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.

#474 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

Earlier this week this quote dropped into one of my Social Media accounts. It irritated me from the minute it arrived because it seems so passive aggressive in tone. Also it hit a small nerve because I know that sometimes I am not capable of forgiving and forgetting. I am not a seething bundle of angst, just rather too practical. Forgiveness is fine but surely forgetting is counterintuitive.

Earlier this week while we were decorating the kitchen we kept banging our heads on some pendant lights that are normally over a table.

The table was moved to enable us to paint the wall. Time and time again we banged our heads on the light as we walked past. Clearly we had forgiven ourselves for being so daft but also forgotten and did it repeatedly. Had we remembered and recovered it would have been a much better day.

So I came up with a quote that works so much better for me.

And for special occasions…

Clearly the last quote is not the behaviour of a fully perfect human and would not have been appropriate for the pendant light. However deleting the quote at the top of this blog, and considering other options was all the revenge I needed to recover from something unwanted dropping into my mind.

Sometimes I will forgive and forget. Other times I will remember and recover. Occasionally revenge works. It can be delicious if used appropriately, sparingly and safely.

Not everything that drops into Social Media is bad.

This fabulous quote from Jacinda Ardern made my empathetic heart sing. It will sit in my thoughts very comfortably for a while.

#473 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Art for sale1 Comment

Gallery walls and thieves. Hannah @theoldmortuary has finished the gallery wall and the inspiration for a weekends work has been hung. I bought her three original prints for her birthday from Debs Bobber, one of our cold water swimming friends. As soon as they were unwrapped their new home was planned and this weekend the plane was executed. Debs Bobber, real name Debra Parkinson is currently working on a theme of thievery. In this series a mythical creature steals the gold finial that tops Smeatons Tower, the iconic Lighthouse that stands on Plymouth Hoe.

©Debra Parkinson
©Debra Parkinson

Of course the gallery wall is just the beginning of the kitchen, dining room refurbish but it is always good to get the essentials done first!

#472 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

Cue the Rolling Stones, Paint it Black. Although to be accurate the Rolling stones would have to be singing. Paint it Farrow and Ball ‘Railings’ which is not the same thing at all. Our art collection deserves a Gallery Wall and that is the project for this weekend.

In between painting the wall F&B Railings we discovered a, new to us,park with spectacular views.

Now the dogs are not the biggest of fans of DIY but a new park is something they can fully invest in.

The views seemed to be immaterial to them but an hour or so of scampering for them and Vitamin D harvesting for us was a great break in the day.

#471 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment
©Debs Bobber

Yesterday was a Turquoise day. It was also a day when the sea and the air were both at 11 degrees. Not that equilibrium of temperature made it any easier to get into the chilly water. Cold tentacles of icy water found their way into swimsuits or around the creases of our necks and knees.

©Debs Bobber

The weather was hugely changeable which may have created these fantastic turquoise pictures. In the picture below you can see a rain shower approaching.

These little weather patches were loaded with drenching powerful rain that devastated us while we fully dressed but were of no consequence while we were bobbing about. Earlier in the day I had stood drippily in a new art installation, learning the influences and historical events that fed the artists creativity. Of the forty or so people there I was the only one who had been under one of those cloud bursts. Excellent preparation for the afternoon Bob.

An afternoon Bob that featured 4 very different shades of Turquoise.

#470 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Today’s late blog is late because the planned blog did not go to plan. I had an early start this morning and a lazy evening last night so there was no back up plan. The 3rd of February is an insignificant date @theoldmortuary but a trawl through past photos taken on the 3rd of February have a strange coincidence. In recent years the footpaths and fields of our Cornish lives had become quite difficult to navigate as winter rains make the ground underfoot muddy and slippery. By February I was pretty intolerant of me and the dogs being grubby after every walk. Sometimes I would seek a more urban environment with tarmac paths in parkland. Devils Point in Plymouth was often my choice because there was also good coffee at Hutong.

Hutong 2018

And fabulous views.

Devils Point 2021

Of course between these two photos Covid struck and that changed everyone’s lives. By February 2021 we had evolved into the sort of people who loved to swim, year round in the sea. Not something we could achieve safely near to our home in Cornwall. By late 2021 we were living in Stonehouse, a quick walk to the coffee shop, the swimming area and the beautiful views. The beautiful flowers, Cafe Au Lait dahlias, were left in Cornwall.

#469 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box, FamilyLeave a comment

Britain is in the grip of industrial action. Yesterday it was the turn of teaching staff to protest about their pay and conditions. This meant that many schools in Plymouth were closed and families had to find care for their children in school hours. This hugely changed the weekday demographic of the visitors to the museum where I work. The galleries were buzzing with children and their grandparents filling their impromptu day of care. One grandad in his mid- sixties also had his elderly mum with him. As the grandchildren skipped about from gallery to gallery. The man and his mum held hands as they slowly made their way around the older areas of the building. Clearly reminiscing about visits they had made 60 years ago, when the act of holding hands between a mum and her child happened more often and for different reasons.

