#1137 theoldmortuary ponders
I always think first days at anything are similar. Excitement and trepidation in equal measure.
Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.
Second days…
That is quite a different consideration.
14 days to Boxing Day.
I’ve been asked why I am counting down to Boxing Day . Just to be a little different really, and 26 is conveniently the number of letters in the alphabet. So I can have two running themes. A countdown and a letter to hang a ponder on.
In trying to extract maximum enjoyment out of short days I have been greatly helped by the gradual build up of festive lighting and by making sure I get some effective reading time. This gem of writing from Virginia Woolf came my way yesterday.
I think even great prose benefits from some Festive lighting.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day.
M has to be for Music. Traditional, Random, Contemporary, Pogues.
15 days to Boxing Day
I did not expect to create a painting today. I did not expect to go to a biker cafe. I did not expect to be writing this blog at 5pm. But beyond that the day has gone completely to plan. A regular meet up with other Plymouth based arty people for nattering, exhibition planning and festive high points.
Usually, I can easily paint and talk but Santa was not the most unusual man in the cafe. A gentleman approached to talk about my art for about 45 seconds and then talked about himself for the next minutes. Even my absolute dedication to getting paint on paper didn’t stem his flow of self-obsession. I was polite and responded appropriately while avidly painting away.
But my mind was a bit fried by the time he wandered off. Thank goodness for the impromptu arrival of a friend, we escaped to a nearby bikers cafe. No chance of self obsessed artists there.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day . L for learning . Actually the point of our arty gatherings. We sit together and do small tasks but we share tips and techniques. Artists are by inclination and practice solitary creatures. But our regular meetings over the past two and a half years has created such a strong and effective group of solitary beings. Sometimes 25 of us.
And guess what? I was painting with the same colours at our first get together.
My favourite physical activity is sea swimming. I do it year round and the sea temperature today is 12 degrees.
What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?
I do not consider myself a ‘hardened’ sort of person. 12 degrees is about the mid-point of swimming in Plymouth.
The Bobbers, my swimming group have dipped in water at 7.8 but I don’t think the water has ever gone above 16 degrees in the three years we have been swimming regularly. If I were to ask the internet about swimming in 16 degree water the advice would still be that it is not advised. We do just fine doing something many people would recoil from.
16 Days to Boxing Day.
Wintering. There is a plethora of good vibe articles about learning to love short and wintery days. I have never been a fan of West Country winters. I love the crisp cold winters of London, the South Coast and East Anglia. But I have chosen to make my life in Devon and Cornwall, places where the winter is warmer wetter and unrelentingly greige. Wintering positively is something I aspire to. Book reading and twinkling lights are an easy boost.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning I attempted to record my greige reality. Another alleged way of boosting the love for winter.
I can’t say that simply recording these images felt particularly positive. But using my randomly generated AI photo editing made the evening pictures a much more positive experience. For some reason the morning ones remained resolutely dull.
The dusk shot was a revelation of different interpretations.
I am intrigued by the difference between morning and afternoon photographs. It has to do with the position of the sun and which direction I am facing. West is best. I tried to create some interesting images from the morning shot, but it was not to be. The afternoon shot just kept giving fabulous manipulated images. Which certainly inspires me. My wintering, late afternoon walks with the dogs can include some greige photography as long as I face westward. I already feel perkier about the post 4 pm walk.
26 Days to Boxing Day.
K is for Kindness which we should all aspire to particularly during the festive season.
Another K is for Keith, my Dad who was always a kind, generous and open minded man. 30 Christmases without him seems like a mad number.
I often wonder if Keith is one of those names that might get lost in the future. It is a strong Scottish name meaning wood but I cannot image it ever being trendy . I have never known a nasty Keith. They are rare but always lovely in my experience.
17 days to Boxing Day
I am not a habitual list-maker. There is a constant rolling list of lists in my head and there are random notes in a paper diary.
Midway through December the paper diary becomes more and more two diaries, both bulky, that need to be referred to.
A morning of admin both personal and Tennis Club has required the two diaries, my smart phone and my laptop. 4 things ! Plus my brain.
Seasonal lists will start to appear in the 2024 diary in the run up to Christmas. Whilst walking the dogs at lunchtime I will consider which lists need to be transcribed onto paper from my swirling thoughts later this afternoon.
And so on to J on 26 Days to Boxing Day.
I rather like the letter J. It may be the first letter I learned to write as it starts my first name.
Both my children have a J. Jays encourage a flourish. Jays feel like happiness they make me smile. Some lovely words start with a jay.
18 days to Boxing Day.
When less seems like more. If there was a plan for less decorating of our house on a grand scale, this Christmas, you might think the job would be quicker and easier. But that seems not to be the case. I am not sure why . Maybe being selective takes more effort. One side task that required patience was the re-repairing of a wise man who was last repaired in the eighties. Thank goodness for occasionally catching The Repair Shop.
A British T.V show that works miracles on precious items. From idly watching I knew that I needed to remove all old glue and a little shimmy with an emery board. To give the best result for the successful joining of a wise torso to wise legs. The Wise Man is currently at one with himself, his fracture invisibly repaired.
