Month: Feb 2023

#476 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Peninsular Life, Serendipity1 Comment
Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach- W. Stanhope-Fores 1885. The Box, Plymouth

The Museum where I work has had a spring refresh, lovely new exhibitions for people to enjoy in early 2023. I have loved this painting since I was a young and not because I lived anywhere near the West Country. I must have seen it when a Newlyn School Exhibition came to London in the seventies. This painting is part of the Plymouth Permanent Collection. Obviously it goes off on its travels around the world, but for now it is hanging on the wall of its home gallery. Home is the link to the other picture in this blog. Unlike Fish Sale this one is completely unknown to me and the artist who painted it is not credited. The painting is of the Sir John Hawkins Boatyard in about 1830 The boatyard was demolished in 1962 and I walk on the same location most days. The boats are much smaller and somewhere in the background is the plot of land our house would be built on later in the same century.

The church in the picture was damaged and later demolished in the second world war but the grey building on the horizon still exists. I don’t think I have ever lived in the background of an oil painting before. I buy coffee and bread from behind the boat with the flags. The boats I look out while enjoying my coffee are not quite so fancy. The built environment is hugely changed, but the winter sunsets for all who worked in those dockyards would have been a lot like this.

#475 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ponderingLeave a comment

There is something odd going on in our house. The indoor plants are expressing a preference to living in the west facing rooms this winter. The shortness of days is one factor but the same phenomena did not happen last year. The plants in the east facing rooms started begging for attention in December, despite being looked after entirely appropriately. They started displaying teenage angst, flopping a bit, not really communicating and generally not being themselves. As they have managed to persuade us that they would be better off elsewhere the bathroom and dining room have slowly gathered more plants. A particular favourite spot is an odd shaped window where a door used to be.

It is getting rather crowded. This week’s big move was a cheese plant that had been moved into the bathroom a couple of weeks ago. His spirits were not perked up at all in our bright bathroom but less than 12 hours in the favoured window seat he was a very happy chap. The only real difference between the dining room and the bathroom is the proximity to the coffee machine.

Our coffee machine self-cleans before every brew. We collect the water in a small jug and use it to water plants when it has cooled. The water is always brown with residual coffee, this has to be the reason for the plants happiness. How long will it take before all the green members of this family persuade us to let them move to the dining room, where all the drinks are caffeinated. Soon enough they will be giddy and over-stimulated.

Exactly like teenagers.

#474 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

Earlier this week this quote dropped into one of my Social Media accounts. It irritated me from the minute it arrived because it seems so passive aggressive in tone. Also it hit a small nerve because I know that sometimes I am not capable of forgiving and forgetting. I am not a seething bundle of angst, just rather too practical. Forgiveness is fine but surely forgetting is counterintuitive.

Earlier this week while we were decorating the kitchen we kept banging our heads on some pendant lights that are normally over a table.

The table was moved to enable us to paint the wall. Time and time again we banged our heads on the light as we walked past. Clearly we had forgiven ourselves for being so daft but also forgotten and did it repeatedly. Had we remembered and recovered it would have been a much better day.

So I came up with a quote that works so much better for me.

And for special occasions…

Clearly the last quote is not the behaviour of a fully perfect human and would not have been appropriate for the pendant light. However deleting the quote at the top of this blog, and considering other options was all the revenge I needed to recover from something unwanted dropping into my mind.

Sometimes I will forgive and forget. Other times I will remember and recover. Occasionally revenge works. It can be delicious if used appropriately, sparingly and safely.

Not everything that drops into Social Media is bad.

This fabulous quote from Jacinda Ardern made my empathetic heart sing. It will sit in my thoughts very comfortably for a while.

#473 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Art for sale1 Comment

Gallery walls and thieves. Hannah @theoldmortuary has finished the gallery wall and the inspiration for a weekends work has been hung. I bought her three original prints for her birthday from Debs Bobber, one of our cold water swimming friends. As soon as they were unwrapped their new home was planned and this weekend the plane was executed. Debs Bobber, real name Debra Parkinson is currently working on a theme of thievery. In this series a mythical creature steals the gold finial that tops Smeatons Tower, the iconic Lighthouse that stands on Plymouth Hoe.

