A busy day crowded with different stimuli, but brought to a standstill by a few lovely flowers. Just twenty minutes spent quietly in a garden easily resets a busy mind ready for the next challenge. I’ve never really been a fan of Primroses but today this ethereal specimen stopped me in my tracks, hiding by a tractor shed.
Building up the colour temperature of this blog is an exploding yellow crocus.
Then after all the innocence and quietude of pale whites, creams and yellows this beautiful purple crocus shouts out for attention.
Its insides swirling like a sensual dancer lost in music.
Yesterday was all about avoiding a Storm that was battering the south coast of Devon and Cornwall. We had to go to Truro to collect my typewriter from its service and took a chance that the North Coast might not be so badly affected.
Typewriter collected, and that is a whole other blog, we called in at Strong Adolfo on the Atlantic Highway for coffee and some lunch.
Sartorial and comestible choices had uncanny similarities!
Lola and Hugo looked on, their doggy colour blindness giving them no clue why we thought this was so funny.
All they really wanted was to get to the beach and blow off some energy.
I’m not sure we exactly avoided the storm by travelling South to North, we just altered the direction that the rain hit us. The video below gives you a minute of wave action. We were not tempted to get in for a swim.
All in all a Sunday well spent, now its time to get on with the week.
This is not the way to start a Sunday! I ‘Wordle’ any time after midnight, but this morning I did it with the best cup of tea of the week. Sunday morning tea has a special quality of relaxation. Ten wrong letters in two rows ruined any element of relaxedness! There is also a storm blowing in which is sure to affect the relaxedness of my imminent dog walk with professional coffee and croissant. I am not a huge fan of drinking anything through a lid. My lip anatomy or maybe my technique is faulty but drinking take away drinks through the lid always leads to a bit of dribble on my chin or my clothes.
Normally I just pop the lid off and enjoy my drink just like any normal human. The last time I did that, in a storm, the wind whipped into my cup. Swirled the silky froth of my flat white around a bit and then flung it all over my face, up my nose and into my eyes. It was hard to style out a look that suggested that I had come out with a face pack on. After a rocky start maybe I should listen to my omens and only drink coffee indoors!
A different perspective. Two hours before I took this photograph I was doing the pre-swim dog walk in the area very close to the orange arrow in this photograph. The weather was the polar opposite of this bright blue scene. Literally, ice cold needles of rain were penetrating my warm clothing and the dogs were super grumpy, actually they needed a poo but were both not prepared to spin and then stand still in such disgusting weather. I was absolutely not feeling the love for the morning bob. The grumpy dogs did eventually complete their eliminations and I could return home to the ritual of pouring myself into a damp wet suit. Rumpling chubby bits into neoprene with some degree of speed never improves my state of mind. Achieving a relatively quick turn around I was shocked to discover that the area below the orange arrow had taken a better turn and the water that awaited me looked like this. The bob was absolutely wonderful, and the post bob snacks of afternoon tea cakes,bought by Kim Bobber, gave the morning a proper boost.
Swimming/ bobbing achieved we had another quick turn around and drove off to Mountbatten which is where the top photograph was taken along with the following ones.
Plymouth Barbican and Sutton Harbour from MountbattenThe Citadel and the Hoe from Mountbatten
Fired up by the sugar hit from Kim’s cakes I decided to do a longish but quick walk around the Mountbatten peninsular. I found some very curiously marked bollards. I was late for a planned meeting time so I was unable to unearth their significance or reason for being. But for now I can use them as a Saturday warning to all.
This old theatre poster has some relevance, but before the relevance comes some pondering. I’ve had a busy two days attending actual meetings, with real people, in indoor spaces. I’ve achieved in two days what I could never have achieved in a month of zooming.
The meetings were not held in committee rooms or other closed off spaces. By coincidence, both days were spent in large old industrial spaces that have been converted into co-working areas. So a bit like the above poster, a big space with lots of people doing their own thing in their own box, be it virtual, plugged into a computer or real world isolation of sitting at separate tables.