#468 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity1 Comment

Good morning February, two pretty pictures from the last day of January a couple of years ago at Watergate Bay in North Cornwall.

I’m improvising with illustration because the actual ponder is brief and not a pretty sight.

I use a grater fairly often, almost always without injury. But twice now when creating a Vegetarian meal I have grated off a tiny sliver of index finger skin. Honestly you couldn’t make this up, the last meal of Veganuary and I add some inadvertent flesh. Is it cheating if I eat my own flesh?

Thank goodness for dogs on beaches.

#467 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn CornwallLeave a comment

After a weekend of grey weather, Monday was as bright as a button. Unfortunately the day had a schedule that would not light up anyone’s life. Just the dullest of tasks and shopping for cleaning products. But the sun was out and we really needed to harvest some vitamin D so a quick ferry trip took us to the ‘ Forgotten Corner’ of Cornwall to gather sunbeams.

Not that the two villages of Cawsand and Kingsand are in any way forgotten by us. We used to row pilot gigs for the local club.

But a much loved family member was killed in this area 7 years ago and it has taken a little while for us to feel comfortable on the roads around here. Clearly something has changed, this is our fourth visit in 6 months. Building new memories and realising how much beauty we have been missing is the tipping point. For two hours we could have been somewhere Mediterranean, even the dogs, who have no idea what Mediterranean is, basked like furry holiday-makers. No airports involved.

Sunshine really is the great embellishment of life, that and allowing time to do some healing.

Plus coffee, always coffee…

#466 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

I was struggling a little bit to ponder on this Monday morning. Caused, in part by failing to drink the first cup of tea of the morning in a timely manner. The chill in the air had caused it to cool quickly and I had missed the perfection point. The first cup of the day is important and today I have missed that moment. Thankfully the first coffee has no such temperature requirements.

I missed the moment because I was trying to get my head round the privelidged shenanigans of our current government.For those not in this particular loop a minister who was once responsible for the countries tax affairs has been found to have been avoiding tax paying himself.

I would have been better off concentrating on my tea. After my early morning disappointment I took a little look at 30th of January photos of the past and found to my delight one of my favourite pictures. Sunflowers simply wrapped in newspaper, placed as a memorial in a church in Havana..

This is very fortutuitous as my only photo of yesterday was very loosely also a newspaper story. On my Sunday wanderings, the dogs took a pee on a copper noticeboard. The sort of place that must be sniffed and investigated before being anointed with another small squirt of Hugo pee. Lola prefers to leave her news at the base.

The angle of sunlight perfectly illuminated dog news. Rarely visible to humans this is a chance encounter with canine communication. I had no idea how to weave this image into a blog, but as is often the case, serendipity did my work very conveniently.

Digital Media

Print Media

Canine Media

#465 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Serendipity1 Comment

I feel I have been a little harsh with January. I am not alone, an early morning conversation drifted over to me from above the dogs heads.

” When exactly does January finish, it does seem to have dragged on and on this year, bloody hell not until Wednesday”

Are we all all still affected by the lag of Covid years when January’s have been uncertain. This January has definitely felt more like a liminal space than an actual flesh and blood, lived in Calendar month.

Like all months January has its own distinctive personality. If it was a person I would not be drawn to it, we would not be going out for coffee or hooking up for a dog walk.

There are, though some lovely, unique positives about my most unloved month.

1. Left over Christmas Cake- ours left the building last Thursday. Small squares of it have accompanied our evenings of binge watching T. V.

2. The pile of Christmas books. Always a satisfyingly reassuring interior design feature. Enough reading matter should we ever get snowed in with power cuts. With enough candle power boredom can be banished.

3. Christmas toiletries. Morning ablutions become foamy fantasies of far away places with coconut and jojoba. Personally I avoid mintiness. It does not remind me of Alpine meadows. It could just be me, but mintiness on one’s soft parts is torture. Nothing Swiss about it. Pure Spanish inquisition of the red hot poker sort.

I think 3 January positives is enough. I need to discuss the header image. One of three pure white tulips that were in a Christmas bouquet. Strangely they were supplied still attached to their bulbs.

One month after their arrival they are languishing floppily in the kitchen. Their stems are weak but the flower is still willing. Willing for what, I have to ask. Their flower friends have long ago joined the compost gang. My hope is that the bulbs will dry out from nearly a months immersion in water. I just couldn’t bare to keep them in a vase any longer, being all droopy and gloomy. They were a plant reflection of my own pathetic seasonal ennui. Wednesday is a deadline for both bulbs and humans in this house