Is life just a bowl of Cherries?
Sometimes life is not exactly a
bowl of cherries.
The trouble with bowls of cherries is currently my pondering mind. If I could content myself with just eating the things rather than pondering them. Why is searching for the best ‘Cherry Picking’, or losing virginity to lose your cherry.
Why cherries?
After a fruitful google search I would say that sometimes metaphors and symbolism can all get a bit twisted and inexplicable. Far far easier on Sunday to say…
#982 theoldmortuary ponders
Blog 982 might have suggested that I am not completely a cat lover. Historically I was very much a cat-lover but I feel that it is perhaps not in my community’s best interest to have pets that defaecate and pee in other people’s gardens. My cats have also been far better at catching birds than mice which is also not good for the environment.
My first ever cat was a Siamese an intense learning experience in cat owning. Were I ever to own a cat again, my first choice would be a Siamese and it would have to be a house/flat cat.
The cat above is Harry, my second choice of cat style, a ginger moggy. He looks exactly like Henry who was his forerunner and nothing like Muppet who is an extremely long haired ginger cat who at 20 still lives with my ex-husband on a cliff in Cornwall.
Then of course there is my pun cat from Brixton who crops up in blogs.
There have been many other much-loved, non-ginger and non-Siamese cats in my life. So why after just two concurrent dogs in my life I am team dog these days.
Love is the thing, I am a needy human. The love I share out is generously given but I need it reliably returned and cats just don’t have that capacity. Their love is entirely self centered. No cat has ever looked at me as if I am the centre of their universe.
These two do this every day.
Hugo is on limited walking for a few days. He got over excited at a friend’s house and has tweaked his back. Just like a human with a bad back he needs rest, pain relief and moderate exercise.
I know which walk takes half an hour and because this blog prides itself on the repetition of normal life, I took some sunny photos on my circuit yesterday.
It is bin day and this is a fine example of how camouflage works.
Our morning walk often has military men, carrying weapons doing training runs. This is so normal that the dogs pay no attention. We are fortunate that we live near the barracks and the men running past are fragrant adverts for mens grooming products. Not so much if I catch them on the way back.
Low tide at the beach is not the most scenic shot.
But the next shot also shows how well camouflage works.
With my back to the sea we head down Hutong Lane towards the Royal William Yard and a series of harbours.
Then a quick left onto some grass and to the first harbour.
Then we follow a boardwalk on the edge of a second harbour back towards the entrance of the Royal William Yard.
Maybe at this point I should do a little catch up on my pondering.
Ponder #1The efficacy of Camouflage.
#2 is more complex. Some babies are born with a rare condition where their heart is not fully enclosed by their ribs.
The Hutong Cafe is outside the Royal William Yard which is a thriving mixed use commercial hub with many cafes and restaurants.
The Hutong used to be closed on Tuesdays which is when this ponder first took hold. On Tuesdays this regular walk felt incomplete. The small cafe outside the yard sets the tone for the entrance and experience of the very grand, Royal William Yard, RWY. Recently the Hutong opened on Tuesdays, making everything feel right 7 days a week. Which gave me a spontaneous moment of clarity. The beating heart of the Royal William Yard is actually just outside. Aha, my useless information brain kicked out.
Ectopia Cordis!
Which is what I think every time the cafe has loads of customers. Many fresh from sea swimming, some mamils/mammals (Middle-aged men in Lycra). People who still go into the office within the RWY. People having work meetings in the sun.
Ponder #2. Ectopia Cordis.
Ponder #3 came from my earlier work on our little yard and the guns carried by the men in camouflage. Guns are a very rare sight in England.
I have been following yard or container growing pages on Instagram. A contributor yesterday suggested improving security when there is a rear access point. I read the article with interest as the rear doors on our yard are definitely a project for the future. The simple plan was to increase the length of the screws holding the hinges of the door to the frame. All well and good I thought until the final sentence.
” A longer screw will give you additional time to arm yourself if someone tries to break in”
The contributor was from the U.S and, if I am honest, provided me with the most unusual yard/yardening advice I have ever read.
