Month: Oct 2023

#704 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

Here I am the original Halloween grinch starting a blog with a carved pumpkin on the 31st of October. Needs must. I have 3 granddaughters, something has to give. Hannah, who has lived in North America, feels much warmer towards the event and carved a vomiting pumpkin.

I am going to have to find a way around my long held dislike. Eventually I can introduce the small people to the Mexican Day of the Dead. A festival I very much admire, who wouldn’t want one last party before entering a different realm.

Maybe we will enter a new phase of marking Halloween with pumpkins good food and wholesome autumness. A Harvest Festival/ Halloween mash up. Maybe with some magic wishes from good witches thrown in.

As if by magic, coincidence or me being sneaky the blog host suggestion for today mentions wishes from a genie. Agnostic in the mystical world and the religious I will take my wishes from whatever source is offering them.

You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

World Peace and good health for all knocks off two wishes instantly. But the third would have to stay in my pocket. I would need to observe the chaos I had caused by using the first two. No one ever gives parameters or protocols with wishes. The strength or longevity of the wish is never mentioned. Surely wishes should come with a set of instructions or a users guide. Improvising or just hoping for the best seems somewhat irresponsible. Maybe my very first wish should be for some learned guidance, in life and in fantasy.

#703 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art1 Comment

People who work 24 hour shifts should not be allowed into retail spaces after the shift ends. 10 years after this shop was just a short bus ride from my place of work my art materials store still holds weird and wonderful art materials that I bought from this very specialised shop. Their website suggests they sell hard to find items.

Not hard enough to find, for my art material acquiring habit. I knew exactly how to get there. Even when running on zero energy I loved to look at and then purchase some of the amazing things they sell. A little bit of sparkle or deeply pigmented paint brings me deep joy. Some of my supplies are so special I will probably never finish them.

Money well spent I think, madly perhaps, when I wasn’t thinking straight but goodness do they give me pleasure. Sometimes I just look at them , colourful moments of potential creative pleasure.

Cornelisens Gold Gilding wax on canvas.

#702 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Van Life1 Comment

This birthday invite gave us a big shock yesterday. Despite living in London at the time we were there at the beginning of Strong Adolfos. We went to their soft opening. The shock was that they have only been open 10 years. This is definitely a case of the years of Covid-19 restrictions causing a concertina effect on our mid-term memory.

How can it be only 10 years. I would be much more comfortable with 15 years. So much has happened in this last 10 years and we have been to Strong Adolphos with so many different people it seems a little crazy to have squeezed all those happy memories into just 10 years. Especially when we factor in that for almost 2 years we were unable to visit.

https://www.strongadolfos.com/

Strong Adolfos is on the Atlantic Highway on the North coast and roughly the mid point of the county. It has always been a convenient place to meet friends and family who were holidaying or living in Cornwall. For us, as dog walkers, it is close to the Seven Bays. Large sandy beaches where we can walk the dogs and have a swim.

https://freemapsofcornwall.co.uk/our-directory/business-place/the-seven-bays-guide/

There was no swimming yesterday but a couple of hours of dog walking and sun catching in a miraculous break between rain storms. The wind direction and tide was absolutely ripe for surfers.

Swimming would have been a bit bonkers but away from the surf zone we paddled knee deep in the incoming tide and the dogs had two hours of free running and socialising on the beach.

We had two hours of pondering the 10 year conundrum. Hannahs mum has been dead for nearly 8 years and she loved the vibe at Strong Adolphos. She very much loved independent cafe culture and the people watching that goes with it. She used to like perching on the high bar stools at the window bar.

Crazy that she can only have done it for 2 years max. I know my mid term memory is now utterly unreliable how did 10 years feel like 15. There will be pondering beyond this blog today.

#701 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse2 Comments

Tonight’s early evening dog walk will be a precious thing. The last one before the clocks go forward and  early evenings get dark. Too dark to sensibly walk beside the sea where there are no street lamps. Last nights walk was enlivened by a particularly high tide. The bay felt full and the song of the sea, as it hit the cliffs was much more powerful than usual. Ordinarily we might have arranged an early evening swim with the bobbers on a high tide. But for some reason we didn’t and that was a good thing, there was nothing safe about the water conditions last night. We all love a bit of bubbling choppy water but the fun needs to be safe. I was anxious to take some photos to share with the bobbers so we could all feel wise and sensible about  not being cold and wet on a Friday evening.

