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.

#1391 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Words1 Comment

Last November I was given a rose for my birthday.

For some reason I just accepted the name without ever looking up its meaning . To be honest I thought it was rather a clunky name for something quite so pretty. Moving on to yesterday evening  when our dog walk took us to the furthest part of Devils Point and the Royal William Yard. There was a beautiful sunless sunset and this historic gas lamp had been fitted with a bulb that glowed with a warm light.

Only moments earlier at the top of the staircase I had seen delicious clouds basking in the light of the departed sun.

In a perfect world I would have been on this spot five minutes earlier. Those clouds deserved a visible light source. I stuck the two images and came up with this one.

I was never going to pretend it was genuine but felt it needed a name. Only to discover the French word for twighlight.

So , I am doubly educated . I no longer think my rose has a clunky name and I am quite delighted to realise  that I planted it , by accident, so that when it has grown the sun will set behind it. Both crepusculing together.

Crepuscule in Stonehouse 2025

#1390 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for saleLeave a comment
A Facebook post from 2017

It is not often that I know the afterlife of a painting once it is sold from a gallery.

My flower heads project started whilst I was living and working in London. I was fascinated by the need to refresh the flowers in public gardens and parks while they seemed to be still in their prime because the gardeners schedule dictated a plant regime change. Skips and wheelbarrows filled haphazardly with glorious blooms . The picture above was inspired by a similar phenomenon. I worked near Harley Street in London for a long while. Bleep in hand , I could wander the cobbled mews out of hours while waiting for emergencies to call me back to work.

The Mewses of Marylebone are fascinating places. Very famous and or wealthy people live there and use their back lanes as more discrete ways of accessing their homes. They walk their dogs there and have  deliveries delivered. Royalty and celebrities are dropped to the back of prestigious medical clinics for treatments and appointments.  For the subject of this blog, Florists change very posh flower arrangements in homes and Medical Clinics every day. Flowers still beautiful and vivid are tossed into large buckets or skips and dumped. Smart phone in hand I used to take pictures of these crazy juxtapositions of beautiful flowers chucked out with newspapers or take-away food boxes.

The Underpainting. The purple was a Liberty of London carrier bag.

Many exhibitions later the smaller paintings had sold. The big one went off to Cotehele. A Mediaeval Dower house in the Tamar Valley

In these auspicious surroundings my painting found its forever home.  Which should be the end of the story. But unknown to me a friend had bought it.

She was somewhat surprised by the size of it as she tried to get it in her car. And even more surprised when she had it in her own hallway.  With only millimetres to spare it snuggled between her picture rail and dado rail . Very much a statement piece.

P.s I popped this painting in the sun to dry. Hugo had a pee close by and was no respecter of wet paint.

#1389 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art1 Comment

It is a good day when some bright colours arrive to join the pencil case gang. I’ve not had a chance to give them a good run out yet . Just a quick check for colour. Not all coloured water colour pencils are created equal. Some like to dominate and others are more timid.

They have all had a gentle first outing  as pale washes of themselves and two have gone in a little stronger. I never know who the dominant personalities  will be with any different  brand or type of art materials. I always create an organic colour chart, just letting them flow over each other or just sit side by side. A deep red called Shiraz, a mustard and Leaf green are the early strong personalities. But who can guess what tomorrow’s tinkering will bring. I am heading to some vibrant places very soon so I need to know who to rely on in vivid corners of the world.

#1388 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment

The two weeks after my birthday were pretty well mapped out with appointments, normal life and creative periods. I am half way through this two week period and it has not panned out at all as I expected. Normal life and creative periods are the soft tissues that are formed around the skeleton of life which is formed by meetings, appointments and essential admin. This two week period would have pottered along  quite nicely. A virus slightly knocked me off the tracks until yesterday and then I was all set to get things done. Almost as the virus  walked out and shut the door a series of phone calls cancelled four appointments that I had scheduled over the next few days. Some will not see the light of day until 2026. With diary gaps I planned other things.  This morning I decided to go for a pedicure and some foot care. My normal place is always buzzing  and I never need an appointment. Except today I did, so it was a very brief visit and I have booked for Saturday.

So instead of pampered feet I decided to move a book case ready for the hallway to be painted.

I knew it was a mammoth task. This bookcase is both a transit hub and a dead end.

There was never a before picture and the picture above is certainly a temporary set up.

A load of random paperwork has gone into recycling and I have a small bag of books for a charity shop.

But what of the bookshelf. So many books I will never read again, some I have never read. 

My mums text books from her sexual health clinic. More than 50 years old they are an amusing and at times uncomfortable read. My dad’s books that carried him through brutal and ineffective chemotherapy . My childhood books and the books belonging to my children. Maybe 20 or so books that will be read again.

So is this a bookshelf or a repository of mine and other peoples memories? I think it is both, and before it moves back to the newly painted hallway I will empty it again to move and paint it so it isn’t quite so shabby. I bet I won’t be able to get rid of any more of these books to a charity shop, but they will be tidier after the next move.

#1387 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

A gorgeous sourdough loaf in bright sunshine?

No. A rusty old bollard for boats to tie  up to at a little harbour called Mutton Cove.

Even at a distance it looks like a muffin.

Today is about getting  jobs done but the sunshine was too good to just dash from A to B without visiting the sea. Today is the last day my stats page has the column of shame. Earlier im the month there were an inexplicable 900 readers of my blog on one day. Which made my daily count  of between 20 and 40 look pretty silly.

Thank goodness the 900+ have dropped off my stats chart and I am back to low level success.

