Month: Jun 2024

#964 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Saturday, Serendipity2 Comments

Saturday turned out to be quite the day of textures. Breakfast in a boatyard and Lola took me on a wild Hedgehog tracking adventure. We never found the hedgehog but her tracking led me to an old boat and I love the accidental colours that old wooden boats reveal.

I also had a curious moment with the new photo editor function on my phone. It uses a couple of algorithms to generate different versions of a photograph. Firstly using the information in the picture and secondly using information gathered from  previous edits that I have saved.  As a regular tool to use I would say it is a little unreliable. But as a lover of the serendipitous the function is proving to be very interesting. I download RAW data images from my actual digital camera to give the algorithm more to munch on. What it drags up from my past edits is beyond my control but yesterdays trip to the carwash made a fascinating Greek Seascape.

From this.
To this.

My last textures of the day were aural.  My local community choir sung a Contemporary Pagan Song Cycle on the theme of the Green Man Myths in an old Church of England building. Unusual but then not when you consider that many great churches are built on the sites of Pagan Temples. I love a bit of a sing but am hampered and helped by my synesthesia. I am quite incapable of learning to read music, and I don’t really learn by ear, but by the serendipity of the neurodivergance of Synesthesia, music goes in and I can sing it out. All the right notes, mostly in the right order but not always.

To say I keep a low profile when singing is an understatement. Kind people jab pencils at me and flutter the music sheet at me . Honestly it could be a Cornflake packet but I nod and smile. I am hugely bored by music pedants who bang on about notes. C’s and D’s are just bra cup sizes to me. As for the mystery/ worry of the missing Triangle dinger. I have no idea of the jeopardy involved in that WhatsApp thread. But the percussionists were energised by that predicament.

Fortunately our Community Choir has a composer /conductor who has no time for the  niff naff of  music pedantary so I can keep my head down and not feel like the musical Village Idiot that I am. Our performance was gorgeous,full of crunchy textured soaring notes and unusual harmonies. The Green Man and mid-summer were glorious in the churchyard.

Textures of all sorts throughout the day

#963 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment
©Gill Bobber

Funny things happen at our bobbing sessions. Yesterday we took part in some smelling research. Luckily for me and my ailing/failing sense of smell it was an early morning swim when my sense of taste and smell are at their patchy best. I wasn’t able to identify any of the smells but they did still evoke memories of place and time which is exactly what the research was about.

©Debs Bobber

What they actually were is a complete mystery.

My very early swims in Greece last week, 5:30 am, gave us the absolute best of Basil, Oregano, Geranium and Rose from the gardens of our temporary home. There wasn’t really a sea smell but the Flisvos ( sound of lapping waves) added to the early morning pleasures. If I were ever to run a sanctuary for burnt out humans it would be by the sea on a Greek Island and early morning swimming and walking through herb gardens would be essential therapy.

Happy Saturday.

#962 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, Serendipity2 Comments

What are your daily habits?

Anyone who reads my blogs know that blogging is one of my reliable daily habits. Along with dog walking and tea and coffee drinking.

A weekly or often more frequent habit is swimming in cool or cold water. Even at its peak the sea water nearby rarely reaches 16 degrees and International wisdom would suggest that  swimming in those temperatures is not advised. Our coldest ever swim was 6 degrees one winter day.

After a week of balmy swimming in Greece, I had my first cooler dip this morning. Initially it was a bit of a shock,but I quickly acclimatised and enjoyed the fizz and tingle of a colder swim. I love how it resets me. The cold swimming and the company of my bobbing friends sets the day up with positivity.

In Britain we are approaching a General Election. I don’t feel this blog is my place to bang on about politics but this morning a fabulous apolitical quote jumped at me, so here it is . Typed across Firestone Bay. A place where it is my habit to regain positive vibes on a daily basis.

Irvine Welsh

#961 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Yardening2 Comments

More white wall painting on a cooler, more dull day. Infinitely more difficult than the textured but plain walls of the pre-holiday planned painting. This is a daft job. One that should be done in the winter when the plants are dormant. But that does not fit in with my, self-imposed, end of June deadline. Everything planty is pulled forwards and pushed to one side.  This blog is being written while paint dries. I can already predict that there will be a lack of paint that will call time on this project.

Interesting nail art.

White walls and morning sun make interesting photos. The one below fails on many photographic rules and parameters but I really like it.

And then just like that a cloud and shadow changes everything.

Since the Greek holiday I have been enjoying playing around with my digital camera and my phone. They talk to each other now. I love the unpredictability of their relationship.

All funny little observations against white walls. Which I must now return to.

#960 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Yardening2 Comments

Serendipity struck yesterday in a moment of parking misery. The peninsular we live on was very busy yesterday. The sun was up the ferries were busy and it was school sports day. I had left my home parking spot early in the morning and struggled to find one to return to at 9:30 in the morning.

The night before I had discovered this old chain dumped by a high tide on a small beach. It was much to heavy to carry home.

In all the parking shenanigans and with some anxiety, for others trying to park to catch a ferry, I decided just to reverse a little way down a slipway at the same beach to just remove myself from the melee. A lightbulb moment. I couldn’t carry the chain but I could gently load it into the car. A few links at a time.

This morning I have repurposed it to train my Wisteria along so that ultimately the plant will wend its way around the outdoor cooking area and onto the garage roof.

One teeny tiny Wisteria shoot has been introduced to the old chain.

I hope they like each other .

The main plant is flourishing after a few weeks of yardening turmoil. Some things did not survive a weeks neglect. Anythng that will provide cool green shade is on my wish list. One of the beach bars in Greece really raised our yardening goals last week.

Carefully planted trees in a courtyard, their trained branches minimally supported by a pergola and grape vines growing along the edges.

