Month: Sep 2025

#1327 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment
Digitally enhanced

Fantasy Bobbing is the slightly unrealistic thought process that goes through most bobbers minds. This is one of our bobbing areas with just a touch of Disney. September is the cusp month of sea temperatures, they start to drop around now.

Another fantasy is tide times. There are a core of bobbers who like to swim between ten and eleven on aFriday morning.

We swim as near as possible to high tide.  Over excitement from the Friday bobbers declared high tide at ten today ( the opposite was true). So bobbing was replaced by breakfasting and great quality nattering.

High tide was at 4pm only two of  us bobbed. It was somewhat chilly.

We bobbed between the first paragraph and the one you have just read. Today is not the cusp, that moment has officially passed.  The sea temperature has actually dropped .

Last week I bobbed about in a beautiful balmy sea not really wishing to get out. Today we bobbed about but knew that it would be sensible to get out. 

The difference? Maybe 2 degrees. The temperature is 15.4 degrees today. An early start for our winter hardening. The irony is that in May, when the water hits 15.4, we bob about, joyously frolicking in what, after a long cold winter and Spring feels like swimming somewhere tropical.

But today it was a wooly hat kind of moment.

Cold digits and all other parts.

#1326 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn autumnLeave a comment

This photograph popped up on my TimeHop. The image was a harvested, still-life set up, from a Watercolour class I belonged to a while ago.

It reflects a fruitful and dry autumn harvest. Not something I am experiencing this year.

Yesterday was, as usual, a two x two dog walk day also one non-dog walk. The simple maths of that situation was 3 walks=3 outfits. No gentle meandering, gathering fruits and nuts. Just head down and hope for the best. The best in this instance is only having to change one or two garments per walk depending where the rain has penetrated. Harvesting this week will be firmly supermarket based.

As an aside the watercolour, which never sold, is by our front door.

#1325 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Gardens and gardening, YardeningLeave a comment

I realise I have never shared this beautiful passion flower making its way up an external staircase.

No particular reason to share it today. It has been a very rainy day and it is exactly a month since I took this photograph. In that month our weather has downgraded considerably. Passion flower plants are clinging on for dear life in the wind and the rain. A month ago this passion flower was at risk of being scorched on a hot metal staircase.

My own passion flower who was an early bloomer avoided the really hot weather of our summer by appearing and fading in June. Yesterday I unfurled its tiny, curling, climbing tendrils and put it on a path of my choosing rather than the harum scarum route it had decided to take on my washing line.

Actually all the climbing plants were redirected  to my aesthetic desires rather than their own urges yesterday. Roses were pruned.  Growth and direction for 2026 was the name of my yardening passion in a couple of  rare dry hours this week.

Gardening however has taken a real back seat this week. Gardening is done at a tennis club not far from home . But Weeding Wednesday was redesignated No Weed Wednesday to allow the gardeners to celebrate a significant birthday, 60 times around the sun of our gardening guru. 20 people gathered for crisps, cake and conversation. The weeds can grow for another week or maybe longer if this wet weather persists. No Weed Wednesday could become an Autumn/ Winter passion

#1324 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

My epic fail occurred one Christmas when I was batch cooking sausage rolls. Enough to feed a substantial quantity of festive guests. I had a large range style cooker and every shelf was filled with unctuous sausage meat enrobed with the best flaky pastry that supermarkets could sell. 30 mins cooking time was the perfect timing to pop to a neighbour for a tiny Seasonal drink. Unfortunately, the neighbours didn’t do tiny and I didn’t do portion control or observe my 30-minute time slot. An hour passed in a twinkling and I was full of festive spirit ( gin). Once home I was in no rush to rescue my baked goods.  They were already past anyone’s judgment of edible. When the oven cooled down I swept them into a carrier bag to feed the birds in a local park after Christmas Day. Off to the park I went with a gaggle of over sugared children. I handed over the bag of sausage rolls and paid little attention to  the bird feeding, just taking some mental breathing space. Somewhat irresponsibly I had weaponised children and was not paying attention. Each tiny bite-sized sausage roll was a rock in the hands of small children. Birds scattered, fearful of their feathered lives. Other parents and park visitors judged me as I realised that for the second time in 48 hours I had failed to adequately assess the sausage roll situation.

Nobody remembers that I did clear up the mess, no birds were actually harmed and that everyone had a fabulous hour or so in the park.

Every Christmas when a sausage roll passes the lips of any child or adult who has knowledge of that day. Somebody pipes up with the legend of me killing birds in a local park at Christmas time with over cooked sausage rolls because I had drunk too much gin.

All other years my sausage rolls have been fabulous. Nobody ever mentions that.

#1323 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

What are your favorite types of foods?

My poor sense of taste and smell, post-COVID, means that my lifetime favourite foods have changed. Seasoning, unusual flavour pairings, and texture are the things that bring mealtime pleasure on the days when I cant really taste very much and the food world resembles soggy cardboard. This question was timely today as I popped into Marks and Spencer to buy a new madcap product.

