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.
I have made a start on my hand painted digital Christmas Card. A Work in Progress production with a working title of Baubles in a Bag. There was an artists gathering this morning . Talking and creating is the aim. I like to have a simple project on- going while I natter. I am puzzling how to get some texture into the paper bag. There is an uncanny similarity to my Apples in a String Bag.
So the baubles are going to have to be in a paper bag, more bag less baubles
Actually a few more baubles are in the bag.
Just one more bauble to paint and I am going to have to commit to painting a paper bag. At the moment I dont think I can paint my way out of this paperbag.
I blame Instagram. I mostly use it for art but I am a very guilty scroller of my Instagram feed.
Who knew, for instance, that you could restyle a cardigan by wearing it upside down.
Which I tried today and it seemed to work. But I sense the West Country mischief fairies saw a woman with her cardigan on upside down as someone deserving of a prank.
Acid green cardi upside down.
A regular dog walk was complicated by very gusty weather a large umbrella and two dogs simultaneously doing a poo. Somehow, I blame the mischievous West Country Fairies, my car keys fell into the autumn leaves without me noticing. Time was already a bit short , I was heading to a Dry Bob to celebrate two bobbers birthdays. But I had no choice but to retrace the whole dog walk kicking autumn leaves to find the missing keys, which I did.
I blame fairies because I have never worn my cardigan upside down before and unbelievably, in a long life I have never lost my keys before. The two must be linked . Isn’t that how superstition and folklore starts?
But the mischievous fairy was not done with me. I went to pick up some ordered library books. All the books I have ordered over the last 6 months have arrived , 7 books in total. I cannot possibly read 7 books in the next two weeks. I may never put my cardigan on upside-down again, whatever Instagram suggests.
There is no doubt that it works, but is it tempting fate?
The mischievous fairy struck again , I arrived home, after another dog walk at the time parents collect their children from the local school. For 30 minutes near 3:15 parking is tricky. I have never arrived at that time and failed utterly to find a space, but today that happened. Awkward because I really needed to use the loo.
Needs must, I parked near the cafe where we had noisily gathered for the Dry Bob, walked in, in my lurid green upside-down cardigan, used their facilities. Knowing that in a busy place only three hours later I would be remembered as a customer of the day. Quite the day!
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
I can’t actually say, as I met either end of the scale professionally. Now for the famous end of the scale it is somewhat comforting to say that the most famous person I ever met was an entirely likable human being. What is less comfortable is that the most infamous person I ever met was also an entirely likable human being.
Along the way of life I have met all sorts, not all of them were entirely likable human beings. Maybe I was just lucky with my two extremes. Doughnuts have been used to protect the identities of the famous and the infamous. Humans and doughnuts are all a question of taste
Inexplicably a pile of books revealed themselves in a clothes cupboard this morning. Revealing books I have hunted high and low for in recent years, not just in this house.They have been missing in action for a very long time. Despite being a woman with several book piles this pile is significant because it holds some books that I would never have given away. I have offered to loan them only to be foiled because they were not where I expected them to be. One of them I wanted to talk about at my book club last week. We had been reading a rather patchy novel about women’s experience in India.
I knew I had owned something better.
Found in the pile only a week too late.
The pile is really inconsistent I cannot begin to understand how they have gathered in a cupboard meant for clothes.
1299 pages a book lost for almost 30 years, I had only read to page 209
London by Edward Rutherfurd has been lost forever. I had always planned to buy another copy and just haven’t got round to it. Put down some time in 1997 when I was a very busy woman. When I opened it at the turned down corner I had exactly remembered how far I had got. No need to read those 209 pages again with just 1090 more pages to read. But as a holiday read it is going to have to be a Kindle.
The other five, all mourned because they were lost.
One last one, more fragile and precious than the others.
The very first book I read, that told me how to draw buildings. An odd choice for a small child but I suspect I was an odd child in a house that was not really child friendly. I also read their encyclopaedias avidly!