Ponder #3 I will stick with the shorter screws and offer a cup of tea , or run away.
And that concludes our very regular half an hour dog walk.
Another day of painting white walls white or waiting for white paint to dry. I was painting a stairwell in the yard that drops from yard level down to a rear service lane and our garage. Not in the original painting schedule for June. But part of the extended, aspirational plans now the yard looks so fabulous in bright white. If a two graves were dug end to end that would describe my working space. Hugo helpfully rested on the top level, inspecting and encouraging.
The biggest challenge was not brushing any part of me against the freshly painted walls in such a confined space. Hugo had no such qualms and is now a white dog tipped with bright white enhancements.
Our lunchtime walk took us past very similar walls with a much more naturalistic appeal.
All of the stone used in this area would have been quarried extremely locally. The original Quarry boundary is 20 yards from our front door. I have qualms of guilt about painting such an ancient natural building material but previous owners made that decision a long time ago. The grubby white I am painting over covers a very strange colour choice. A sort of pinky orange. Texas Adobe walls is my closest colour reference. One external yard wall remains in this dubious shade. Another addition to the extended, aspirational wall painting schedule.
Adobe is a fabulous colour choice in Texas and other places with extremely harsh sunlight and where the colour is naturally occurring. Not so great in South-West England.
Whilst not exactly a ponder, here is an unrelated fact.
Adobe Walls is the site of a historic battle in Texas!
My relationship with the colour of Adobe walls is much less blood-soaked. Two of my favourite women artists had studios in Mexico and New Mexico and used the colour often in their later works. I always rather fancied being an artist in that environment. Not that I will be rushing out any time soon to replace my newly pristine white walls with Farrow and Ball, Red Earth.
That particular fantasy cannot be lived comfortably in Devon.
Meanwhile a quick romp through my colour theory books gives me a whole family for Adobe walls to live with.
So much blooming nonsense to fill my mind whilst painting walls white.
Dogs or cats?
For 55 years I was a cat or nothing sort of person. Many of those years with house/flat only cats. And all cat-owning years with a dirt box in my home. Then I got dogs+cats and now I am in an exclusive relationship with dogs. Yardening changed everything. We work really hard to have a child safe , beautiful space to relax, in our urban, coastal yard.
What we have never wanted is a cat latrine. We have neighbours in the extended locality who have any number of pet cats that are free to roam, shit and piss in other peoples outside space. Honestly I am so over cats! Apart from this one who was posing so beautifully for a visual pun in Brixton Market.
These spoons have had quite the life. Not the life intended for them in 1955, when they were gifted to my parents as a wedding gift but a life never the less. When my parents died nearly 30 years ago I had the difficult job of clearing and selling their home. Everyone who has done that task knows the heartache that such a job brings. These spoons were unused. Still in their wrapping paper, and with a heartwarming and loving letter from my dad’s cousin. I imagine they were never used and preserved, just as they had been gifted, because that cousin killed himself soon after my parents marriage.
Unused spoons are of no use to anyone so I kept the letter and put the spoons to use in my busy family environment.
30 years of daily life without being cleaned. Obviously they have been in and out of the dishwasher, almost daily. A thing not even invented when they were made.
Grubby perhaps, until this week when we made a new-to-us salad dressing. It had eye watering amounts of mustard in it. The salad dressing was a step too far for our stoic spoons. Something dreadful occured. Discolouration and a tang or odd taste came off the spoon.
Dr Google saved the spoons. I did things with boiling water, tin foil, salt and Bicarbonate of Soda and then buffed them with a soft cloth. They have never looked better. The spoons were old looking when I found them. Today they are positively youthful.
My rain soaked blog of yesterday was written on St Swithuns Day. Traditionally if it rains or is sunny on his name day then rain or sun will be with us for 40 days. Thankfully this morning is dull with no rain. Which put St Swithun on the spot somewhat. I thought I would check his credentials. An Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester born in about 800. A quick google suggests that his actual career has been eclipsed by folklore and his miracle. Folklore is the 40 days of rain or sun theory. His miracle, apparently, was to restore to perfection some eggs broken by builders on a bridge.
