Month: Jun 2020

Pandemic Pondering #94

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

Northern hemisphere Summer Solstice 2020 and in Britain Stonehenge is all closed up and guarded by security.

Gathering in numbers is still illegal, although on our evening walk there were larger gatherings,than permitted, out and about but pretty nasty rain would have dispersed them. So the longest day will still pass without being marked in a communal way.

Trawling the archive seemed the right way to mark a solstice like no other.

For interest sake I researched the days either side of the solstice.

Without too much trouble it was easy to see some themes and maybe a little bit of Midsummer Madness.

1. People

Today @theoldmortuary spent time with our daughter and granddaughter.

In past years we’ve spent time with Brenda our mother-in-law. Who in this picture was captured by a sunbeam. We will also see her again today, who knows if she will bring the sunbeam again.

Breakfast in Southampton with Uncle Mohammed and Aunty Margaret who live in Canada but were passing through.

2. My fascination with street signs.

3. A fascination with stairs.

4. Flowers

5. Aberdeen , Hong Kong

6. Cups

7. Dogs , ending with a sunset on the longest day.

Pandemic Pondering #93

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Travelling into Middle Earth,or less romantically but no less beautifully, Mid- Cornwall.The Coffee hounds were out today. Sniffing out good coffee and a walk at Siblyback Lake.On the way this old truck just had to be photographed.And then past the resting place of a Cornish King.King Doniert is mentioned at more length in Advent#21
https://theoldmortuary.design/2019/12/20/advent21/Our destination was Olive and Co. A coffee shop at Siblyback Lake.
https://www.olivecocafe.com/Already a favourite in Liskeard , this was a trip to their other branch.What a great location and a cute interior.We grabbed hot drinks and set off on the 3.5 mile circular walk around the lake.The walk is a flat easy walk and even on a grey day there were some beautiful sights.

For Coffee Hounds this is the perfect location. Good coffee, probably great food , as this is their advert.Plus a circular walk with great views.

Pandemic Pondering#92

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity, This is not a sports blog, Words3 Comments

This image of Hugo pretty much sums up my lifelong indifference to one of Britain’s favourite sports, football or soccer. As a blog that very loosely charts social history it seemed wrong not to mention the return of competitive sport to England.

Initially I didn’t give the cancellation of sporting fixtures much thought, but sporting events are, at the very least, background noise in the cultural life of a country. Significant events mark the gentle climb out of winter hibernation because they get media attention. The Six Nations Rugby tournament, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the Grand National are as much a sign of Spring in Britain as a Daffodil. Even if you pay them no attention they exist. Except this year they didn’t because of Covid-19.

I missed the sporting markers of Spring.

I must be one of the least capable people to contemplate writing a blog about sport. Pondering is exactly that sometimes . How does the return of professional football touch, however briefly, my Ponderings..

Words of course.

I do love intelligent conversation about any subject. In some ways it is relaxing to have no opinions on the subject being discussed.

Football my aural pleasure.

Quite a few years ago @theoldmortuary were in a Jamaican cafe, in East Dulwich. One of only two tables occupied.

The table behind us had three men on it talking animatedly but most importantly, intelligently, about football.

Obviously, we eavedropped a lot, our magical Harry Potter stretchy ears weaving invisibly onto the next table.

We remarked , once we had left, how great it was to hear football discussed so wisely. When we left we realised we had been listening to two retired players talking with the owner of the cafe. This was my late introduction to an interest in football talk and the seed of an idea to carry this blog.

Football is much in the news this week . Post lockdown the men’s professional teams have started playing matches in empty stadiums in order to complete their 2020 fixtures.

More importantly a 22 year old professional footballer, Marcus Rashford used social media to eloquently force the British government to perform a U-turn on policy regarding providing meal vouchers for the most vulnerable schoolchildren during the long summer vacation.

Thankfully podcasts have brought us as much intelligent football/sport chatter as we can handle since the ‘ East Dulwich Ear Incident.

Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy accompany our long car journeys.
https://g.co/kgs/XiyDTW

Just this week I’ve caught two football podcasts.

Gary Neville applies Sports psychology to real life on Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner.A fascinating natter over simultaneous take away food about philanthropy and football. During the pandemic Out for Lunch has become, in for a takeaway, on your own with a lap top.

Lame joke me would have preferred it if his brother Phil had actually discussed the same topics.
https://castbox.fm/x/1FqhV

Then out of nowhere our favourite coffee shop launched their own football podcast.
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544048&refid=asa
https://m.facebook.com/TheHutongCafe/

Headphones replace Harry Potter Ears but the effect is just as pleasing.