At the beginning of the working week I had one thing to achieve and had I been zooming I like to think that one thing could have been successfully achieved. In co-working spaces, though, going about your business is not a shut off activity, people walk past you. Maybe they slightly recognise you. There is a nod or a smile, or even a brief introduction. This week I have found that one succesful meeting led to two more informal but equally significant meeting of minds. Because of the one planned and succesful meeting I had to arrange another meeting in a different shared space again succesful and again leading to another unplanned and very interesting interaction. Two days of really positive collaborative thought quite blew my mind. After the last interaction I stepped across the road and took shelter under an old theatre canopy while I gathered my thoughts. Which brings us, in a roundabout way to the poster.
The Palace Theatre in Plymouth was the last place Laurel and Hardy performed on stage together, as top of the bill variety artists. On May 17th 1954 Oliver Hardy had a heart attack during their performance of Birds of a Feather. This brass plaque, of one of the shows posters, marks this seminal moment in the careers of the two men. There is no explanation anywhere near the plaque. Dr Google filled in the gaps. The sketch was cut short and Hardy spent the rest of their time in Plymouth recuperating in a local hotel. For the remainder of the run Stan Laurel collaborated with and supported the other entertainers who were performing in the show. The last ever performances, on stage, of a very famous entertainer were spent supporting other people on a stage in the theatre where I was sheltering. A very uplifting thought after two days of good outcomes from collaborative work. A real post- covid moment.
A daily blog is a funny old thing. Sometimes I have a little stash of thing to write about and other times , for no particular reason, there is a bit of an empty cupboard. Today the cupboard is not exactly empty but the ideas on the shelves are not thrilling me. However there is a serendipitous bit of wordplay to share. Very strange atmospheric conditions this morning meant that barely perceptible mist landed on everything making diamond- like droplets on things and humans. The safety bar near our swimming zone twinkled in the weak sunlight. Not quite so attractively an old WW2 building, close by has been unimaginatively embellished with Graffiti. The whole thing being brought together with a witty sentence.
Giving me the chance to natter on about two sorts of bar. Exactly the sort of thing to keep blogging alive on a misty morning.
Yesterday was a dull thing. So I’ve borrowed some images from last year to jazz up todays blog. Over the weekend I was talking to some friends who have had a protracted house move. Protracted because they inherited a partial share of a house many years ago and were unsure quite what to do with the property. Some years down the line they have bought it completely and are moving this week. Like us they have also lived the South London/ West Country life for many years, until Covid changed everyones way of living.
The topic of our conversation was too many bathroom products. Both cleaning and beautifying.
Our recent move followed several years of changing circumstances all of which seemed to increase our collection of half used bathroom products.
Our actual move and settling into the current house went well and we were tidy in record time. Except the cupboard of shame! A floor to ceiling cupboard that held products that had been inherited and duplicated many times in various changes of life circumstances.
Talking about it made me realise that it was never going to sort itself out.
There was nothing pretty or exciting about a day spent checking pots and bottles. Amalgamating window cleaners and liquid soap. Cleaning hair brushes and make up/ travel bags.
The task, though, has been achieved. Last night the talk was all about what to do with an empty cupboard!
February 1st , time to turn a page or, in the case of 2022, three pages. This year we have 3 physical calendars. The sort with a picture and the month divided into days for notes and appointments. The dog calendar features this splendid chap who has witnessed all that goes on in our utility room for the last month. From the gradual lowering of food stocks post the festive season to the drama of a new shelf flying off the wall and scattering the contents of this tin all over the floor.
6 years out of date, Steel Cut Oat Meal goes an awful long way in a utility room. The gorgeous ginger dog on my January page almost certainly heard some choice words. Being turned over may be a welcome break for him.
My Indspire Calendar from Canada features the work of Indigenous , First Nation , art students and the funds raised provide Inuit and Métis students with burseries and scholarships.
This Calendar lives in the studio/work room and really has not seen much creative action this January. Certainly some domestic sewing and the beginning of another Womble this time one with links to Hong Kong. Which allows me to show you a small remnant of lovely blue carp fabric, and at the same time wish you a happy lunar New Year.
Kung Hei Fat Choi
The last Calendar picture I turned over today is much closer to home, an old home, and comes from the Braintree Museum Calendar.
The Braintree Museum is coinciden tally housed in my old Primary School. So this calendar is almost certainly going to provoke some memories. The January picture of a steam train at the towns railway station very clearly shows the method of transport so many of us used to leave a small market town to explore the world. The train I escaped on was diesel and it took me to London. I wonder where the February pictures will take my ponderings?
theoldmortuary.design 