Day: Feb 5, 2021

Pandemic Pondering #320

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

The sea swimming community in Plymouth is very welcoming.

When you drive along Durnford Street at 10am and see a woman walking along wearing a Tiara, it is a fair assumption, and in this case correct, that she is a sea swimmer celebrating something.

A double celebration as it turns out, a birthday and retirement.

The beauty of this lovely community is that everyone looks out for each other, in or out of the water. It is entirely normal to ask a complete stranger why they are wearing a tiara. Talking to this particular stranger gave me the heart image at the top of this blog. Her husband had made this heart on their gate to celebrate her birthday.

The smiles are not just reserved for Tiara wearing. Just doing a sea swim makes us smile inside and out.

Some other facial expressions!

But mostly smiles.

People are always willing to share their expertise. On this occasion, not swimming related, how to use drainage holes to frame photographs.

Two of our images.

And someone using their newly acquired knowledge.

As it happens within our ‘Bobbers’ group we have had two recent birthdays. Unaware of the informal Tiara rule, we just exchanged cards. (In future, tiaras will be involved!) ‘Bobbers’ also do original art.

Hugo and Lola by Debs Bobber

Sea swimming is an amazing activity. We plan ours using Tide times and weather forecasts.

For local and constantly updated information, we often refer to Plymouth Open Water Swimmers. Link below.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/214153495854310/?ref=share

Some of us have had swimming lessons from Jason at Ace Swimming

https://www.aceswimming.co.uk/

Cold water swimming, it makes us smile. We Love It.

Pandemic Pondering #319

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and LolaLeave a comment

Today we need to talk about Fox.

Our dogs spent their formative years living in South London. We quickly became aware of dogs ernest desire to always roll in Fox Poo. Urban foxes are everywhere and dog owners have a sixth sense about the moment their dogs bend one shoulder down towards the earth prior to a squirm of ecstacy as they rub fox excrement over their backs and onto their faces. Once we returned to Cornwall we lost that sixth sense. Rural foxes are far more discrete and many small town or country people have never seen a live fox.

In London Foxes were a part of our everyday lives. We often woke up with one.

They used our garage roof as a relaxation area and for a memorable and stinky period our garden became their larder. If foxes have a really rich harvesting and hunting period they will store excess food in a particular place to retrieve it later. Our garden, for a while became a dead rat larder. We could smell them as soon as we walked into the garden. We disposed of the stinky carcasses into an area of rough ground that was near the foxes den, only to have the exact same bodies returned to the garden a few hours later. Apparently no self respecting Fox wants such things close to its front door!

Pandemic Pondering #319 mentions the mud festival that was yesterdays walk. Hugo and Lola had made some small attempt to clean themselves up so they were spared a bath yesterday. Today though a trip to the Rugby Club for a run about revealed how much I have lost my London Fox awareness training. First Hugo and then Lola took the dive of shame into a copious pile of Fox poo. I could hope for a moment that it was just random high spirits but as they ran excitedly back to me the joy on their faces told me all I needed to know. I bent down for a sniff but it was unnecessary really.

An afternoon bath became essential, as you can see from these photos it was not universally popular.

The rewards for me are clean curls to cuddle and a slightly damp lap.