Daisies growing in the penalty box lines on a disused football pitch.

So here’s the conundrum , we’ve really not missed sport itself in the last three months but it will be good to hear about it again,and for it to mark time through the seasons. For actual pleasure and also importsntly because Eating Podcasts have filled the void left by sport. That is not entirely a good thing.

Meanwhile Lola can also demonstrate sporting indifference every bit as well as Hugo.

This is not a football club bench!

This is not a sports blog.

Pandemic Pondering #91

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art2 Comments

Palimpsest is one of my favourite visual experiences. I’ve written about it in a couple of blogs.

Originally the word described the effect of parchment being reused and the original script showing through the newly scribed text.

The contemporary use of the word applies to, a mostly urban , experience of Graffiti, street art , posters and stickers jostling for attention on walls and structures.

Tidying my studio recently has given us an almost parchment experience of Palimpsest.

We’ve started reusing an old familial blackboard as our shopping list. The blackboard has lost the ability to shrug off earlier messages. I could repaint it but I am charmed by the old messages butting-in to our current life.

Tidying the studio also provided plenty of old work filed away, today I decided to put it to good use.

I’m not really certain where one person creating a work moves from Collage to Palimpsest.

This is the first layer of whatever this is, drying off its first layer of sticky gluey creativity.

Progress will be blogged.

Whenever I revisit palimpsest I do a search on WordPress to see if anyone else is talking about it. Today I found

Elizabeth, saved by words.
https://wp.me/p2Gol-2fw

Blogged on the 18th April, she was one month into quarantine.

Three months in Lockdown and reluctantly easing, my thoughts run in a similar way to hers.

Life in lockdown has been layered. There has been a lot of thinking time, too much sometimes. I’ve definitely gained many new skills, I’m fitter of body and my blogging muscles perform much better but the losses have been eviscerating. Despite social distancing I know more people now than I did in March.

The thinking space has definitely helped the negative aspects of the last three months and created some wonderful memories and perspectives.

There is also a tiny layer of guilt that while some jobs have been done there are a pesky few that we have been resistant to.

Creating Palimpsest in the studio is the best antidote to chore guilt. One little detail is a bit of a wish for a return to normality.

Pandemic Pondering #90

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

#90 and exactly 3 months since I started Pandemical Pondering. #1 on the 17th of March was inspired by having to cancel an art exhibition I was organising with an art group . I was also showing symptoms of a virus so my lockdown and isolation was a week ahead of the official British Lockdown.
I didn’t really think 3 months ahead or imagine a daily pondering , pondering on for 3 months.I just checked the camera archive for the 17 th of March and I have nothing exciting to share. It must have been an unremarkable day.The unused public toilets near us gained a For Sale board and the shadows were longer.In those 3 months our lives have changed in unimaginable ways that have no direct relationship to Covid-19, but Covid-19 has shaped the way we have been able to respond.
The weather in lockdown has been very kind to us and the delicate blooms in our spring garden . A bit like wild Foxgloves our garden blooms are undamaged by wind or rain. So for PP#90 let’s hear it for Pinky Plants.PP#90 is also a day of celebration. Grocery shopping @theoldmortuary has been quite a formal planned outing during Lockdown. We’ve had a running list that could be flexible to cater for shortages. We’ve not been diligent shoppers if something hasn’t been available on the day we shopped then we’ve done without. For one item three months of doing without ended today . For the first time since lockdown we found grapefruit juice in a supermarket. Giddy Times ahead.Let’s see how the next three months shape up.

Pandemic Pondering # 89

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Coffee Hunters, Home TownsLeave a comment

What do you do on the day non- essential shops open in England.

For once I agree wholeheartedly with the government. They are non- essential shops. Obviously we avoided them. Three months without a non-essential shop has become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Actually what I do miss is mooching in a charity shop. The day they open will be something to celebrate.

The morning was all about dog walking and coffee. Inadvertantly a doughnut and a croissant also slipped onto the counter while I was ordering coffee. Some anonymous steps near The Mayflower Steps was our suntrap location of choice.

A great location to see swans flying under the lift- up bridge and out into Plymouth Sound.

But a moment’s inattention to photograph swans was almost the end of my doughnut breakfast.

This gorgeous orb of bakery loveliness and its accompanying coffee came from Jacka. Britain’s oldest working bakery.

Oat milk flat white , a doughnut and sunshine on these steps was everything that a visit to non- essential shops would not have been.