Published in 1946 , it belonged to my uncle who lived abroad, I found it at my grandparents house during their once weekly child care. I practiced perspective often, just doodling really. Filling in time usefully and being good was considered a very good thing.
Quite how these books gathered together in a cupboard I have no idea. I am very glad to have them back and sitting comfortably in a bookcase , where they belong
My answer was correct on the 4th attempt. The word slipped easily out of my brain and I shared my result with my Wordle Whatsapp group.
The word slipped out of my brain almost at the same moment I realised I had no idea what it meant and that I had certainly never used it in a sentence.
I have looked it up now and realised why I have never used it. The word has two uses, musical and psychiatry.
My head has always been full of random thoughts and ideas. Not archived or catalogued in any useful way.
My storage system for knowledge has two distinctive visualised locations. A smart office block where all the necessary and acquired knowledge for life, work and survival is stored. Calmly efficient, beautiful streamlined architecture where busy archivists work happily and effectively. Pulling out information as and when I need it.
The other location where all the fun and interesting, life enhancing stuff is stored is a warm and welcoming Town House with 4 floors. There are always comfy chairs , interesting rugs and warm fires near the haphazard shelves and overspilling store boxes. The archival system is managed by happy individuals who wear a lot of velvet and softly worn linen. Always smiling they serve tea and snacks while I patiently wait for an answer that I know is somewhere in their domain. Mostly they are as efficient as the streamlined, smart office block.
Sometimes however I am turned away from the cosy repository with the promise of an answer arriving later in the day. And so it does. Arriving gently, as if delivered by a silent hot air balloon or by a tiny feather caught in a summer breeze.
Puzzled by my inability to remember, I set off on another task only to be gently disturbed by the arrival of the random fact or piece of knowledge I required 3 hours earlier.
Below is the Wordle word of the day . Do not read on if my spoiler would spoil your day.
I now know exactly why Fugue was in the Townhouse and not the Office Block.
J.S Bach Toccata and Fugue.
I met this piece of music when I was under 6 and knew its name. Which I thought was exactly that, a name.
Like Tom and Jerry, or Laurel and Hardy.
In 60 years I had never given it a thought or a refile.
I absolutely understand both uses of the word.
But what is to happen to poor old Fugue, resting comfortably in a warm and cluttered townhouse of random knowledge for 60 years.
Is he, Fugue was always male, about to be rehoused in an office block of known and retrievable facts. Has he taken his last featherlight balloon trip into my thought processes. I suspect so.
Will Fugue the character be in a psychiatric fugue of his own.
I will allow him a free pass to either dwelling, I know where I would rather be.
There was some serendipity in Firestone Bay yesterday. 5 Bobbers met at the bobbing zone without planning an official bob. 2 Bobbers decided on a short notice morning swim, 2 other bobbers and a grandchild went for a dog walk and just a little later another lone bobber turned up for a dip. As is the way of serendipity one thing led to another and hot drinks and radiators were offered to the three bobbers who actually went for a swim.
The night before, the Finale of Celebrity Traitors had aired. The minute all bobbers had gathered together in a warm house one of them announced that she had not seen the programme so there was to be no Traitors talk. Thankfully there was a 3 year old willing to host her favourite card game while everyone warmed up.
Probing and often delightful questions that could be aimed at three year olds or Centenarians. Predictably we only played a few rounds because 3 year olds have better things to do than entertain cold swimmers. But there was one golden moment when the question asked what we would all like to be doing in ten years. All 5 bobbers wanted still to be bobbing with the Bobbers. After a chilly November swim that is a fabulous response. I suspect all Bobbers would say the same thing. Our curious Covid-19 hobby has become more than a bit addictive.
Lets not talk about how I manage my screen time. Lets talk about the person who nodded off to sleep. Possibly reading one of my duller blogs and let their forehead nod or their finger twitch whilst reading a blog this week . 1,028 times! One blog a lot and a lot of blogs just once. Whatever were you thinking. U.S.A I am looking at you…
I am a pondering blogger with a small loyal band of regular readers. 50 Views is giddy. 30 exceptional. 20 about normal.
