Author: theoldmortuary.design

theoldmortuary has been a blog for about five years. It has evolved into an almost daily event. Pondering on the things that are inspired by my daily life. Often mundane, sometimes repetitive I swerve from hyperlocal activity to big and small thoughts without blinking an eye. I am an artist and writer. My hometown is Plymouth in South West England, part of me will always be connected to London and another part loves to travel.

#1389 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment
Central Park

This photo landed in my lap yesterday. It was a freezing cold day and cloudless, until it wasn’t. Out of nowhere, two black labradors, brushed past me, off their leads and owners nowhere to be seen. In that moment the clouds gathered around the sun and all colour drained from the scene.  Smaller dogs and their owners scattered, alarmed and protective. Moments later the dogs were gone and the bright day was back. As if the two things were linked.

And as if I had imagined the whole thing. Spooky things don’t generally happen in broad daylight. Digitally I popped a full moon behind the trees. It creates a haunting image much more in keeping with the sensation of the day.

Is an ownerless dog as other worldly than a riderless horse?

The dogs were like creatures from another realm. Fast and fleeting.  Bearing down on me, lLola and other wary smaller dogs. Black Labs overbearing one minute and gone the next.

Their owners insouciance irritating. Their languid body language, indifferent to the unfolding chaos. 

When the sun came out again the men and their dogs were nowhere to be seen. As if the clouds, men and dogs had been a wrinkle in reality, ghost dogs and their masters from a different realm.

Just as I reread this blog before posting I noticed the silhouette of a ghost dog on his hind legs in the first picture. I knew there was something strange going on!

#1388 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history, Holidays, Serendipity, TravelsLeave a comment
7th December 2025, 22 degrees. Mount Eliza

Yesterday was a day of really bright sunlight and  a temperature of about 2 degrees Centigrade.

It was a day of dog walking, admin and another painting of Coogee Beach, more sunshine.

Coogee Beach, 27 degrees.

Beyond my day’s domestic plans, there was also some Tennis Club admin that needed to be done with a friend.

Beyond Tennis chat, we talked about Christmas, Grief, an erotic novel, kitchen plans, and our holidays. Mine in the past and hers upcoming. She is heading to Bergen and beyond in Norway. She is expecting to experience sunshine and temperatures of about -30.

The whole conversation blew my mind a little bit. Mostly because travel blows my mind a lot. The ease with which we discuss such things as women in the 21st Century is a delight unknown to most women in the past.

The kitchen that we sat in, nattering away, was built about 175 years ago. A home suitable for professional men and their families . The men would have worked either in a nearby Military base or Dockyard or been involved in the Maritime or Fishing industries. Plymouth was linked to London by train in 1848, making Plymouth an International Travel hub.  Travel would not have been an unfamiliar subject even when my kitchen was new.

Travel would have been much more complex. Timescales would be significantly different. Climate adjustment slower and riskier

Sailing to Australia would have taken three to four months, one way. Sailing to Bergen took about two weeks.

Luggage of only 23 kg is more than adequate for either of us to have the right clothing for hugely different climates.

I cannot imagine how much luggage we would have needed to make such journeys 150 years ago. English women of all classes were wearing Bustles.

Just one dress would weigh more than 23kg!

Very few women travelled for pleasure or exploration in 1850. For the most part British women were shipped around the world to service the sexual and dynastic needs of British men abroad who were busy doing British things like Colonisation.

British men being the powerful people. Taking political, economic, and cultural control over other territories and populations. Exploiting resources, labour, people and land for the benefit of Britain.

How lucky are we in 2026 to be able to travel quickly to anywhere in the world and to any temperature with just 23k of luggage. Know with almost 100% certainty that we will return, to natter, at the kitchen table after our travels. Safe in the knowledge that travel will expand our minds and not require us to search for a husband or create children.

Big changes at the kitchen table.

#1387 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Anecdotes, Serendipity1 Comment

My car is iced up. There is frost on the grass . One month ago this was my reality. If the day was not, in itself, hot enough the hot colours of two of these beach huts raises the temperature a little more. ( I am not so sure about the lilac one/)

Just looking at this makes me feel instantly warmer.

Being in hot places in the run up to Christmas presented some delicious conundrums. Images of snow where it could never possibly fall and images of roaring fires in a home that requires near-constant air conditioning.

Returning home to the Northern Hemisphere just on the cusp of Peak Christmas has given me a very casual approach to post-Christmas. Can I be bothered with denuding my house of the festive gaiety I only finished putting up on Christmas Eve.

12th night purists, or Boxing Day, early tree strippers will look on in horror as twinkling lights continue to twinkle in our house well into January.

Christmas is a delightfully social time,  there have been several holiday anecdotes to share over a mulled cider and mince pie.

Naked swimming with a StingRay went down well with a Canapé.

Not only the actual and accidental naked swimming with a Sting Ray but also the Origin Story of my small habit of swimming naked on occasions. Just Because.

