Month: Dec 2019

Advent#21

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent

Kings, candles, cheese, chocolates and a flood.

I have a very dear friend who wears the cloak of eccentricity throughout life. In the summer it’s gauzy, flimsy and scuds gently behind her like a cloud. In winter, it’s a different thing, cumbersome and dank, it holds her back and can be overwhelming. Over the years, we have developed little strategies to lighten its load.

The Christmas shopping adventure is one such thing. It involves shopping not exactly locally but within the confines of Cornwall. There are rules… We only buy from businesses that are on farms or that started on farms.

As individuals, we navigate on completely different systems, hers is innate, puzzling and mostly effective. She leans forward on the steering wheel her nose twitching like a wise matriarchal badger, sensing the direction we should travel. Mine is Google based but impaired by too much talking and the erratic nature of mapping in Cornwall. What could possibly go wrong?

Spoiler Alert- There was a lot of rain.

Cheese first up. Google gets us to within a mile and then the badger takes over, ignoring me completely she takes a road. “This road doesn’t even bloody exist” I protest. We press on.

Blue cheese of two sorts, goat and cow are loaded into the car. Beautiful round ‘wheels’ of cheese, festively wrapped in tin foil and bundled into a carrier bag.
https://www.cornishcheese.co.uk

The next part of the journey brings the unexpected. Google aided we head off to St Eval.

Behold a King! That’s a fine festive sentence. In this case however, the last ever cornish King whose death is marked on a quiet Cornish road at the site of an ancient crossroad. The poor chap met a watery end and drowned. More than that is not explained but on this very wet day on Bodmin moor it is not inconceivable that you might drown by simply wandering off to commune with nature. I take a very wet photograph of his spot, King Donierts Stone and the information board and jump back into the car.

This is what we learnt…

King Dungarth (Doniert) of Cerniu ( Cornwall) drowned in the River Fowey in 875. His death is marked by these remnants of carved stone crosses on Bodmin Moor. The river Fowey runs near to this site.

Google got us to St Eval first stop Kernow Chocolate. Admittedly no longer on the family farm but that’s where it started. Chocolate Stollen and a cup of tea warmed us up for the serious business of choosing chocolate. The Stollen was moist if anyone is interested. Gifts occured.
https://www.kernowchocolate.co.uk/

Then off to St Eval Candle Company, courtesy of Google, still based on a farm. Fabulous smells and many candles, we learnt that to reset our noses we just needed to sink our noses into a pot of coffee beans. Gifts occured.

https://www.stevalcandlecompany.co.uk/

This had all been achieved a little quicker than planned. The excellent coffee and cake at Strong Adolphos called us and if we got a wiggle on we could get there before the 4pm closing time.
http://www.strongadolfos.com/

Google planned us a route that got us there with 15 minutes to spare. The badger twitched a bit at the quality of the grass running up the middle of the roads we were using , the depth of the first puddle shocked us both. Unwittingly we had entered the Bermuda Triangle of Cornwall. The next puddle was bigger and the Googler ( me) offered to test the water with my Welly depth . The water won. The next puddle was the same, no rec alibration of the wellie gauge was needed , water flooded in. It was both impassable and impossible to go in either direction. Of the three roads we could use all had deep ponds of chocolate coloured water. Strong Adolfo’s was not going to happen. The badger decided to drive back through the puddle we had safely conquered twenty minutes ago . She was right , we created an impressive wave and headed for the hills. Happy to have survived the Cornish water in better shape than King Doniert.

Advent#20

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent

Nearly Home Trees- watercolour by Juliet Cornell

The Nearly Home Trees.

Cookworthy Knapp. 140 Beech trees, planted 120 years ago near Lifton on the border of Devon and Cornwall. Clearly seen from the A30. They have become a sign to many returners and travellers that they are ‘nearly home’ or ‘ nearly there’

This coming weekend will see the highest volume of road traffic, of the year, on the A30 and A38 . Those who travel on the A30 in daylight hours will see the familiar mound of trees on the hill and feel a whole kalaidoscope of emotions . Love being the most significant in all its nuances, textures and intensities.

Advent#19

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns

It’s serendipity again that leads me from the surprise experience of Dragon dancing kites in Plymouth yesterday to home via another tradition that also has its roots very firmly in Chinese Culture.
https://theoldmortuary.design/2019/12/17/advent18/

It’s a busy time in Christian churches in December. School Carol services fill the mid-week evenings. theoldmortuary overlooks a church. Last night’s school Carol Service had a lantern lit path leading to the church.

Lanterns of the paper sort have had a rise in popularity in Europe over the last fifty years. The type that are lit with a night light and float away like a balloon had a rise in popularity and then a meteoric fall when the effects of their ultimate descent was highlighted by a series of accidents caused to property, livestock and the emerging awareness of the environmental impact.

Lanterns as part of celebrations started in China 2000 years ago, the earliest lanterns held captured Fire flies. The lantern habit soon spread to South East Asia where they continue to be popular throughout the year rather than the more European habit of winter time lantern activity.

Korea

Hong Kong

Vietnam

Home.