There was even time to bask before post breakfast exercise.

A morning well spent.

Pandemic Pondering #88

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Love2 Comments

Unrequited love and fuschias.

Social media has been a way for us all to be connected even though we can’t currently be together. I have a friend who has not only had to cancel her wedding but is also shielding . During Lockdown she is experimenting with home grown flowers for her re- arranged wedding arrangements. The results appear on Instagram or Facebook. I commented that as a family we always do our own funeral flowers picked from family gardens or hedgerows nearby.

It is not as difficult as you think in any season.

My shielding friends asked me when this tradition started. This pondering is that story, I hope I have the sensitivity to tell it well.

My dad was an ordinary Essex chap. Educated until the age of fifteen and then apprenticed to become an electrician, after a spell in the RAF, cut short by Tuberculosis, he moved on to medical electrical engineering and then ultimately to medical physics.

What was less ordinary about him was his love of Shakespeare and his membership of a well thought of band of Shakespearean Actors who performed at Stratford upon Avon occasionally, I think he continued this until my birth.

My mum and dad had concurrent terminal illnesses , when he beat her to it she suggested that an old school friend and fellow thespian should do his funeral flowers, as he was also a well respected amateur florist.

The village we lived in had several same sex households and it was not considered anything but normal in all the time my family lived there during the 60’s to early 90’s.

Dad’s old school friend and fellow thespian was half of one of those couples and their garden was a village highlight every summer.

I dutifully popped along to see the gentleman, who was thrilled to be asked to do a families floral tributes. He scrambled around to find some paper and a pencil and asked for my details. His reaction when I gave him my dad’s name was not what I could have anticipated. The horror, on his face, as he wailed ” My Star, oh no, my star. I’ve loved him since we were at school” will live with me forever. He collapsed into a well upholstered chair and started to rock and weep. Unsure really what to do under such circumstances I offered him my condolences and apologies for the shock. Tea seemed appropriate so I made my way to the kitchen and managed to both make us tea and find cups to drink it from.

He was more composed on my return and we talked about my dad and the acting and other stuff. The paper and pencil were never used. The floral tribute would be a tour de force of floristry, created from his own garden and delivered to the undertaker free of charge. His sorrow was intense and he assured me as I left that the flowers would be great, his partner would be both understanding and a reliable assistant.

My Dad attended his own funeral weighed down by the largest, campest wreath imaginable. Made entirely of garden flowers and foliage it was a thing of beauty that trembled with the unexpected and unusual addition of hundreds of fuschia heads.

©https://www.tamarvalleyvibe.uk/

I don’t think my Dad had any idea he was someone’s unrequited love. He did love fuschias though, so it was entirely appropriate.

Garden flowers have been the way we mark someone’s passing ever since.

P.S

Some months later I found this photograph in a trunk.

Pandemic Ponderings #87

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

On Saturdays I buy a real newspaper. The rest of the week I am utterly shameless and read anything and everything newsworthy on the internet. I’m inclined to follow my own natural political, ethical and moral bias on the whole but often read some strange and intriguing things that I don’t always agree with but that make me think a bit harder. Pre Lockdown I read several newspapers on-line content that are published elsewhere in the world. Melbourne’s The Age and Los Angeles Daily Breeze are favourites along with The London Evening Standard. I don’t for a minute consider myself to be well read by doing this I just like reading the local news that sparks interest in other places.

Lockdown has , for some reason stopped that habit , but the Saturday ritual of a print copy of The Guardian has endured. Often by midnight on a Saturday it has not been opened which makes it an even bigger pleasure on Sunday.

Ritual is everything. The paper as purchased has to be stripped down. Supplements taken out of their potato starch bag and annoying loose advertising pamphlets discarded. The starch bag goes into the dog poo disposal pot in the garden . The dog poo disposal pot is in fact a rhubarb forcing jar, which somehow copes with the output of two dogs who only poop in the garden when their owners have not provided a correctly timed walk. This may be too much detail but the poo is picked up with loo paper and popped in the jar alongside the once a week potato starch bag. This cocktail of excrement, tissue and biodegradable packaging is nirvana to a whole host of wee beasties who like to chomp on such stuff.

Saturday night the newspaper, if I have managed to keep my hands off it, is carried upstairs at bedtime ready to be read as soon as I wake up on Sunday. Or overnight if insomnia bites. I prefer a day old paper to Sunday Editions for some reason.

It then accompanies me back downstairs to be read with coffee. Bits of the newspaper hang around all week being read and reread. Most of it is recycled and the cookery section filed . It is rare for us not to use one of the recipes during the week.