This was the wave that made me cold and wet on a Friday evening. Rather than stop at the pink step as all the recent ones had. This one got an additional power surge and crashed into the stone steps, sending a spray of water 8 feet into the air. What goes up came down and I was drenched from head to foot.  It was unexpected and exhilarating and just made me laugh as I retreated to safety. Now I am a fairly risk averse person but in that moment the unexpected joy of being powerfully splashed reminded me of being a child squealing at the beach. Which brings me neatly to the prompt that my blog hosts offered today.

How much would you pay to go to the moon?

Honestly I have no desire to go to the moon, so there would never be any spending by me to take a trip there. But if I could safely be tossed around in a clear plastic ball/bubble on and in a rough sea just for twenty minutes  I might consider investing a small amount. It would have to be as safe as the wildest ride at a water park and I would like to be plunged down the huge underwater cliff that is just a few metres from our swimming zone to meet the deep sea creatures that are invisible to me on my daily visits. I have always felt this way. 54 years ago the first man on the moon failed to excite me, but give me a library book filled with deep sea creatures and I was lost for hours . Jacques Cousteau a diver and television documentary maker was a far more romantic and heroic figure than Neil Armstrong could ever be.

The sea, for me, is the Final Frontier. Space is for other people.

P S the eagle eyed noticed an error, the clocks go back. Dark evening panic over for a few weeks.

#700 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Almost every day I ponder on an alternative career choice. Not because I am hugely unhappy in the choices I made but because I am aware that the choices I made at 18 also shaped the person I am now. Insular, bookish me would have chosen to be a librarian at 18 if I had realised that it could be such a rich and varied career path. Arty me really wanted to be arty, but science me, the least authentic of my personas somehow took charge and the rest is history.

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

Has choosing the least exciting path, for me,been a bad thing. I really have no idea. But that path got me to where I am now with my great loves, books and art still exciting and nourishing my soul on a daily basis.

Because I didn’t much like science but was competent enough at it, the path I chose made me work harder to get the results required. I wish I had taken a little time out to learn the skill of teaching. Not because I have ever wanted to teach exactly but because in all jobs there is an element of teaching required, as there is in life generally. I would love to be able to feel confident that I pass on my skills, knowledge and nonsense effectively.

So in answer to the question. What alternative career paths have I considered or am interested in.

Just about every career path I ever meet on a daily basis. I think I am inherently nosy. Doing something I have no idea about intrigues me.

Of course I would be useless at so much. But maybe somewhere out there my, as yet undiscovered, hidden talent is out there waiting for me. Wondering why it took me quite so long to find it.

Yesterday I made Quince Jelly for the first time in my life. The success or not of my endeavours have not yet been tasted, but my early reaction is to suggest that being the Queen of Quinces is a career path that will be short and forgettable.

#699 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

I took this photo yesterday in a church that has been reimagined as a library. In one of life’s strange coincidences a man I knew in London had been responsible for the interior design. I promised I would visit and report back on how his design had worked. I am ashamed to say that I have left 10 years to pass before I popped in. Despite the library now being only a mile from my current home, I certainly would not have predicted that outcome 10 years ago. As it turns out the library and the church share the same building and it all works rather well. But none of that is the point of this blog. As I took the photograph above another one slipped into my phone via Whatsapp as a friend had found a wasps nest.

What are the chances of two photographs taken by friends on opposite side of the the English channel, but at the same time both having the same colour palate. I was very confused for a moment or two.

#698 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history2 Comments

Everyone reading this blog has lived through the same historical event.

What major historical events do you remember?

