A lovely old sign that is quite inaccurate today.
The London Underground strike has made London somewhat constipated. All the people who would normally transport themselves by tube have taken to their cars, busses or the pavements. Walking on Wimbledon Common was unaffected as was a little retail therapy. I have started my Christmas shopping. I blame the transport problems!
It will come as no surprise to anyone that @theoldmortuary has no experience as marathon runners or other extreme sports. So we have never experienced survival blankets. You would never expect to be introduced to a survival blanket by a five week old grand-daughter. Rather intriguingly in her sensory box there was a whole adult sized survival blanket. Who knew that a collection of sensory toys could exhaust her accompanying adult to the point of exhaustion.
I rattled things and twirled ribbons with caution being really quite unaware when fatigue might overwhelm me. The small person was not remotely interested in having her senses stimulated at any level so there was no chance of me deserving the survival blanket. Deserving or not I donned the survival blanket and was amazed at how quickly I became very warm.
On a practical level I might but some survival blankets for winter swims, just in case we get too chilly. On another practical level the blanket is in a baby sensory box so she can enjoy it’s silvery crinkly surface. And on a last practical level I am writing about a Survival blanket because nobody wants to read about a long rainy journey with many detours. There was no rainbow at the end of my travels but there was blue skies and a small girl with a Sensory box.
November surprised us yesterday. Our plans involved fairly heavy rain, a constant state of being damp and a mug of soup as a reward for battling inclement weather.
There was no battle.
For more than two hours blue skies chased away the greige of the previous week. The tide at Wembury was low enough to fill those hours with rock-pooling adventures.
But first a little bit of serendipity, the foreground in the top picture of the blog shows seaweed copying a geographical feature.
We had taken wellies to walk the muddy coastal path but they got use taking us into the deeper rock pools.
Unfortunately, we both suffer from very muscular calf syndrome. ( some might call them plump) So we only wear short wellies, short wellies are no match for a rapidly incoming tide so we needed to be quite nimble to avoid wet feet. Hugo and Lola had no such problems and bravely waded into rock pools up to their chests in water. Lola was rewarded for enthusiasm, on her return to dry land, by a swift right hook from Hugo.
Balance prevented any watery rock pool pictures but the dry bits had captured some wonderful sea detritus from the previous weeks stormy weather.
Then the tide came in and with it the weather.
Turning our rock pool world into a playground for much braver souls.
November has properly arrived. My first use of the word ‘greige’. Greige is my own word for a curious greyness that envelopes this part of the west country in the winter months. Definitely rain is a big part of greige, mist is another. The other aspect is mental. October flirts with our senses. Teases us into believing a little more sunshine might be on the agenda. November arrives and the weather wraps around our souls like a damp, mildewed sock. Luckily Guy Fawkes and his failed Gunpowder plot are celebrated on the 5th November. The night air is filled with crashes and bangs and our skies are lit up with bright flashes of happiness.
Nature also gets in on the act, thanks to a warmer than normal October there are a few dandelion heads still hanging about. Pretending to be fireworks with the help of street lights.
Blowing greige out of the water.
Farewell Gilly Bobber. The bobbers gathered for a goodbye gathering for a bobber who is moving to West Sussex. Gilly has been a musical addition to our bobbing gang for some time. She wears a raspberry beret and cocktail length swimming gloves. Which always promotes the other bobbers into a Prince tribute act.
A good selection of bobbers gathered today to see her off the premises.
Bobbing and bobbers are one of the great positives to have come out of the Covid years. Time to use a fabulous quote from Mark Twain to send Gilly on her way.
Goodbye Gilly from our home bobbing safe harbour.
This is the time of year, the lull of winter before Christmas,when journalists seek words from Scandinavian countries to ease the pain of cold, wet weather and shorter days. We’ve had a couple of days of walks, talks and rainy days. I can recommend days spent with friends doing exactly that. Cake and coffee may also have been an intrinsic part of our activities.
Talfädighet is the Scandinavian word I have chosen as the way to lead a better life in the run up to the festive season. It means talkative, it may look like a tall cupboard from Ikea but it is one of those delightful words like Hygge which will,for certain, make November more tolerable. Let’s all be more talkative.
This boiling sea was the setting of our final October swim. Storm Claidio was on the way. Looking over the wall into the swirling sea it would have been very easy to turn around and walk back home. But I had already waved to the swimmers in the water. Getting in, was tricky. Being in, was thrilling. Getting out, was a relief. A mug of tea and a Tunnocks Waifer biscuit was the reward.
After the event it was most definitely the most wonderful swim. The turmoil of the water made effective swimming impossible at my, rather low, skill level. Even bobbing about and talking was quite a challenge but the whole experience was fizzy, energising and a great way to see out October, still without a wetsuit. The picture below is a full-colour image of the water as we got out, not a spot of colour to be seen.
I love an old sign that time has rendered slightly inappropriate. This one was on the side of a coffee shop and interiors store. Not intruding would be very bad for business. Another sign was just deliciously eccentric.
The coffee hounds have been anxious to get to this coffee shop all summer.
Famed for the homemade cakes and good beverages, it was the least we could do to take them on a sunny weekend, fact-finding excursion.
Reciprocity Cafe and Eco shop are housed in the old stable block of Port Eliot.
A place of fabulous festivals and general good times. For now though it is a coffee destination and the supplier of very fine cake. Gooseberry cake, still warm from the oven. What better way to spend the last day of October. Knee deep in fallen leaves, if you are a dog, and finger deep in cake if you are a human.
Not one ever to talk about Halloween, a ghastly reimagining of a perfectly good pagan event ruined by commercialisation and tacky plastic. But were I to buy into it then these mighty mushrooms, that we found this morning, seem pretty scary.
Autumn is such a gorgeous time of year if the weather is good. Last night we found some gorgeous greens on the beach and browns in some woodland.
Greens and browns and autumnal shades are the colours of a piece of costume jewellery that was gifted to me recently. A memento of a friend’s mum who died recently. It really is a most audacious piece of bling.
I am wearing it with pride. But for the end of this blog there is some more fungus.
Only our second plunge into cold seas during October 2022. Since beginning year-round swimming in 2020 we have swum, or bobbed as we call it, at least twice a week. We have gathered a merry band of bobbers around us. October 2022 took us to London for the birth of a grandchild, a fine reason to give up bobbing for a while. In the planning stage we thought we would be taking trips to the Ladies Pond at Hampstead. The reality was that I read a good book about the ponds and stayed as dry as a bone.
Today’s ‘bob’ was fabulous at a water temperature of 14 degrees and bright sunshine. Strangely in 14 degrees there were two incidents of Jellyfish stings, not what anyone expects in chilly waters.
There were many bobbers gathered at Tranquility Bay.
Slightly bittersweet as we start a long goodbye to a bobber who is moving to West Sussex next week, there will be tears and laughter over the next week. There will almost certainly be cake and bubbles too.
At this time of year passers-by always ask us “How do you get into water when it is that cold?”Later in the year they just tell us we are mad. A chance to use my favourite Latin quote.
Not exactly as it is philosophically intended but a pragmatic answer never-the-less.
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