When I was 17/18/19 and on the cusp of leaving home for college in London, a new hotel was built in Brentwood, Essex that featured an outdoor swimming pool. It had the gloss and pzazz of California and the weather of Essex. People posed around it in long dresses and Dinner suits. The hotel was very popular with Ford executives from nearby Dagenham for parties and dalliances. I had a friend who was regularly booked to DJ at corporate events there. Brentwood was between London home and home home. So if he was doing a gig there I could catch up with him from either direction as an assistant who enjoyed a free to me party for dancing, I also lugged numerous boxes of vinyl as my part of the bargain. Dancing and lugging vinyl was hot work, even in December. Why not have a quick swim in a barely used pool before catching the last train home in whichever direction I was travelling. Long before security cameras I doubt anyone ever knew.

I pretty much gave up naked swimming in my responsible years but since becoming a year round sea swimmer the occasional urge to be at one with cold water and nature in just my skin comes upon me.

Nothing untoward has ever happened until my StingRay moment last month.

I had positioned a large swim towel for fairly instant modesty. A towel which I completely ignored once I realised I was  at one with nature that could quite possibly do me harm.

I scampered up this boardwalk butt naked with one name ringing in my mind. Steve Irwin.

A complete over-reaction I am sure, but my early years in the cold water of Brentwood, Essex had only prepared me for grumpy hotel staff. Not creatures with stinging, life harming bits.

#1386 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Winter1 Comment
A glorious morning in Stonehouse

Our Morning Glory reusable coffee cups from Morning Glory Cafe on Coogee Beach.

Holidays and Christmas firmly behind us, the first Monday in January finds us with a list of chores and jobs all made a lot more tolerable by beautiful sunshine.

The sun even penetrated the car cleaning chore.

Our reusable coffee cups are useful and a great reminder of our first breakfast in Australia.

Morning Glory Cafe | Great coffee, great food, great service https://share.google/3HmDgRHaONki19kWJ

I will take a cold West Country winter with bright sunlight any day but a warm early summer in Sydney in December certainly has made it much more tolerable. I feel like I have had a power pack inserted, I really hope it lasts until at least the end of March.

#1385 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Australia1 Comment

Sunday Sunshine from Sublime Point 4th Dec 2025.

Sublime point is on the Illawarra Escarpment. Overlooking the Blue Mountains and a small section of the coast of New South Wales.

The views are breathtaking and awe inspiring.

But my inner word nerd was just as thrilled with the word ‘sublime’ being in general usage.

I love the words sublime, subliminal and sublimate. Liminal also is pretty gorgeous.

They are like triplet children whose characters and behaviours are significantly different despite having the same parents

The family name would be the latin word Limen, meaning threshold.

The only time I was an ‘A’ grade student in Chemistry was when  I knew in an instant what Sublimation was. Not because I loved chemistry at all, but because  I really loved to dance in clubs and pubs and the highlight of the night was when the Dry Ice was used.

I have always been a little shy of using the word sublime in general conversation . I wonder if it is a class thing…

Maybe now I have actually visited a sublime place I should be a little braver.

Making a point sulimely at Sublime Point. N.S.W

3 words, roots in the same place, and yet completely different.

#1384 theoldmortuaryponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life, Serendipity1 Comment
Sunrise over the pool at Coogee Beach

About 18 months ago  Google offered me the chance to have AI assistance with writing my blog. It was a brief research piece for Google

” Replicating your own unique voice”

I suppose I tried it for about a week, the results were dreadful, they never saw the light of day, and if my voice were unique in their AI way there would be no regular readers.

In art and photography there is a place for AI and digital skills. I use both for image manipulation but then I use tried and trusted analogue skills to replicate my own unique style.

I suppose the previous paragraph was written to reassure myself and all my loyal blog readers that I am not a flat earth dinosaur, AI luddite. But oh how I love the analogue skills I learnt in regular photography dark rooms and medical imaging dark rooms and the print rooms of art colleges. The joy of just writing down my whimsical ponderings is also a much loved skill. I know my haphazard punctuation and grammar slippages can be infuriating. I am analogue through and through wearing a voluminous cape of digital skills.

My two images for this blog are sunrise at Coogee near Sydney and Sunset at Portwrinkle in Cornwall. One month apart.

I asked AI what the connection was between the two and was rather charmed by the answers.

I suppose my connection was somewhat conceptual. I particularly love sunset because just over the horizon somewhere else is getting a sunrise. Conversely sunrise makes me a little guilty almost responsible for stealing someone else’s sun.

AI would never be able to replicate that convoluted  thought process.

The conundrum of giving and receiving. One is more virtuous. I strive to be virtuous. But also love gifts. The joy of a paper wrapped surprise is a life affirming activity!

#1383 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FamilyLeave a comment
Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Opera House is just visible

This monotone image was my first sight of Sydney Harbour Bridge at about 6 am. I love it when nature dials down colour to monotone. Time is suspended and real life is presented, as if in a black and white film.

One month on I realise that this could not have been a more fitting first moment.