Yardening perfection.

We are a long way off but a work in progress is progress.

Meanwhile the middle aisle of Aldi has provided us with Solar festoon lights. Nature is at long last providing enough sun to light up the yard at night. Small victories suggesting that summer has arrived.

#959 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging1 Comment

While I was away one of my photographs was having a moment in the sun as an edible cake topper at a Centenery Celebration The photo featured my home made bunting. If I had good enough baking skills it could have been a triple creative skill creation, a tri-athalon of making. Better for everyone that I stopped at two levels of creativity

We did a reasonable length dog walk from home and found the perfect counter point image to one I took last week.

Last week.
This week.

Hot summer. Soft summer.  The colours tell the temperature just as much as a thermometer would. Yesterday was a day of washing, drying, walking, food shopping and finishing our holiday reads. Back to the real world today.

#958 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, Holidays, SerendipityLeave a comment

Traditional end of the holiday shot. The real life one, is of course, the washing machine churning her way through piles of sandy but barely worn clothes.

Our beach had two ends Bougie and Boho.

We were primarily Boho in our choices . Towels not sunbeds, happy Greek families not Golf Club types.

But the people watching and the coffee were fabulous in Bougie land. Bougie land had pool bars and women with inflated lips and men with inflated egos. Book covers on the bookshelves in Bougie land were as pneumatic as breasts and lips.

Both ends of the beach were rather fabulous. The snippets of conversation were infinitely more interesting in the bougie end, significantly because we could understand 50 % of them.  Although listening to Greek families nattering is what Greek holidays are about. A simple conversation always sounds like a drama.

And then the flight home, Bougies and BoHo’s all sat on the same coach and the same aircraft. All happy that they had achieved their holiday goals. All fairly similar in the cold light of an airport arrivals lounge. Everyone has dirty washing.

#957 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, Holidays2 Comments

A bug eating her supper. Someone else’s rose bush so I am charmed rather than irritated and so much prettier than a slug. Slugs are the main consumers in our yard. They never exude charm, just slime. A slug slimed across a pencil sketch I had left in the yard recently. Instead of a twinkly trail , she left a luminous yellow stream of consciousness. I pondered the point of slime that is twinkly in most circumstances but luminous yellow on white paper

There must be a reason but I’m not certain I can work it out for myself. On a dull day I will google slug slime and learn something which may or may not be ponderable. I know the beauty industry uses something euphemistically called Snail Serum. I have never seen anything slug related.

I’m just squeezing the last rays out of my holiday sun. Hoping for dry hair before the transition stage of coaches, queues and aircraft.

Paperbacks all cast out into the world of perpetual holiday reading for strangers, while I return to the electronic world of Kindle.

Long before daily blogging became a thing, we were regular Greek Holiday goers.

Covid put a stop to all that and then catching up with far flung family took a few years to achieve. Greece became one of the many things associated with the COVID hangover that we are all living through. Adding Greece as a tag and category in my blogging world feels like an achievement.

Tomorrow I will be back to less forgivable bugs eating rose leaves.

But before I go .

#956 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, pondering1 Comment

How do you waste the most time every day?

At home or abroad I waste the most time pondering. Pondering looks unproductive to the outside observer but the time is never truly wasted. Pondering also occurs when I look gainfully employed. Pondering often gets me out of trouble because pondering sometimes causes a change of direction with human interactions and different endeavours. Mulling things over or reflecting are just other words for pondering.

Holiday pondering is just the same as home pondering but in a better climate. Today I pondered Donkey Milk. Unknown to me it has been a beauty and health product from the beginning of time. Donkey milk is the closest thing to human milk . Which puts a whole different view of the Christian Nativity. When I was young I wondered/ pondered why a nine months pregnant woman would want to ride a donkey. When a mule/pony/horse would have been more comfy for her blessed lady garden and or pregnancy created piles.

But here I am the daft one. Joseph on a last minute shop before they set off was sent for some formula, just in case.  Breast milk substitute and transport all in one cute package.

I’ve just gone for a face cream. Two choices 24 hour, or wrinkle.

The wrinkles arrived a while ago so that seemed like a lost cause but 24 hour cream regularly applied could give me eternal life should I choose. Warding off the grim reaper one day at a time.

#955 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, GreeceLeave a comment

I have completely failed to mention my Kindle book reading. Which this year is my non-fiction holiday read. I am a good deal further into it than this picture suggests. I had excellent history teachers at my school and wish I could have studied it beyond O level but I wish that about lots of subjects. I have never wished for different History teachers until now. Shalina Patel serves up history  so intriguingly she would most certainly get an apple from me everyday.

The Hotel Shelf book has been chosen. It will almost certainly be the flight home book.

I picked up a fabulous life quote from my current read, soon to be set free to roam wherever with all the other Hotel shelf paperbacks the world over.

” We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity “

I will be taking that sentence home with me.

Necessity is the mother or father of invention. Overnight I remembered my dad sharpening pencils with glass paper ( sandpaper) . An Emery board has done a very good job. No pencil crisis any more.

In hotel bookshelf faux science I would say that the majority of guests here are German and they read a better standard of books than the British guests. There are some shockingly bad cover art examples in either language.  Predominantly ‘Romance’ novels that my mother was very dismissive of when I was younger. She called them pulpy kidney books, as if describing some terrible medical malady that would befall anyone reading such stuff. Not for her and her second wave feminist friends, except…

When it was time to clear my parents home following their deaths I found a surprise stash of exactly that type of novel in the back of her wardrobe. She didn’t sink to Mills and Boon but the subject matter was predominantly historical  and medical romance.

At death her kidneys were in fine form so maybe she never crossed a line or maybe she imagined pulpy kidneys.