#1344 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Day 55 of 2026 and no signs of rain in the air or on forecasts. I did a long morning dog walk with no coat.

Day 55 of 2026 and four Novels finished. Just. No coats ever needed for books

Two of them were book club books, I won’t bother to name one of them which was not a great reading experience. The other, Pirenesi, was memorable, but maybe not as enjoyable as a book needs to be in the dark months of January and February.

Thank goodness for reading for pleasure. Two first novels also by women have filled these two winter months with different landscapes and eras

The Netherlands in the early 60’s.

The Artist

And Provence in the early 20’s.

I am not about to review either book but both of them have been a pleasure to read. I am in awe of both these first time authors for writing such brilliant books.

The first time I do anything I really don’t like what I have produced

Sometimes I feel the same about the 20th time I produce something.

The ponder of these statements is that by reading two brilliant first novels  my reading pleasure of 2026 feels like a really productive two months. Only one complete dud, one challenge and two gold-star books seems like a really positive way to start my reading year.

I regret that my two self chosen books were not from my book club because I would really love to chat about them with my book club buddies. But I am very glad that the two,more difficult books, were book club choices. Talking about an unenjoyable or difficult book really helps to settle it in my head. Sometimes I have gone back to read an unenjoyed book a second time and found it easier with book club insight. One was completely rehabilitated by a second read.

What is left for my day? Home jobs and starting my next book club book. The first one by a man in 2026. Lets see if book reading for the Book Club can improve alongside the weather.

#1342 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn weather1 Comment

There is no sugar-coating of today. It is raining again.

Life is very different for us with only one dog. Hugo was an intrepid walker in all weathers. Heavy rain required him to wear a coat, something he took a dim view of. Lola on the other hand takes a dim view of any walk in weather that is not to her taste.

She was determinedly asleep when I suggested getting a warm, from the oven , chocolate croissant from our local bakery to make a wet Sunday morning a little more tolerable.

@Jacka Bakery

Under normal circumstances I quite like February. It is over in just 28 days and delivers us quite nicely into March which is always a rather optimistic month. By now I would normally have started little jobs in the yard. Tiny tweakments that serve no truly useful improvements but make me feel better about our outside space.

This morning, just before the croissant adventure I peeped out. One of our daffodils is clearly feeling the wet weather malaise more deeply than even Lola. A whole Greek tragedy in our back yard.

The wet weather is getting to us all.

#1341 theoldmortuary ponders.

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In our little corner of the Devon/ Cornwall borderlands we are on day 52 of rain. In search of a patch of dry weather we headed east to the borderlands of Devon/Dorset.

To Lyme Regis, Literary land of The French Lieutenants Woman and Ammonite. and a Fossil hunters paradise.

We were just hunting for a few hours without rain and a scintilla of sunshine.

We promenaded on the promenade and there were tiny chinks of silver on the sea suggesting that the sun was weakly present.

Promenading was stopped for lunch and later for an ice cream.

Pear Sorbet and Damson Ripple. Sunshine for the taste buds, just moments before the rain chased us home.

#1340 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, art, Box1 Comment

Timing is everything in blogging and life generally.

Who.knows how this blog would have gone had I written it six hours ago.

Trick question. I know exactly how it would have gone. Ranty, is the one word answer.

Life got in the way and the intended blog did not get written. Lucky for you the bobbers also got in the way.

They got my raw and furious rant caused by my second visit to the Beryl Cook Exhibition.

I apologised that they got my arty rant unexpurgated. Anne Bobber commented that they had just got an early version of the blog with more expletives.

My second visit to the exhibition was to see the supporting exhibition. Videos, books, newspaper cuttings and private family memorabilia. I was committed to watching all the videos and arrived at opening time because to do that it would be sensible to grab a seat on the solitary sofa.