Who knows what gustatory delight Caramel Sauce with Marmite will bring? The Original Salt and Pepper Seasoning would certainly have been beneficial to the chips in the top picture. They were the epitome of cardboard

#1322 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Serendipity1 Comment
Do pictures Lie?

Of course they do.

We did a  regular dog walk around Sutton Harbour and The Barbican yesterday. A one hour dog walk, with time for sniffs etc

Both are hugely busy harbours with a constantly changing cast of seafarers and tourists on any day of the year. This weekend is a massive Sea Festival and everywhere is heaving with people having a good day out.

Live music fills every corner and spills across the harbours at high tide. Merging and blending. Drunken choruses of Robbie Williams tracks, merging with the rhythms of sea shanties and Church bells.. Hen parties with high heels on cobbles and men observing, holding pints and opinions that are not worth repeating.

These harbours have been bustling hubs for centuries and I would say these photos , taken in the midst of the happy hubbub could have been taken any time in the last 700 years. Dogs would have pee’d on the lobster pots as Hugo did. People would have been reflected in puddles. People would have made tracks.

 

Birds would have swooped over water.

So these calm pictures do lie, because they were tiny calm and unlikely moments, taken in the midst of happy people, crowded together intent on having a good time.But by excluding nearly all human detail, they are timeless.

#1321 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment
©theoldmortuary

Time for hands on creativity has been a bit short recently for good reasons and some tedious ones. I keep my creative head ticking over by doing digital art and reading about arty stuff that interests me. Visiting exhibitions too. Always a sure-fire way to get me back on the creative mojo. September also, always feels far more like a fresh start than the turgid dampness of January. I’ve been thinking about how to recycle or repurpose unsold artwork. Collage is a big thought. Not just from my own work but from some of the high quality tourist/ lifestyle magazines that can be picked up in arty places.

The picture above was not a conscious effort of creativity. I just packed up a scalpel and some old colour sketches of my local streets and went to meet fellow artists at a coffee/ cake/ and create session. I didn’t know what I planned to do but I had given the matter some thought.

Then 24 hours later I read this fascinating article. If you have the time please read it. It is not the article that made me ponder but the image that prefaced it.

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/sep/10/creativity-unconscious-process-incubation?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is it just me or does it seem hugely insulting to illustrate an article about creativity with an illustration that just shows men?

When I should have been reading and inwardly digesting something that really interests me. I just want to punch the smug white male and his white, white coated cranium sub – conscious allies. Maybe punching is too gentle. After all, I have a scalpel and I know how to use it. I note however that when the white coats did the craniotomy all they found was an empty void.

Whoever thought this picture was a good illustration for a great article should have given the matter more thought. Maybe slept on it or gone for a refreshing walk…

Blogging rant over.

theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn to the Valley, Serendipity1 Comment

Drawn to the Valley ( Plymouth) came to the end of an era in August. For three years after the Covid restrictions Drawn to the Valley met once a month for their Creative Table event at Ocean Studios.

Members from all over the Tamar Valley met to create together, share information, and plan exhibitions.

The exhibitions were fabulous.

And the Private View parties were full of happy artists and their friends

So What Next?

For Ocean Studios, developers will be creating new homes. A beautiful artistic space, gone.

For Plymouth Drawn to the Valley, we have a new location.

Devonport Market Hall is our new location for our monthly meet ups.

Creative Table will be held at Devonport Market Hall. 10-12 every second Thursday of the Month in the Cafe at the Market Hall. All DTTV artists and makers are welcome as are non-member friends.

Next Meeting.

Thursday 9th October 10-12 in the Cafe.

#1320 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, autumn, SerendipityLeave a comment

Friday already and a fabulous bouncy bob at high tide.

Nothing starts the day better than a challenging swim in a very well-understood and respected bay.

There is a turn in the weather so on our return I decided to do some autumn chores in the yard. I was energised for action by the splash and bounce of the sea.

Before loading the garage with summer paraphernalia I collected a stored portrait. A friend and I plan to have a good old natter about the experience of having our portraits painted. My two were painted 10 years apart and I have never before viewed them together.

© Steve Fuller.
© Peter Orrick

I had no idea they had both chosen almost identical colour palates.

Seeing them together and again is a curious feeling.

If I posed now the hair would be grey, the black garment would be a swimming costume and the deep jewel red would be a towel or robe. Cold water swimming is my superpower, I wish those younger women had done it because it really gets me through the tough days. And those two younger versions of me had some really tough days.

#1319 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

This painting has never sold. The other circle project ones went on their way to new homes and this one went into the garage. Maybe the title didn’t work.

Sweat.

Maybe a hard sell but it reflected the many feelings that being sweaty can create. I looked at it yesterday in its plastic shroud, pondering on its future. Then this morning it appeared on my Facebook feed as a memory of  7 years ago.

Time to unwrap and rebrand.

I might slip into autumn unwillingly  but these transitional days are full of getting back to routines or establishing new ones, after the languorous days of a well-spent summer.

I have an urge to turn this picture into an image of a bursting pomegranite.

Pomegranites are one of my favourite fruits.

My own photo archive holds some lovely pomegranite images.

Time to get my sketch book out.

Pomegranates bursting in Greece last year.