Month: Nov 2024

#1104 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Hardly had the ink dried on :-https://theoldmortuary.design/2024/11/12/1103-theoldmortuary-ponders/

Where I bemoaned the anticyclonic gloom. Moments later the anticyclonic gloom lifted, revealing the most perfect autumn day. Bright blue sky, sunshine and a temperature 5 degrees cooler than yesterday. We filled all the daylight hours with gadding about in the South Hams.

An unplanned trip to an unusual War Memorial at Slapton Sands.

The history of this unique memorial is below.

https://www.submerged.co.uk/slapton/

The weather was fabulous. Hugo had his first off-the-lead run in 2 weeks and was giddy with dogged excitement.

And we watched the sea and the sky mimic each other

While a brave man took to the waves on his kite surfer.

The end of a perfect day out. Tomorrow’s blog will bring the colour of our morning.

#1103 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings3 Comments

These two sentences sum me up exactly, my face is the antithesis of ‘Poker Face’.

My moral compass has been a busy old thing these last few days on a scale of this:-

Versus the more manageable and mental, pocket sized version, that one should always carry.

I have been lost in thought and at times my face has given that fact away. No more, the path through my personal moral maze has been cleared until the next time. Which makes for rather a short blog so moving on may I introduce Gorgeous Garlic.

We are in the midst of a rather strange autumn. Warm temperatures and high level greige, or anticyclonic gloom as weather people describe the situation.

Everything in the yard continues to grow and in some cases bloom.

In the kitchen three Garlic bulbs thought they would get in on the growing action. I attempted to chop one but the texture had changed. He went in the bin,but what to do with his two friends. As always Dr. Google has a plan. I popped them in milk bottles and they are growing roots, ready to be planted when the weather does actually get chillier.

Rather like a lamb that escapes the slaughter house they have won a reprieve. Not for them the unctuous warmth and comfort of an autumn casserole. These guys will live another whole growing season. Although rather like the odd escaping slaughter house lamb these two have become rather like pets, will they ever go for the chop.

#1102 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Plymouth Sound, SerendipityLeave a comment

11.11.24 Armistice Day.

After all the music, marching and speeches of Remembrance Sunday. We took a quiet morning walk at the Plymouth War Memorials. No crowds and some lovely family flowers just quietly laid among all the vivid redness of the more iconic Poppies.

One statue returned to being the favourite perching place of seaward looking seagulls.

Lets see what the shape of the world will be like in a year’s time. We may well remember but we don’t learn. It’s all a bit shit really.

#1101 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Plymouth Sound1 Comment
Sutton Harbour

Our dusk/ dark walks are taking us away from our home streets at the moment. Last night we did a circuit of Sutton Harbour and the Barbican. Just an hour’s walk on the eve of Remembrance Day.

All the bustle of bars opening and cafes and shops closing reflected on still waters.

The Barbican has set its normal illuminations to Red for Remembrance.

Remembrance Day in Britain feels like the last full stop before the run up to Christmas. The beginning of noticeably shortening days, colder weather and rampant consumerism.

At home we are still in a flurry of redecoration and reorganisation.  Every trip to a charity shop or scrap store feels like a minor victory against ‘stuff’. I am having to channel my creative energies into tidying and sorting, ignoring the itch to put paint on paper or canvas.

But today our busy domestic schedule will stop for a while to observe and consider the costs of war to the community we currently live in.

#1100 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

In the mid seventies I occasionally took a trip from sleepy North East Essex to Dewsbury in West Yorkshire to experience Northern Soul in the North. A friend’s dad, who was from Dewsbury,  would drive us up after his work and our school on a Friday ( 3 hours drive) drop us off at a club, go and visit his mum and then drive us back some hours later in time for our Saturday jobs. It all felt other worldly and exciting. We were extremely fortunate that 70’s Disco was very available to us locally and 60 miles away in London. Northern Soul in the North felt edgy and niche to us.

50 years later I mentioned this to a friend from Yorkshire, who had not experienced Northern Soul, even though it was on her doorstep. Her family probably were aware of the reputation of some of these clubs . Also she was 9 when I was 15  We ‘Essex Girls’ were blissfully unaware, it was just fab music, great dancing and men with exotic accents. Definition of an Essex Girl below. We did not conform to the stereotype in Yorkshire or at home.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_girl

Since then the four of us ( 1 Essex, 1 Hong Kong, 1 Oxford and 1 Yorkshire) living in the far South West have all become a little hooked on watching Northern Soul Dancing on Youtube.

Then inexplicably we found a Northern Soul Club night in Plymouth.

There are a couple of links below to show how Northern Soul should be done and what it is.  And that perhaps is the best place to stop this blog. It is harder than you think and older knees, not so forgiving.But there were older knees than ours  there, giving it their best effort.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_soul

#1099 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and Lola1 Comment

10 years ago this was Hugo posing as a louche kind of barfly, making his dog chew look like a gangster smoking at a bar.