Advent#18

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Serendipity

The advent series of blogs started as a way to make a daily step towards the festive season. It could equally be called the Festival of Light. It is a way of marking the days towards the shortest day, the Winter Solstice and then on to Christmas Eve and Yuletide. For ease I started on 1st December, the day when chocolate advent calendars start and for completion it will continue until 2nd January the end of Yuletide 2020. Nothing is planned, this is after all a blog of serendipity and chance. For busy or truly uninspired days I do have some nuggets of ideas tucked away.

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Firestone Bay, Plymouth.
Today was another where the light element of Advent was provided by beautiful midday weather. It also turned out to be truly serendipitous giving me a quite different story to the one I thought I would write. That story has joined the nuggets for a later day.

img_20191217_1317183559442136704608815.jpg

The tidal sea water swimming pool at Firestone Bay.

Firestone Bay is my favourite winter walk with dogs. It is entirely possible to walk for several miles, avoiding mud but still allowing them the freedom of running off the lead on the small beaches or in the non traffic areas of the Royal William Yard. Winter gives ever changing conditions and these two pictures of the tidal swimming pool were taken ten minutes apart.

Tidal pool at Firestone Bay.

Our turning point today was the last accessible beach walking to the east. Since I was last here someone.has given the beach a graffiti sign and named it Tranquility Bay. I have no idea if this is official but it is the perfect name for this lovely place of quietude.

Tranquility Bay.

We retraced our steps but as we approached the car park red fabric blowing in the wind caught my eye.

On turning the slight corner I saw the unexpected sight of two men flying Chinese Dragon streamers, accompanied by familiar Chinese classical music.

It takes immense strength to get these flying so extravagantly.

Three styles of dragon took to the sky overlooking Drake’s Island.

Adding to the atmosphere was a gently drifting smoke haze.

Not what I expected to write today but very definitely serendipitous.

Advent#17

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns2 Comments

This week the Festival of Light has been supplied by the sun in the early morning. Rust is one of my favourite textures, coupled with winter sun the effect is dramatic.

These photographs were taken at Queen Anne’s Battery in Plymouth. They are all bits of fishing gear that were being stored on the harbourside.

The manhole covers were also getting in on the act.

Advent#16

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, Food ( but this is not a food blog)

Christmas comestibles.

Today the long walk in the sunshine took us back to the location of Advent #1
https://theoldmortuary.design/2019/12/01/advent-1/

Our visit to Jacka today was enhanced by festive baking. We weren’t exactly early birds, but were lucky enough to get there in time to get the last available slice of Stolen and one of their lusciously deep mince pies. Coffee drinking at Jacka this morning was hugely sociable . The coffee hounds Hugo and Lola were treated to snippets of delicious bacon from a generous benefactor while everyone at the various tables were talking to one another.

As this is a second Advent visit to Jacka I thought I would share some of the bakeries history . Gleaned from a 1985 published article displayed on the café wall .

Dated currently back to 1597, Jacka is the oldest working Bakery in Britain. It is said that it supplied Ships Biscuits to the Mayflower in 1620. Ships biscuits from this bakery were still famous worldwide well into the twentieth century.

Todays festive bakes were tastier than any Ships biscuit. Time to roll out the the word ‘ moist’ . The festive season is known for its traditional foods. In Britain moistness is demanded of Christmas cakes and Turkey. Today we added a third moist festive eating experience.

Bakery made Stollen , as far removed from the supermarket stuff as it is possible to be. A generous core of deep yellow marzipan surrounded by jewel fruited,doughy loveliness , gently dusted with icing sugar. The mince pie, no less lovely, had a deep, golden pastry case filled with dried fruits, quenched to plumpness and topped with a pastry star.

The coffee, as is usual at Jacka was made with great beans by a skillful barrista.

This may not be our last Advent visit.

Advent#15

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, Garden Design, Serendipity

Foraging.
Last year I was gifted a beautiful Christmas wreath. It lasted more than a month and when I came to throw it away I noticed it was formed on a very substantial frame. The frame went into the garden shed along with all the other really useful things we archive for an undisclosed moment in the future. Today, our morning dog walk was also a foraging trip for winter greenery. We didn’t particularly plan to break any rules or trespass but secateurs on a dog walk do give a scintilla of being up to no good. It’s a good thing we hadn’t planned anything bad as we met some friends, Mike and Shirley, as we set off. They were dressed as proper walkers, it would never do to implicate bona fide walkers in sculdugery.

The nature reserve where we walk is beautiful, so we just talked and walked for a while.

Soon enough though, a lovely bag of greenery had been harvested and as luck would have it, on our return journey, we also found some thrown away bits and pieces from old flower arrangements that had become virtually dried. It was all gathered together in the kitchen and something festive was created, fueled by tea, naturally.

I’m not sure how much this resembles a traditional Christmas wreath but it cost nothing and will brighten up our home for the last seven days until the Winter Solstice.

Advent#12

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, Art for sale

Baubles and Fish. Today was all about catching up with bauble chores, after yesterday’s bauble debacle. There was also a painting commission to be completed .

The commission has to be based on fish, painted, printed and divided into three separate canvases that will look abstract. I’m struggling a bit .

Here’s the first image.

Then I desaturated it but picked out the eye.

Finally I selected portions for abstraction.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but I’ve got another week to work it out.