©Debra Parkinson
©Debra Parkinson

Of course the gallery wall is just the beginning of the kitchen, dining room refurbish but it is always good to get the essentials done first!

#472 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

Cue the Rolling Stones, Paint it Black. Although to be accurate the Rolling stones would have to be singing. Paint it Farrow and Ball ‘Railings’ which is not the same thing at all. Our art collection deserves a Gallery Wall and that is the project for this weekend.

In between painting the wall F&B Railings we discovered a, new to us,park with spectacular views.

Now the dogs are not the biggest of fans of DIY but a new park is something they can fully invest in.

The views seemed to be immaterial to them but an hour or so of scampering for them and Vitamin D harvesting for us was a great break in the day.

#471 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment
©Debs Bobber

Yesterday was a Turquoise day. It was also a day when the sea and the air were both at 11 degrees. Not that equilibrium of temperature made it any easier to get into the chilly water. Cold tentacles of icy water found their way into swimsuits or around the creases of our necks and knees.

©Debs Bobber

The weather was hugely changeable which may have created these fantastic turquoise pictures. In the picture below you can see a rain shower approaching.

These little weather patches were loaded with drenching powerful rain that devastated us while we fully dressed but were of no consequence while we were bobbing about. Earlier in the day I had stood drippily in a new art installation, learning the influences and historical events that fed the artists creativity. Of the forty or so people there I was the only one who had been under one of those cloud bursts. Excellent preparation for the afternoon Bob.

An afternoon Bob that featured 4 very different shades of Turquoise.

#470 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Today’s late blog is late because the planned blog did not go to plan. I had an early start this morning and a lazy evening last night so there was no back up plan. The 3rd of February is an insignificant date @theoldmortuary but a trawl through past photos taken on the 3rd of February have a strange coincidence. In recent years the footpaths and fields of our Cornish lives had become quite difficult to navigate as winter rains make the ground underfoot muddy and slippery. By February I was pretty intolerant of me and the dogs being grubby after every walk. Sometimes I would seek a more urban environment with tarmac paths in parkland. Devils Point in Plymouth was often my choice because there was also good coffee at Hutong.

Hutong 2018

And fabulous views.

Devils Point 2021

Of course between these two photos Covid struck and that changed everyone’s lives. By February 2021 we had evolved into the sort of people who loved to swim, year round in the sea. Not something we could achieve safely near to our home in Cornwall. By late 2021 we were living in Stonehouse, a quick walk to the coffee shop, the swimming area and the beautiful views. The beautiful flowers, Cafe Au Lait dahlias, were left in Cornwall.

#469 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box, FamilyLeave a comment

Britain is in the grip of industrial action. Yesterday it was the turn of teaching staff to protest about their pay and conditions. This meant that many schools in Plymouth were closed and families had to find care for their children in school hours. This hugely changed the weekday demographic of the visitors to the museum where I work. The galleries were buzzing with children and their grandparents filling their impromptu day of care. One grandad in his mid- sixties also had his elderly mum with him. As the grandchildren skipped about from gallery to gallery. The man and his mum held hands as they slowly made their way around the older areas of the building. Clearly reminiscing about visits they had made 60 years ago, when the act of holding hands between a mum and her child happened more often and for different reasons.

#468 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity1 Comment

Good morning February, two pretty pictures from the last day of January a couple of years ago at Watergate Bay in North Cornwall.

I’m improvising with illustration because the actual ponder is brief and not a pretty sight.

I use a grater fairly often, almost always without injury. But twice now when creating a Vegetarian meal I have grated off a tiny sliver of index finger skin. Honestly you couldn’t make this up, the last meal of Veganuary and I add some inadvertent flesh. Is it cheating if I eat my own flesh?

Thank goodness for dogs on beaches.