Monday’s blogs are either early or late. Not because I am sleeping on the job like this sloth. Mondays we do childcare and choose not to be on our phones when she is around. So a blog is written early or late.
This is the late variety while our small person sleeps. I love this picture from a friend’s recent holiday in Costa Rica.
I am very fond of sloths and envious of their lifestyle under normal circumstances.
But dozing like a sloth in a tree and proper pondering is not for me today.
Sunday morning and a gift of church bells, should you choose to watch the video above.
Today’s ponder was seeded in my head by the smallest of coincidences. Saturday found us on a back street walk at Ashburton, a market town on the edge of Dartmoor. We were pulled in the direction of the church by the bells ringing. On the way I caught sight of this blue plaque.
When we arrived in the churchyard we saw a small crowd of beautifully dressed wedding guests having a cheeky last minute smoke before going into the church.
Something Sir Walter, despite being entirely responsible, would never have seen during his stay in Ashburton. Smoking tobacco was only an upper class habit in England until the late 19th century and did not become commonly used by all of society until the end of the Industrial Revolution.
And with a delicious coincidence, there is a mural of Sir Walter actually pondering, overlooking the pub where he spent his last night of freedom. Before being locked up for twelve years in the Tower of London.
His ponders must have been far more consequential than mine ever are.
Not pissing off James 1st might have been a good thing to ponder. And after 12 years in jail and 3 years of freedom, not pissing off James 1st a second time would have been a prudent ponder in my humble opinion.
Picture yourself in a boat on an Ocean.
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
My apologies to The Beatles for lyric altering.
Mid-February and a Friday Bob brings the gift of Marmalade.
Gill’s marmalade is fabulous and we have been given a pot, or two every year since Covid lockdowns.
A chilly bob warmed up by the thought of marmalade and butter on hot toast.
And for me the challenge of creating a marmalade sky to accompany this blog.
You can just about see the tangerine trees on the end of the island.
Here is Gill the Marmalade Goddess and Lola as you have never seen her before; as a doggy hot water bottle for intrepid February Bobbers.
Let’s get the weekend started.
I picked up this postcard at The Archaeology Museum (Acropolis) of Athens in early autumn.
I’ve added the heart because it has become a favourite image. A girl standing with her dad.
I am fairly certain I don’t have a similar image of myself with my dad. Not for any estrangement or complex family dynamics, but because in our family my dad was the photographer and therefore never in pictures.
This is an almost unimaginable concept in a world where smartphones allow everyone to be a photographer.
In our spare room there is a big blue Ikea bag of family albums to be gone through before I put them back up in the roof. I can’t say I hold out much hope of finding a father-daughter picture of us together until I was in my teens.
In pondering and googling this thought I found a really interesting article which I have shared below.
And just like that I have found a long form blog about artiness that I really enjoy. I like New World art writing for the same reason that New World wines are so interesting. No snobbishness, less entitled twattery.
Pondering and googling and a day walking in the sun.
It makes me think and that is always a good thing.
I have been pondering my digital footprint and to a degree my ultimate digital ghost. Mostly because of articles that I have read or heard in the media. To be honest I am quite baffled by the thinking. The blog is probably the deliberate ,majority of my footprint and ghost, but what do I know. What is done is probably done. Nature put my thoughts into perspective a little.
My digital and real-life shadow appears on the surprisingly small root system of a fallen oak tree. Discovered this morning on a dog walk. Maybe 300 years old, this tree was taken down by a recent storm. The old tree left a surprisingly shallow footprint.
Like me the tree has children.
So close their roots probably touched.
Do trees grieve a brutal loss in a storm? Do they have ghosts or worry about their footprint, real or digital.
Funny things to ponder on a lovely day in February. I sense my digital footprint is actually quite shallow. So no need to overthink things on a sunny day.
I have no intention of creating a similar one , my girth and corresponding contemporary facts will forever remain a mystery. Or maybe it would be fun to try.