Here he is 10 years later posing straight after a trip to the groomers who cleaned him up after his street brawl and consequent facial surgery of last week.

A different sort of barfly this time, the sort that might explain away his lop sided face by a tale of street fighting.

Same sofa, same dog, 10 years of doggy experiences.  Percentage wise, most of his life is spent on this sofa gently dozing, often with a favourite human. His dreams are far more vivid than his real life. Just the one bit of drama, last week, and as you can see he has put that behind him now.  Unless of course you ever happen to meet him at a bar …

#1098 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Words1 Comment

What was your favorite subject in school?

English was my favourite subject by a long way. I went to a very normal State school with an excellent English department. The staff there encouraged my natural love of creativity and communication using language.

In this week of a puzzling, to many, decision by nearly 51% of the American electorate to give Donald Trump a second crack at being U.S President, I was sent a copy of a letter by an old school friend. He is equally obsessed by English. Below is his letter to The Age, an Australian Newspaper.

To: letters@theage.com.au

In the Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit, (1843), one of the characters asks,: “f I was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?” His companion replies,” Paint it like an eagle, I  suppose.”

“No that wouldn’t do for me. I should want to draw it like a bat for its short-sightedness,, like a bantam for its bragging, like an ostrich  for its putting its head in the mud. And like a phoenix for its power  of springing anew from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up into the sky.”

While the American electorate were acting like bats and ostriches, Donald Trump somehow managed to transform himself from a bantam into a phoenix. Except as everyone but the American people know, the phoenix isn’t real it’s a myth. Meanwhile the American Eagle’s future is more uncertain than ever.

David Pullen

Martin Chuzzlewitt, fictional character created by Charles Dickens could have made  this observation yesterday. From abroad it feels like a cousin ( The U.S) has entered into a relationship that outsiders can see is not healthy.

#1097 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity2 Comments

I had read an enormous amount of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle before I was twenty.My book club has directed me, this month, to read the first novel to feature Sherlock Holmes. I am loving it, particularly because the life I have lived beyond twenty has exposed me to many of  Conan Doyles real life locations. Where his fictitious detective operated.  I used to regularly catch my bus home from work opposite 221B Baker Street and a different bus home took me on the Brixton Road. The first crime scene where Homes and Watson work together. When I was training at Barts Hospital I was familiar with the laboratories where Holmes and Watson first met in A Study in Scarlet. Wimpole and Harley Street were neighbouring streets to my workplace in Westmoreland Street. Holmes and Watson are frequently in these streets.

So I find myself in a strange place reading a book where, once upon a time, I was free to build my own imaginary locations as a twenty year old with little life experience. Re-reading it I have none of that freedom but with that understood I find the reading of the novel even richer in detail than I did before. Places I love are brought back to life, 150 years before I ever knew them.

In another curious coincidence I currently live very very close to the location of Arthur Conan Doyles G.P practice in Durnford Street in 1882. I know where the actual Baskervilles are buried. They were Conan Doyles patients, he used their name. Who knows if they even had a hound. My house was being built while he worked here. Funny to think that our quirky old lady was just a building site or ‘ New Build Home’ when Conan Doyle was wandering these streets.

Without a Book Club I doubt I would have re-entered the world of Sherlock Holmes, I am finding the experience rather interesting.

#1096 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Colour, Serendipity2 Comments

Winter Green.

When we decided to replan and redecorate the room I use as a studio we knew exactly the colour we wanted for the chimney breast. The green of our local harbours in the winter.

Colour chart investigating led us to Hesper.

The name intrigued me and a little googling took me not to the sea but to a Mexican Palm Tree.

Now I am wondering if I could grow a Blue Hesper Palm in the yard. More googling, perhaps not.

But for now we have a Hesper chimney breast.

Colours are fascinating.

#1095 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ponderingLeave a comment

Monday fakery, this picture did not make it into the autumn leaf blog yesterday. My  Google Pixel phone generated it from one of my photos in the ‘stylised’ setting in picture editing. Stylised uses my favourite settings and gives me a picture I might create for myself. Mostly the image is an epic fail, in my opinion, but sometimes the result is gloriously accurate, as it has been for this picture.

  If I suffered from ‘Monday Morning Malaise’ this is a picture that could encourage me to ‘ get a wiggle on’.

My long term career was a seven day a week job so Mondays were not quite as significant to me, but commuting into work in London using public transport it was easy to feel that ‘Monday’ feeling emanating, if not dripping from my fellow commuters. And from the 9-5ers who arrived at 9 on a Monday and worked alongside those of us who worked shifts and On-Call rotas. I was also spared the ‘Sunday Night Dread’. Although the ‘on-call’ dread was very real any day of the week.

Now, I live a self-directed week; my Monday mornings are a little more significant than they have ever been. Monday morning is like unpacking an Amazon parcel. I don’t quite remember what is planned this week. (I can never remember what I ordered) My first job is to check my diary and I am good to go. This picture rather joyfully sums up the optimism of most of my Mondays. I realise I am lucky.