Two examples of things not exactly looking as they should.

#1386 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ColourLeave a comment
Dusk on The Barbican b

I enjoy a cold and dry November. A rarity now I live in the South West of England but the last two days have very much played my way. Especially for my twice daily long dog walks. A dusk walk and a mooch in the charity shops inspired my 2025 Christmas card design. Similar in feel to cute puppies or kittens on a rehoming site It is a picture of discarded and donated Christmas decorations in a bucket. Random colours and from different eras they find their way into charity shops because people no longer need them.

I have a soft spot for Christmas Decorations. The decorations of my childhood were stolen by the carers who were employed to give my mum care in her own home. Of all the thefts and fraud committed by them the Christmas Decoration theft was small beans. But their collection was eclectic and international and were a simple homage to their life and the travels of their much loved, but absent family members. I often take a peak around this time of year to see if I can replace any of their lost treasures from other peoples donations. It is a poignant but also joyful  treasure hunt. A tiny and completely unimportant project. The joy in charity shops is in the clashing colours and styles of often simple baubles, no Interior Design colour collections.  I have reimagined a grotty cardboard box and morphed it to a puff of exploding colour. Now I just need to think of some words to accompany my illustration. Cute puppies or kittens might tickle the heart strings maybe homeless baubles could be the next big thing

#1385 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history1 Comment

I love it when these beautiful Tall Ships pull up in the harbour. Night and day they are majestic creatures of the sea.

I was lucky enough to be on the harbourside when this ship set sail out of the harbour on a previous visit.

Of course ‘setting sail’ is not quite accurate as an engine is required but either way the ship silently left the mooring. Just a gentle creaking of wood and wind murmering on furled up sails. When Sutton Harbour was at its sail boat peak there were often 300 of these wonderful  creatures jostling for space. That would not have been a silent experience with crews and harbour workers shouting instructions and demands to one another.

I would love to time hop to any point of the Age of Sail. An impossible hope of course, but what about the practicalities. First off I wear glasses so even if my clothes didn’t give me away my eyes would certainly set me apart with glazed windows on my face.

No public loos would be a worry. They were only invented after hundreds of tourists flooded into Plymouth to see Napoleon,as a celebrity prisoner, on the Bellerpharon in Plymouth Sound for ten days in July 1815. The first example of thousands of tourists flooding to one location all at the same time.  The mind boggles. The amount of effluent left on the streets of  Plymouth caused questions in Parliament. Never mind Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo. Loos of a different sort were a bigger problem and so the Public Loo was decreed to be essential for Public Health reasons.

And Public Health or indeed my own health is always a concern when I ponder time hopping. What ghastly diseases might be picked up on a casual trip back 200 years, especially in a port city!

So I will stick with just the one ship , at two different times of day. No great risk there.

#1384 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

It is my birthday weekend so with more accuracy than is normal I can say I have been making first impressions for exactly 68 years and 2 days. Most of them are absolutely way beyond my control and because I have never been famous the first impression I create has almost never been recorded. There will be H.R records of interviews where my first impression has been recorded. Groups of friends will have anecdotal   memories of  first, second and third impressions. My point being that first impressions are largely out of my control. On occasions I may set out to make a favourable  first  impression but without feedback how would I ever know if I had achieved ‘favourable’. I think I am a bit of a ‘slow burn’ for most people. I try to be friendly, kind and effective with an open mind. I am loyal until I am not. I am not too invested in creating a ‘first impression’ because I genuinely believe that is  largely beyond  my control. However a ‘lasting impression’ has far more heft and gravitas. Something that is built up over time by doing my best to be a decent human being.

#1383 theoldmortuary pomders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Birthdays, Food ( but this is not a food blog), London1 Comment

The city was busy putting a party face on yesterday. Everywhere Christmas decorations and lights were going up to welcome in the Festive Season. We chose a cosy harbour pub for a birthday lunch.

Decorations of a different sort had been released into the sea by our swimming zone so there was no birthday bob to celebrate the passing of another year.

One birthday gift came with some intriguing facts. When we first lived in London we lived in Dulwich Village.

A rather lovely spot that has had a soap fragrance created with the same name.

Named in 967 AD for the Dill Fields that scented the area.

Not a Dill plant in sight when we lived there. The overall fragrance was Affluence and Privilege, it was a fabulous place to people watch and enjoy baked goods from a Gails Bakery. ( Gails Bakery is a very contentious subject in the world of Baked Goods) Hated by independent bakeries all over London.

Now I love an Independent business, one of the many reasons we chose to buy a flat in Crystal Palace. But living in London requires almost everyone to work very long hours. I often caught the first train out in the morning a full two hours before any independent bakery opened. I would return 12 or more hours later when any self respecting independent would have sold out and closed up. My independent loving heart would have been starved of baked goods were it not for Gails. A freshish sourdough loaf at 7pm is better than a sold out and closed for the day independent. And infinitely better than anything a supermarket could serve up.

Giving this blog a rather rags to riches theme. Although in my case, Effluence to Affluance. Sewage in the sea to middle-class  bakery angst by way of a birthday natter. Rather a classic ponder in my humble opinion

#1382 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Birthdays1 Comment

Happy Birthday to me. 68 circles around the Sun. It seems like only yesterday since I was celebrating 5 circuits around the big yellow thing in all our skies.  In 68 years I have gained a wonderful set of family and friends. Some have left me along the way, but they trail my circumnavigations  within the firmament represented as  bold and twinkling stars. Let’s do this and see what the next 365 days brings.

Happy Birthday too to Beth.

wild turkey.