A few weeks ago someone fell asleep at the screen and I got 200 views on one day. My x axis had to grow, which is all well and good until life returns to normal and my 20-30 readers suddenly look like tiny blips wandering along the y axis. Readership returned to normal and my x axis shrunk accordingly. If returning to normal from 200 was a problem. It was nothing compared to this week’s landslide slippage.
So how do I manage my screen time?
Well I could write more blogs to keep up with my trending rise.
Or perhaps, more sensibly I could get out and about and find some normal low level ponders out in the real world. Once the giddiness wears off of course.
We were here, at Dartington Hall 6 weeks ago when Autumn had hardly got started. Today Autumn is in full swing but what an Autumn it has been. Uncharacteristically warm, even today it was 14 degrees rising a bit in sunny patches. Shorter daylight hours and cooler temperatures bring the beautiful shades of Autumn but there are less colours this year. Large amounts of leaves have just fallen. As brown and as unremarkable as sparrows. Now eager to just drop off most are just a uniform acidic yellow
Boston or Virginia Creeper never lets us down, here reflecting a bright blue cloudless sky. Because the weather was good an autumn day of walks was planned and the walking was fabulous but the gorgeous wide stretching views were not as vivid as most years. The Dartington Hall Estate has been occupied by humans for 1000 years and the countryside around probably hasn’t changed too much in all that time.
Not all walks here need to be autumnal, there are also quiet paths of evergreen to be explored.
I discovered the word raineth last year when I visited an art gallery in Penzance.
The Rain it Raineth Every Day. 1889 Norman Garstin
Shakespeare is credited with the first use of the word.
Raineth absolutely described yesterday. Every outdoor task was served with a side order of precipitation. In the morning, light but penetrating, to-the-bone drizzle. And later in the day, great big plops of the stuff, that seemed to sit on my raincoat in a thick layer of wetmess that then cascaded onto the lower quarter of my trousered legs and boots. Then the fabric of my trousers wicked the water upwards. I was a one woman circular economy of moisture.
Beyond the domestic and the rain I worked on my collage, in the rather pathetic daylight that oozed weakly through the cloud cover.
I sliced up a colour chart made during a course run by-
I completely forgot to photograph the colour chart before I chopped it up. It was half of a colour wheel created from a colour mixing lesson she was teaching. After I had finished it I noticed that I had almost created a birds head which I embellished for no particular reason. After slicing, I planned to leave the birds head on my cutting room floor because I was creating a cityscape and this is meant to be a wholly abstract collage. But his little beady eye kept looking at me so I wove him in.
Today is another round of sticking and cutting before I create the river, which is another Tansy Hargan test piece. This time I remembered to photograph it before I sliced.
I chose this one because my very wet evening walk reflected light on cobbles reminded me of this technique of woven collage.
Who knows where the river will take me later today…
Of all the pleasures of a self-directed semi-retirement the joy of not suffering the futility of annual appraisement interviews ranks quite highly. In fact never having to engage in the whole silly game of being appraised with questions like the one below, simply to tick a box, is fabulous.
What will your life be like in three years?
The tool of appraisal, feedback and goal setting in the right hands and minds should be a positive interaction in the workplace. If only such things could be honest, organic conversations. Hopes and ambitions shared in either direction shared with no judgement with the aim of increasing well being and contentment.
We all lie because honest uncertainty never ticks the box.
The joy of being human is that none of us can predict what our lives will be like in three minutes time let alone 3 years.
On Saturday whilst doing a very regular car journey, and while stopped by a red traffic light, a boy racer lost control of his car and skidded backwards towards me. His car stopped 3 yards from mine and he sped off. Nothing happened. In the 3 seconds or so when I was certain he would crash into me I knew my time would be up. But it wasn’t, the red light changed and I drove off.
What will my life be like in three years? I have no idea, and that is just fine with me.
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