The newspaper ritual is undoubtedly irritating for those who share my life or bed on a Saturday or Sunday. Flackering of the newspaper whilst reading it is inevitable . By way of apology I always make cups of tea.

The ritual Saturday paper is a barometer of a weekend. I like to be too busy on a Saturday to read it and to have enough down time on a Sunday to read most of it.

This weekend is shaping up well so far, it’s nearly midnight and not a word has been read from the print edition. Just one or two articles on-line whilst waiting around.

Happy Saturday/Sunday

Pandemic Ponderings #86

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

My grandparents have been much in my mind during this pandemic and its Lockdown . Early on I wished I could tap into their knowledge and wisdom of living through difficult times . Which in truth as a ‘ boomer’ I have not experienced . One set of grandparents were proper Victorians , unusually for the time they had left child rearing until far later and were in their 30’s when they had my dad. My mum’s parents were also unusual in that they divorced in the 1940’s giving me two separate couples. One lot lived in Glasgow and were loving but a long way away. The others were entrepreneurial and quite, 60’s in their thinking and lifestyle.

It is the Victorian set that comes to mind most , because when I knew them they seemed very serene and comfortable in their lives. Not given to great shows of affection but steady and always there. Their generation had seen, and they had suffered personally from, two world wars, the Spanish Flu pandemic 1 and second wave, and the ‘Depression’. They used words not often heard today and quite by chance, or serendipitously for this blog, two of them popped into my head during the heavy rain of earlier this week.

The first one was inspired by this photo, of a geranium petal stuck on the front door.

It is a striking and serendipitous image, but my first thought was. ” You must be maudlin if you need to photograph that”

I have no idea when I last thought or said the word ‘ maudlin’ . I even had to look it up to check I wasn’t being inaccurate in its use.

In truth I was probably being a little harsh with myself, I’m not sure I was being highly sentimental over a petal but who knows, I think my sentimental threshold has been recalibrated down during Lockdown.

The second word is pretty politically incorrect but I’m sure it can be shared on a blog with limited readership and only its own integrity on the line.

I was at Waitrose during a brief sunshiny moment. Considering whether to join the rather long queue.

Queues at supermarkets are great places for people watching. Waitrose perhaps win a prize for the most eclectic version of PPE that I’ve seen Ski goggles and ludicrous face masks worn by people with Marigold washing up gloves on. Middle class trolley wars about social distancing with people who probably spell the expletive they were using with a pH value because they are better educated/richer/posher than those of us that just use the Essential Waitrose ‘F’ version. Theirs also rhymes with Quark.

While I was considering the Waitrose queue over the nearby Lidl queue, there was a massive cloud burst. Trolleys and eccentric PPE wearers scattered in all directions. Expletives with a variety of spellings punctuating the very moist air.

At this point my head dredged up the word ‘ bedlam’ . Clearly the Victorian grandparent file of strange words had been left open after maudlin popped out.

© Wikipedia

I’d always known the origin of this word and had expected that the Bethlem Royal Hospital was a part of history . It was a huge surprise to me when I stumbled upon it when taking a trip to our local Waitrose when living in South London.

There’s a nice little blogging circle to end with.

I’d be willing to bet Waitrose Beckenham has eccentric queues too.

Pandemic Pondering#85

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

South East Cornwall received a month’s worth of rain today. The day’s activities were not planned by a clock but by a weather forecasting App.Most of January, February and March of 2020 were the same and then with Lockdown for the pandemic the weather changed to something resembling the Mediterranean. Some days we’ve had to plan dog walks to avoid the heat. Today was a shock to the system. Puddles where previously we experienced dust bowls.The change in weather gave Lola a massive sense of her own destiny. Authoritarian signs were not going to stop her.She was straight out of the nature reserve and straight into the churchyard.Finding a brown dog in a churchyard is a tricksy thing, it took a while,but I forgave her when I found this grave. It forms the boundary of the graveyard and I walk past the back of it every day. So much information …This gentleman drowned in the Hamoaze on April 10th 1834. Aged63He wasn’t found until 6th May, unsurprisingly his remains were interred the very next day.So much information and completely plays to my nosey, or do I mean interested side. A quick glance to the grave next door added another possible layer to this already sad story.Another gentleman with the same name is also listed as drowned on December 29 th 1803. Aged 54.There has to be a story here, probably very sad and entirely suited to a grey day.I’ve noticed during my weather watching during the pandemic that I am extraordinarily thrilled to know whether my gibbous is waxing or waning.