#900 theoldmortuary ponders.

#900, I should write something epic and meaningful. And as it happens I can say that yesterday just like life, was about the journey not the destination. Although the destination was certainly the plan.

Cawsand, as viewed from the round window was the destination, but the weather got in the way. Heavy rain kept us prisoners in the van in a rather dull carpark so we chose to relocate to a car park with views . We had lunch, books and newspapers with us and all the facilities of our campervan. We drove to Maker Church and enjoyed the views. There are footpaths from Maker that link to the nearby South West Coastal path, we have parked there often. But never since we have had a camper van and the luxury to enjoy a lunch with comfy seats and a view. Then the rain stopped. The church and churchyard were bathed in bright sunlight. We decided to walk the dogs in the ancient churchyard.

The old churchyard  was full of blue and white bluebells and a smattering of wild garlic.

The fragrance as the hundreds of flowers warmed up, was unexpectedly powerful, not sweet but heady and musky with a hint of garlic. Since I have never heard of a bluebell perfume I assume it is a redolence that is hard to replicate by the beauty industry. I could have rolled around like an excited dog in fox poo. Obviously I didn’t do that but a smell so gorgeous could easily make me do giddy things.  What I did do is study old grave stones.

I love this one wearing a spring garland.

If I were ever to write a novel I would search old graveyards for character names. Yesterdays top name for a character was Philadelphia Jago.

Philadelphia Jago

Although unphotographed there was an unusual amount of Samson or Sampsons buried in the old bit of the graveyard. I wonder if that is a Cornish thing or if the name was just much more popular 200 years ago. My son is a Sam but his full name of Samuel means ‘name of God’ or ‘God has heard’ . Had I called him Samson or Sampson his name would have been far more appropriate as that means child of the sun and he, very much, is a sunny kind of person. I wonder how well Samson would have worked for him in the classrooms of the nineties.

Maybe I should finish this 900th ponder with some views from a country churchyard. They were spectacular.

Below is the morning question from my blog host. Is camping only considered camping if an overnight has occured. Yesterday was definitely camping light. Hours avoiding rain in a snug van with enough to read and eat and then much later than planned we arrived at the actual planned destination of the day.  But that is a blog for another day.

The journey not the destination.

Have you ever been camping?

3 thoughts on “#900 theoldmortuary ponders.

  1. tomkeenelongbow

    Thank you for yet another beautiful Blog that captures the mood of a
    very special place at Time Of Bluebells.

    I  walk through there often on my way to Cawsand and pause each time to
    pay my respects at the grave of a young man who died in 2003. At the
    bottom of his CWGC headstone are incised words of haunting loss that
    stay with me: ” /To the world, he was a soldier. To us, he was the world./”

    Must ‘camping’ involve an overnight ? Emphatically,  yes. The rest is
    mere observation; champagne without the bubbles.  I have been known to
    take a sleeping bag up onto the edge of Deer Park beside that graveyard
    and sleep out alone up there just to catch the sunrise. And to awake
    surrounded by curious deer. Now /that/, truly, is an unforgettable way
    to start the day….

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  2. My camping experiences were in the Girl Scouts about 55 years ago and the most memorable involved a canoe trip, setting up a tent in the pouring rain, and abandoning that tent and along with the rest of the troop, sleeping in the little lodge building and cooking our dinner in the fireplace, then falling asleep after some fireplace standing in for a campfire ghost stories. Great rrip!

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