When I was 10 my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin migrated to Australia. There were complex reasons for this. It was my first experience of heartbreak not caused by death, but by distance-created absence. We had been an extremely tight familial group. Two sisters, their husbands and two girls, both only children. My cousin was severely handicapped and this was the reason the family sought a new life in Australia.

My uncle, who was a nursery man and landscape gardener,was employed to be a plantsman and landscape gardener for the Sydney Opera House Project and nearby botanic gardens.

Apart from occasional ‘bluey’ air mail letters our only contact was ardent following of news coverage of one of the great building projects of its time. All in black and white.

Which is why this image delights me.

Hello old friend. You look just the same as in 1960’s news broadcasts and papers.

Of course I promised you, theoldmortuary blog readers sunshine throughout January.

Two days later.

Funny to think that my uncle would have watched this building being built whilst leaning on a shovel or at the wheel of earth moving equipment. As was often the case in the sixties he did a really manual job while wearing country gentleman clothing. Brogue shoes, tailored trousers, a shirt and tie and a ‘Sports’ jacket with a fine knit Fair-Isle jumper.

Our story | Sydney Opera House https://share.google/Wg5elSKQnWeBIcIyg

©Sarah Barker

Although in the heat of Sydney he might have slipped off the jacket and rolled his sleeves up.

#1383 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn 20261 Comment
Dawn on Coogee Beach.

The first and last painting, finished on the last day of 2025 and published on the first day of 2026.

My January intentions are to get some sketching done every day and to add sunshine into every blog of January so a sunrise is a good way to start.

Not all my sketches will make it to the blog. But the sunshine is a promise. My holiday photos might be the back up  if January gets dreary. I will become that person who wants to,

“Have a coffee and show you my holiday pictures”

Exccept my pictures will be accompanied by random ponderings…

And so randomly off we go.

Our NYE became a random event . Firm plans with  pre-chosen menu choices were scuppered when the restaurant of choice failed to open.

But a new itinerary was quickly scheduled. Who needs firm plans for New Year anyway?

A fabulous Asian meal followed by a country pub. What could possibly go wrong?

Absolutely nothing, we had a great time. The serendipity of the unplanned gave me the chance to meet a young, old friend.

We talked about shared friends and neighbours . And a piece of art of mine that her parents own.  It was a 3D piece from my Foundation Degree.

I don’t really remember the brief but I chose to render a sliced red onion. I think it was O.K, it is some years since I have seen it. It used to hang, quite appropriately in their kitchen, all was well until one of their guests thought it looked like a vulva. Once someone says that, the thought cannot be unthought. Although it is not uncommon for fruits and vegetables to sometimes look a little cheeky. Figs are the naughtiest.

The family have moved and the artwork has not found an appropriate hanging place in their new home.

Where would such a thing hang appropriately?

There are no images of the piece, but I have asked if one could be taken.

A future ponder perhaps.

2026 in a country pub. Unbeatable

One man’s bottom is about to look like a peach. These things work both ways.

2026, lets see what you can come up with.

#1382 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Australia1 Comment
Coogee Sensation

I took some time out yesterday to get paint on paper before 2026.

In the past 3 weeks I have described the undescribable sensations I felt when I first saw the colours of the sea at Coogee Beach an hour after I landed in Australia. I have not been lost for words but making a colour sketch was essential as photographs and words can’t do my memories justice. I wanted the vibrancy and translucency of the colours of the sea combined with the milky coffee colour of the mix of sand and waves on the shore line in the brightest of sunshine.

This is my best effort, a mix of vivid watercolour painting and some digital photography tweaking.

For now I am content and optimistic that the job can be done in the New year. 

Happy New Year 2026

#1381 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Lola1 Comment
Puppacino from Starbucks.

Our post Christmas life has been about rehabilitating Lola as our only dog. Left to her own devices she would sleep most of the day and happily nip out to the yard for comfort breaks. This lifestyle would not be good for her. We have discovered that she is energised by trips where other dogs and humans can give her contact and interest . We had not attempted countryside walks until yesterday when a bright and breezy Dartmoor attracted us.

Traffic calming on Dartmoor.

We walked along the river Dart at Dartmeet. Lola tolerated the isolation but was indifferent  to the history or beauty of the area until she was offered a half share of a warm sausage roll on our return to the car.

Road Bridge 18th Century with damaged Medieval bridge in the foreground.

She sniffed Lichen boulders but not with any great enthusiasm.

Our second walk of the day was more to her taste. Ashburton also took in history with one of the world’s oldest inns. Trading as an Inn since 1140

Nearly 900 years of dog messages expressed on its exterior walls. Lola loves to track and was nose to the pavement once she left this rich trove of Canine communication. She sniffed out a serendipitous collection outside a closed antique shop. Either intentionally or by accident this tiny collection of  objects has been rained on, pissed on and then caught in bright winter daylight.

Lola chose not to leave her own message but I was glad to have been dragged by her to see it. I just love the patina of the teapot against the terracotta, rust and vivid blue plant pot.

In some ways the picture of the day and for Lola, possibly the highlight. She is most definitely more urban than rural for the time being.