Unlikely, I think. But if those two things have eclipsed his career it suggests he may not have been a particularly effective Bishop in the 800’s. Sometimes these Saints are best left unresearched.
An early morning wake-up of rain at the midpoint of July is hardly a welcome sound. But we know that it is summer rain because it is falling softly. Up until now winter style rain has persisted throughout Spring and early summer. The rain is falling softly but may still cause flooding and other inconveniences.
Today, Alexa woke me with a moderate weather warning.
Is moderate a good enough reason to wake a woman up, I wonder.
Alexa was a little late to be honest, the moderate rainfall had already woken me up along with the chirping birds of the 6:15 alarm.
We have two Alexa devices in regular use. They keep the dogs company when we are out, keeping Hugo and Lola fully abreast of world affairs and interesting topics.
This has been a ponder that I never really knew how to address in the blog until now, but Alexa has a different personality upstairs compared to downstairs.
Downstairs Alexa has a jaunty but practical way about her. Reminding us of our looming domestic apocolypses, low on bin bags, charity toilet rolls and vitamins etc. To be honest she gets the tone about right. I am forever irritated by radio journalists or presenters who use voices, constantly , that suggest they have a barely concealed,but fake laugh or giggle hiding just behind their scripted words.
For what it is worth I prefer friendly with no hint of mirth, unless I am listening to comedy in which case mirth is just fine.
Upstairs Alexa is a different proposition. She is Eeyore in female computer generated form. If she was a hotel receptionist she would have her forehead on the desk or be crocheting Granny Squares in shades of grey and beige.
Upstairs Alexa wakes me up to tell me the day is going to be average. If she were a friend I would be concerned for inability to find joy in anything. Her mantra seems to be.
” Start your day, the gloomy way”
So in the spirit of upstairs Alexa, rain-soaked images from the yard are the illustrations for today.
Welcome to Monday , it is going to be average.
I have crisscrossed the Tamar River using these bridges every day this week and sailed underneath them on a ferry yesterday. The river and the sea dominate every journey at the southern end of the Tamar Valley. The first rail bridge was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel between 1854-59. A road bridge was built in 1961.
Before that a variety of ferries powered, intially, by rowers and ropes crossed the river at this point for 800 years.
It was rowers that made us visit again yesterday.
A Regatta with Gig Rowing is always a feast for the eyes. We are ‘resting’ Gig rowers @theoldmortuary.
While the events of a Regatta occur on the water. There is plenty of other action on the Cornish bank.
And because this is England, Morris Dancers.
Oh the whimsy that is Morris Dancers.
Inexplicable. The link below might help.
Even our ferry journey home had a curious whizz through history. The banks of the Tamar are edged by small surviving examples of the Atlantic Rain Forest, a habitat that is well beyond being under threat.
In the same small stretch of water we passed this paddle boarder.
And a Nuclear Submarine.
And just like riverside dwellers for centuries have done. We waved to a friend as we left.
Luckily she was wearing orange and white. Which was my theme for making a Morris Dancing/ Tamar Bridges/ Pop Art image later in the day. I was aiming for a Punk anarchy energy.
Are you seeking security or adventure?
This blog is supposed to be about me finishing a watercolour after four months. But then my blog host put this teasing question on my admin page . I can answer the question with this painting. After four months of doodling I thought I was done. You could say, I was secure that enough was enough. But the minute the finished photograph was taken I knew that security was never going to work for this string bag of windfall apples. The leaves are not bold enough, the leaves are going on an adventure. The leaves are going bolder. Flakes of gold leaf are going to make the leaves sparkle.
There was never a plan to paint windfall apples in a string bag. I just wanted something to paint in a meditative way while talking at an artists social gathering.
First coloured orbs appeared.
Then the string bag.
The arrival of the string bag somehow turned the orbs into bruised and imperfect apples.
And that should have been that, but the leaves are all wrong so the August gathering of art natterers will see me possibly adventuring too far with this picture. It could go well . It may not.
In my search for creative adventure I could be…
Gilding the Lily.
Saturday pondering, it is often a surprise to me how a blog will end and sometimes even the beginning takes me unawares.
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