Tomorrow the unusual job of returning unused decorations to the storage box will be done. For an inexplicable reason the sandalwood box that always holds our Christmas Decorations for 11 months of the year also holds the ashes of a long deceased cat. He may wonder what is going on, his fragrant sarcophagus is usually baubleless in December.
And on to I in 26 Days to Boxing Day.
An Inukshuk from Canadian relations. Always part of our Christmas.
19 days to Boxing Day
Our first Christmas themed outing last night to a Choir and Brass Band charity concert. The dark evening and Christmas Lights made the city look both contemporary and historic in the same moment.
Somehow Christmas always seems to open a portal into the past in a way that other celebrations don’t.
Our journey was very much 2024. The local shopping Mall was alight with shop lights and Christmas decorations, but all entrances were cordoned off and there were police cars and fire engines with flashing blue lights. In the moment the area looked like a film set. The shopping Mall was also our destination of choice for parking so some quick thinking was needed. A small backstreet carpark was found and that inconsequential change of plan flipped us back through the centuries in an instant. Instead of walking to the venue on 21st century paving we had to use an old back lane.
And that was the inspiration a couple of years ago for the charcoal sketch of Dublin.
A man takes a pee in a back street. Illuminated by the lights emerging from a pub. It could be an image from anytime in history except the second figure, a cook on his break, is illuminated by his mobile phone.
What is it about Christmas that makes the portal between now and the past just a little easier to see?
And so on to 26 days to Boxing Day with H for History.
Sometimes it is barely hidden.
20 days to Boxing Day.
2 days of storm avoidance. Yesterday was the stormy pre-storm. Loads of wind but no rain to avoid so the walking to coffee ratio was quite high. But a coffee shot makes it into the blog.
Overnight Darragh boomed down our chimneys and whistled through the streets.
This morning still no rain so another walk and another coffee, but Darragh was a mournful screaming demon through the rigging of ships and trees were shedding branches. Winds of 90 miles an hour were recorded not too far away from us. Common sense prevailed and we returned home.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day. G represented by December EnerGy.
December energises me, mostly because I love Christmas but also because I have hosted Christmas for more than 40 years for up to 20 people at times. That does not happen without a good deal of energy and planning. But this year no hosting of significance and yet the energy is still upon me. With the added pleasure of knowing that when Boxing Day arrives I will not be exhausted. My cupboards and storage areas are getting the attention I usually lavish on festive planning and shopping, I walk the dogs for as long as daylight lets me and I am reading more books and painting. The G of December EnerGy is being repurposed fabulously.
21 Days to Boxing Day.
I am so glad my evening dog walk has had a festive tweak because my pondering is a little dull. Earlier this week I went into one of our roof spaces to retrieve some stored Christmas stuff. I also took the opportunity to bring down stored stuff that needed sorting as it had not been looked at or needed for 3 years.
I recently discovered that our house is 35 years older than our fireplace suggests.
The first time it was sold was in 1854 or 57, the handwriting on the deeds is hard to read.
On my occasional visits to the roofspace I am always impressed by how well it was built. But clearing the boxes stowed in the roof since we moved in, revealed something that is really interesting. One of the main supporting timbers of the roof is an old, wooden ships mast. How fabulous is that?
I popped back into the roof yesterday and just had a few moments pondering the journeys that that piece of wood might have made before ending up in a shipyard in Stonehouse and then being used to support the roof of a house.
There is a good bit more pondering to be done on my recent discovery. This was a new home to the Borland family. Two generations of War Office Civil Engineers lived here until just after the Second World War. Their role in the 1860s would doubtless have been the construction of the Palmerston Forts, built to protect Britain from an invasion by France. The invasion never took place.
The Palmerston Forts, constructed to encircle Plymouth and to protect the Royal Dockyard against a landing by the French, were built during the 1860s and 1870s following a Royal Commission set up by the then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (hence the name).
The Commission was prompted by public concern about the growing military and naval power of the French Empire, coupled with the alarm which had been engendered in Britain when Napoleon III (the nephew of the infamous Napoleon Bonaparte) became Emperor of France in 1852. A perception arose that Napoleon III might contemplate an invasion of Britain in order to avenge the defeat and exile of his uncle in 1815.
As a result, the Commission, of 1860, sanctioned the provision of enormous resources for the defence of the principal naval dockyards on the south coast, these being Portsmouth and Plymouth. Many of the Palmerston Forts survive well as Scheduled Monuments (designated as such by Historic England) and are therefore recognised as nationally important and worthy of preservation.
Funny/strange to think of the very significant conversations that would have been held in this house.
Even stranger is that one of the tatty old bits of rust we treasure in our backyard is a big bolt thing that may have come from Palmerston Fort fencing.
And with that cliff hanger I move on to F for 26 Days to Boxing Day.
Fairy/Festive lights.
The two pictures of the Royal William Yard are how the normal evening dog walk looks.
With Fairy or Festive lights everything twinkles.
Here are the same two pictures last night.
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