The Covid-19 Pandemic is unforgettable for every single one of us. Millions and millions of unique recollections of a global event stored in our memory banks. I have never been one to wish for advanced old age or immortality. Covid-19 gave me an intellectual and low grade fascination with how the pandemic will be viewed through the lens of passing time. I am fascinated by the changes, big and small that already affect our day to day lives. Covid-19 made me want to live to be a sparky 100 year old who can sagely point a finger and flash a twinkling eye before delivering a witty, eloquent and fascinating monologue on the day to day life changes caused by the pandemic. As expressed by a sweet old lady who has become, if not a ‘National Treasure’, then at the very least a ‘ National Trinket’. I already own the hat for my promo portrait. Just a few more years to live…

#697 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ponderingLeave a comment

A year ago my October morning dog walks were spent on Wimbledon Common. I was in London giving Nana support to my freshly delivered granddaughter. As is the nature of such a visit the weeks passed into rather a blur but walking on the common daily was a great way to experience nature starting the shutdown for winter.

I am not a winter person. Short days are not my thing. Now I am no longer constrained by working impossibly long days in a hospital I find October to be my most prolific walking month. Any excuse and the dogs are put on a lead and we go out for additional day time walks.

The photos that pop up in my image archive reflect this.

This spider web is from a Cornish October walk and a fresh one from this week is below.

I’m really not certain what compels me to be out and about quite so much. My need for daylight almost feels like a thirst. It helps that as long as there is no rain, October walks can still be taken in sandals and without a coat.

Autumn in its purest form is a fabulous season. I just feel conflicted by it.

I love the idea of Firework Night on the 5th of November, a strange celebration of a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. A British autumnal tradition that eases us towards winter . Just a few days earlier I dislike and avoid Halloween, with all its tacky plastic spookiness and begging children. But without Halloween I would not get to experience the beauty of pumpkins, and the adult I have become knows that Fireworks are really a very hard thing to defend for many reasons

So where am I with October and Autumn. There is an element of grieving for the summer past and anticipation for the festive season to come. Acceptance that there will no longer be warm days and the first inklings of planning for the festive season, something I love.

I think my need to be out and about , feeling nature in autumn turn towards winter is complex and only a recent discovery. Only obvious once I had given up full-time work in artificial light. Now I think I need to harvest daylight while I can. Something I would never have considered in my working life.

October. It makes you think.

#696 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Serendipity1 Comment

A weekend of expected and unexpected meet-ups and conversations. All enjoyed in crisp autumn weather with sharp shadows and shades of vivid orange. The last time I sat on these cushions, in a coffee shop near Penryn, the Covid-19 Pandemic was nowhere near anyone’s horizon. At the time Penryn was a regular destination because I was studying at Falmouth University and my son lived nearby. Hard to realise that it is 4 years since we were last here and the had Covid-19 not happened there was a good chance that we would have relocated to live here for work and family reasons.

Yesterday we were here to find some long lost but recently found family members from Vancouver Island.

If I was struggling with the passage of four years our hunt for their airbnb was going to give me a bigger thwack with the memory stick.

The beautiful, but strangely named St Gluvius Church, on the road from Penryn to Mylor Bridge pulled me up sharply. It was such a shock to my system I didn’t even take a photograph to record the moment. 40 years ago I attended the wedding of some good friends there and through knowing them this area of Cornwall became one of my favourite corners of the world.

The friendship has not survived, eroded by changing circumstances and life events but how lovely that Penryn still makes me feel welcome however long I leave it between visits.

Funny how life is just a series of moments in a mosaic, some things planned and some things not. And we can never know, as individuals,when the bigger picture is complete.

And those we leave behind will never fully know our bigger picture because we have forgotten half of it ourselves

#695 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and LolaLeave a comment

It has been a whirlwind of family interactions in the last few days. Some planned and some serendipitous. Our dogs love having an increased pack. Yesterday Hugo took a little time out and perched on a small dining chair as if it was the only place he could find a space for a five minute gap.

By coincidence the two British locations our family occupies are represented by these little books in the prayer book shelves.

What have you been working on?

In answer to the above question I imagine Hugo could be wondering where the Little Book of Hong Kong was for him to do research Then he would then fully be able to fall asleep surrounded by books that represent his entire human family.