My ranty pants were enraged by the misogynist questions and attitudes expressed by male television journalists, to a successful woman artist in the 70’s 80’s and early 90’s.  Had I been in the comfort of my own house I would have shouted at the T.V. As it happened In a public space I saved all my grumpiness for when I met the Bobbers and later my Tennis Club friends. On a non ranty note I marvelled at the developments of T.V and broadcast engineering in the last 30 years. Subtitling specifically.

One glorious subtitle blooper that I missed but am almost tempted to sit through the whole hour long broadcast for ran like this.

Beryl and a gay biker friend are off on an adventure on/in a motorbike and sidecar to buy some seafood snacks on the Barbican.  The stall has sold out of Winkles.

The subtitle straddles two sentences and should read

‘ No winkles. Really? Are you kiddingYou wouldn’t ever get that on Old Compton Street’

I realise the wit is lost because I cannot provide an image with the subtitle properly positioned as it would be in 2026.

Old Compton Street used to be the most gay street in London. A heady fug of aftershave and rampant testosterone filled the street with a spirit like no other. Everyone was welcome.

I realise now that it is the lesser known paintings that hold my interest. I am booked to go again next week. This may not be the last you have heard of Beryl.

 

#1329 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn artLeave a comment
Gertrude’s Shoes Beryl Cook @ The Box

Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

Shoes are like children, there are no favourites. Each pair has distinctive and separate identities. Loved for being themselves. That sums up the top tier of my shoe hierachy of needs.

Second and subsequent tiers of shoes are like work colleagues or less close relations. They may ascend to the top tier, but on the whole if they slipped into a bag destined for a Charity Shop  I would not miss them.

The picture above is of the feet of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Tolkas. Painted, as everything is this week, by Beryl Cook. My Grandmother and her sister and friends were just a little younger than Gertrude and Alice.

It could easily be the feet of my Paternal Grandmother and her sister Alice. Between the ages of 2 and 4, I was always puzzled that only my grandmother and her sister or friends wore the same shoes as me.

I have no idea what sort of shoes anyone else wore in the early sixties.

I had a close relationship with my grandmothers shoes because I spent the majority of my time with her under the dining table. She had brought up two children in the second World War, when the safest place for children, during air raids was under the table. She did not update her views on childcare in line with peacetime. Children should be seen but not heard, was elevated to children should not be seen or heard. So under the table I went with a book while she played Scrabble overhead. This was not an unhappy experience at all. But I realise now that it is not ideal.

My grandmother described me as a precocious child when my dad collected me after his work. Because I would read or look at the illustrations of any book on their shelves.

There was nothing else to do..

There may have been an incident when I was slightly older of chewing my grandfathers Old Holborn Tobacco while reading Treasure Island. It could have been worse, there was almost certainly medicinal brandy somewhere in the house.

All rather a thought or two away from favourite shoes but  shoes like these old style Mary Janes accompanied me on my first adventures into a love of reading books. And that has taken me to all sorts of places

#1328 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Box1 Comment
Ivor Dickie(Ladies Night) 1981. Beryl Cook

What is going on here? Despite the talking point of the painting that is not where this question is aimed.

Look at the shadow. An animated and fascinating conversation was going on. At an unnamed ballet school ballet students are taught how to make a safe and secure G- String/ Thong for themselves.

Mind boggling. Where are the measurements taken, what are the tolerances required of the fabric?

Our animated shadow guide then told us that the same ballerina had taught her to pole dance on a convenient scaffold pole in a stable yard.

If only Beryl Cook had witnessed that delicious moment and painted it. Maybe the art establishment would have been less sniffy about her art. Ballerinas and Stables are middle-class subjects and thus acceptable to pompous male opinions. Link below for pomposity.

‘She loved painting people living life out loud’: Why critics scorned Beryl Cook’s ‘saucy’ paintings – BBC Culture

https://share.google/nB0ggI7WAmOd1bk3p

With wide ranging conversations like this is it any great surprise that in a two and a half hour visit we only managed one gallery of the exhibition.

Beryl did get her revenge on one of her male critics.

The chap in the red undies is based on one of her critics’.

#1327 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box, Serendipity1 Comment
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.