I’ve finally cracked a small achievement in my creative wishlist for the winter. A bandstand in winter can be a forlorn thing. Useful only to shelter people and dogs from the rain. But bandstands in themselves are quite heart-warming things. Memories are made in and around bandstands. Music is the obvious #1. But they are so much more. A meeting point for friends and lovers. A hang-out for teenagers grappling with hormones and impending adulthood. Parents with buggies trying to form useful, supportive friendships with strangers ; who just happened to conceive a child at a similar time. Somewhere to think about friends and family in other realms.
Essential to me, in this image, is the ever present rain and the complete banishment of greige. Even though that was my reality.
Yesterday was a fabulous February weather day. Fabulous because the sun was up and greige was banished. I was on a mission to take a bad photograph for my ongoing dabbling at image-manipulating. The day itself was full of other stuff. Shopping, child care and book club. So my moments of image manipulation were snatched in the rare quiet moments of the day. Time poor is sometimes a good thing. At the early stages I am. happy with my multilayered image.
Not quite sure that I am where I want to be image wise. But sometimes the enemy of good is better. and multi -layered is the tenuous link for this blog.
I woke myself up this morning to get out of a multi-layered dream. Certain that I did not want to be where my subconscious had dumped me.
Like many people Airbnb is in my travel portfolio.
For reasons unknown my early morning dream had me checking into an Airbnb late at night above a coffee shop. I awoke in the dream ( Probably when the first real life alarm went off) to find my bed in the midst of the coffee shop with people stepping around my bed with coffee and breakfast items. Seemingly oblivious or being discrete about having to step around my bed. It was definitely a contemporary 2025 coffee shop but the disturbing thing for me was not that I was in bed, but that many of the customers were smoking indoors and there was an unmistakable smoke fug filling the room. Just as used to happen before indoor smoking in public places was banned. I quickly woke myself up.
In my waking life I have never given such a thing a moment’s thought. Where and why on earth do our brains write such bonkers scripts.
I wonder if my creative thinking is all about layers so my dream world is being a bit layered and book club was about parallel lives.
Who could begin to guess.
A greige Sunday with two colourless dog walks at either end of the day. But our evening walk was brightened by still water between the current fish market looking over to the old location which is now a thriving area of bars and nightclubs.
This is one of our favourite circular walks around all the commercial harbours. Almost never in the dark but there are plenty of lights and it is a safe enough area.
Here is another still water shot from November.
Clearly I love still water and colour beats greige any day.
Being taken by surprise by February 1st gave us a curious Saturday morning of shuffling things around. The afternoon was rather greige so we set off to a favourite town. We arrived a bit late to visit the castle but by walking there we were propelled towards the back streets which I have not explored for more than 20 years when I worked here. The main streets were bustling with the tail end of a busy Saturday market.
Rusty women became a little bit of a theme.
Our theme was just to enjoy walking the back streets looking at many centuries worth of lovely cottages on interlinked lanes and passages that spread like cobwebs from the Castle.
The castle dominates the town from its prominent hill as it was designed to do.
All our wandering was at dog pace. The peemails left by centuries of dogs always fascinate them in historic urban areas. But they are small dogs and we had been doing walking jobs with them all morning. The cafes in the High Street were calling the dogs but were all still buzzing at 4:00 or buzzed and already closed. But in a back street, we found this glorious turquoise paradise. Busy but not too busy.
We were on 10,000 human steps. Goodness knows how many dog steps. This cafe was one that Lola was not prepared to pass the door of. So happy was she to sit down and share a cheese scone that she agreed to a photogenic photograph.
In other news a small bunny came home with us
When I wrote yesterday’s blog I had no idea it was the last one of January. Somehow I missed the anticipation of the end of the longest month.
Which is a sign, I suppose, that taking a more positive attitude to Winter is having some effect.
On a positive note we are 2/3 done with the official winter months.
I know I am not alone with my slightly dismal attitude. People wouldn’t write books and articles about positive winter attitudes if winter was all ticketty boo for the majority.
A SouthWest English winter does not look like this.
What can I say about switching my mindset from endurance to tolerance?
Seasons are a bit like work colleagues or club members or any other group of humans. There is always one that has to be tolerated, made allowances for and most importantly celebrated when they leave.
So good morning February let’s get this winter malarkey over with.
I may even sign your leaving card with a cheery message wishing you well with your future in the Southern Hemisphere. I will watch and make sure you leave.
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