valentine.

Then the Victorians turned into the mushy, sentimental and commercialised thing it is today.

Maybe now is the time for me to share a couple of my examples of my antipathy but also that Christianity has tried to put a pretty spin on certain festivals, but humans will be humans

When I was 14 I worked in a small department store. A Newsagents with ideas above its original purpose. Women would simply buy a card for their loved one. Men on the other hand would quite often buy 3 items. A card, a gift from our fabulous range of home wares and a couple of magazines from the top shelf.

The transactional element was not lost on a nerdy and acne plagued teenager.

Fast forward 40 years or so and I worked in the City of London. Valentines Day would arrive early canoodling in the bushes or on the benches of St Pauls Churchyard. By the evening litter bins would be used to dispose of hastily discarded cards given to work colleagues, dumped before people returned to their home lives and regular relationships. Status Quo maintained.

St Valentine might blush but Lupercalia would just nod sagely and smile.

A bit of red for Valentines weekend.

#1425 theoldmortuary ponders

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After all my moaning in yesterday’s blog, the sun came out today.

#1424 theoldmortuary ponders

We walked the streets, giddy with the freedom of wearing no weather protective garments and giddier still no coats at all.

We did still have to keep our eyes slightly downwards looking to avoid puddles.

But the puddles have become blinding beacons of illumination in the sunshine. Lola was very keen on a coffee shop stop but we kept making excuses, reluctant to be indoors when there was Vitamin D to be harvested.

This harbourside walk is a regular one but we have not been for three months. In that time a new and benign sailor has been installed, sitting by a favourite Sailors drinking spot.

We queued to take a photograph of him. The only people in the queue who did not want to cuddle up or pose provocatively against his high-gloss resinous surface.

He is there to publicise an exhibition at the local Museum and Art Gallery featuring the work of Beryl Cook.

Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy | The Box Plymouth https://share.google/s0UM3sl5BNjtD0H7x

Future blogs will feature trips to the exhibition. There may even be moments at a comedy club and a silent disco when I crack out my extensive collection of Animal Print Garments and a bright red lipstick.

But rub myself over a Sailor on a bench in the sunshine. That has never happened.

© Products – ourberylcook https://share.google/UU9WT4REzgkRcpM6a

Although Plymouth’s gene pool and that of many other ports have been immeasurably enhanced because others have not been quite so fastidious.

Products – ourberylcook https://share.google/UU9WT4REzgkRcpM6a

A sailor of my acquaintance tells me that such welcomes in port are not an urban myth. His particular U.S.P, or strategy was to sit at an outside cafe reading a nerdy book.

I can see how that would be tempting.

#1424 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn weatherLeave a comment

Basking, or the lack of it, has become a topic in rain soaked Devon and Cornwall. We have been so deprived of winter sunlight, whilst also having the highest winter rainfall, that few of us have felt sunlight on our faces for weeks.

We were lucky and caught several hours of sunshine on the North Coast of Cornwall a couple of weeks ago but only a few miles away on the south coast there was none. 

Rainfall stops random street conversations, as we walk with our heads down and dampness tracking into the areas our waterproofs fail to protect. Rainfall has also minimised the amount of time our bobbing group  has been able to bob. Determined sea swimmers do seem to manage it . But the Bobbers are a mixed event crew, we swim and we talk and then we bask. Making the most of whatever week willed winter sunshine turns up between the rain. For the greatest part of this winter even week willed winter sun has failed to turn up.

Rainfall and a lack of winter sun has also deprived us of the ability to talk about our favourite subject, the weather, with random strangers, on the street. Unless of course we find ourselves outside in the few moments of watery sunshine.

“Perhaps we will have a good Spring to make up for it”

“This isn’t going to last today” 

Long term hope dashed by short term reality.

Nearly a whole winter gone in a deluge.

Oh, we really need some sunshine. We need to talk about the weather.

Basking where are you?

Fictitious Sunshine

#1422 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Drawn to the ValleyLeave a comment
©theoldmortuary

A trio of artists met this morning at our Monthly Creative Table. On a good day we can be thirty people but today just 10% of that number. I always try to doodle a watercolour whilst talking. The sun was out but my head is still very much mired in mud and surface water, a reflection of our current condition after so much rain.

Today’s doodle has a derelict Cornish Engine House, a full moon and waterlogged moorland.

When I do digital art I use 3 or 4 different apps on my phone. The final images are always a combination of techniques from each one. I find it gives me a unique look. Every now and then there is a surprise when an app upgrades its offering.

There is an inevitability that, in upgrading an app some of the features that I love to use have been dropped, in favour of something new. 20 years ago when I was exploring digital photography the loss of a much loved tweakment felt like a friend had left the room. Now I just shrug my photo manipulating shoulders and crack on.

Cubist Cornwall
Post Impressionist Cornwall

Whichever way I look at it there is still a lot of surface water.

#1421 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life, Devils PointLeave a comment
©theoldmortuary

This is a beach near home that I never swim at. It is the nearest usable and accessible beach to the pointiest portion of Devils Point. The seven currents and fast-flowing water of constantly changing tides give the area its name. I don’t believe it is safe for anything more immersive than a paddle. The name is the warning. ow You will note that there was enough weak sunlight to create a sharp shadow this morning.

©theoldmortuary

Day 42 and as yet no rain…

This is the first time I have been to this beach in 2026. Perpetual rain has made me keep my head and eyes down with no wavering from my planned walk. I have even failed to register my favourite clump of daffodils until today. Traditionally they start blooming around New Years Day. I suspect they were later this year.

A day with a startling amount of yellow and no rain as yet.  A yellow letter day! The rain arrived at 5 pm the evening dog walk returned to a determined walk with productivity in mind . No more ambling between rocky beaches and daffodils.

43 days with rain

#1420 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

The epitome of greige.

My cheery alarm call goes off at 7:15 with a local weather forecast. By this time most mornings I have already drunk the first cup of tea and will be contemplating the first cup of coffee. So it is not a wake-up alarm but more of a fleshing out the day review.

Today was forecast as intermittent drizzle throughout the day. Intermittent drizzle suggests very light rain with moments of no rain. Not the incessantly bleak greigeness enlivened by constant heavy rain that is my reality

My orange raincoat was the only bright colour in the landscape. Now I would not normally photograph my rain coat. But I threw my phone on the floor as I wrestled my wet clothes off and the camera took a passing shot of the raincoat as my fingers slipped on the wet case.

Instant sunshine

All this rain reminds me of a moment of enlightenment that I had in the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne,  2 months ago.

I was on an amazing race against closing time in a gallery that I could have spent hours and hours in. This picture got less than 5 minutes of my attention but I think about it nearly every day

It could so easily be a regular swimmer walking towards the sea on a rainy day. He appears to be checking his phone. He isn’t. I was spellbound by the beauty and tenderness of this painting, entirely painted in shades of greige. An anonymous man captured calmly walking through rain, shower, or voile curtains.

I was shocked to see such a peaceful picture painted by Francis Bacon. Shocked that this picture cannot be of a naked man checking his mobile phone. I cannot unsee my first incorrect thought on seeing this painting, before I realised who the artist was and when it was painted. Shocked too that greige could be so beautiful. I would even hang this greige painting in my house. Which is a big thing to say in the depth of a very wet winter.

Greige has been slightly rehabilitated.

Travel, as they say, broadens the mind. 41 days of rain shrinks it.

#1419 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

I think there are many activities and hobbies that have, quite correctly, lost interest in me. The big one would be Radioligy/Radiography. There was a brief flutter of renewed interest in me during Covid but now we are in agreement that making pictures with  X-Rays is in my past. Retirement from a scintillating career. The Physics definition.

On a good day I can be quite the scintillating conversationslist too. She said modestly.

I have kept my transferable skills and transferred them to other things.

Team games were never my thing until I discovered rowing. It was probably the only team sport I had an aptitude for. But we have had an amicable parting of the ways for some time now.

Drawing. Painting. Sketching. Printing. All things that have not given up on me. I was still at school when I realised that sketching a quick cartoon of a teacher was a pathway out of nerdiness and into ‘almost’ cool.

A skill that stayed with me during a long career in the N.H.S. A quick cartoon of an arrogant doctor or an ineffectual colleague handed over at the same time as a handover sheet was better than a hundred tactful words and lightened the mood considerably. I was never caught.

Everyone has worked or studied with a dick or two.

Acting gave me up.

Serious singing and dancing the same,  but lower down on that particular spectrum and I am quite the unqualified success! Art however, we are together for ever.

P S sometimes in the NHS other departments had the same problems with the same characters. There may have been cartoon requests to lift the moods of other beleaguered colleagues.

#1418 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Covid +1 Comment

For half an hour on Friday evening 12 Bobbers ( our cold water swimming group) gathered in our front room. Each one fully clothed, drinking fizz or tea. With thoughts of Comedy rather than freezing our t**s off.

The noise of chatter when we swim together is impressive. The noise when we were planning to laugh together was, when contained in one room, joyous. A curious, supportive and delightful friendship group forged in the dark days of the Covid Crisis that has evolved into a social group, predominantly for swimming but not exclusively so.

There is always laughter but 6 years in we are also there for each other for the sad and difficult bits as well as the life affirming moments. 

Less than a minute from leaving the house we were in a warm and welcoming school hall. A stage area designated by glittery curtains and the stalls filled with chairs and tables suitable for 6 year olds. The first laugh of the evening seeing 6 foot adults folding themselves in and out of childrens furniture.

The comedy was sparkling, words were said and songs sung that would not normally be welcome in a school hall.

One comedian would definitely get a school report of ” Could do better, and needs to enunciate” the rest were all  ‘A’ grade performers.

The bobbers had a great night out , for once with their clothes on.