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.

#81 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Covid Christmas, SerendipityLeave a comment

We took ourselves off for a coffee date this morning with friends and then took a walk around the old Elizabethan Port of Plymouth. An area that still roughly conforms to the pink area on this map of 1620. We walk it so often we quite take it for granted and I took very few photographs today.

Just as the Pandemic took hold of the world, Plymouth was gearing up to celebrate its part in the founding of the New World with the Mayflower 400 celebrations. Plymouth was being primped for many visitors and events. All that preparation and anticipation came to nothing as the world shut down. One of our favourite, tiny corners of Plymouth has been shut ever since. To our surprise the Elizabethan gardens were open today on our walk and we popped in.

December is not a great time to admire a garden but it was really nice just to be back in a favourite space.

I think I was so surprised to be in there at all I only took a couple of pictures, but all around there were signs of the refurbishment of historic buildings which would have been so central to the 400 year anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower to what we now know as the United States of America.

I am disappointed in myself photographically but sometimes ot is just good to lose yourself in the moment which is exactly what I did. A perfect reason to go back, very soon when Spring starts to make an appearance.

In other news, we had a sporting day yesterday with golf and Ten Pin Bowling.

Both venues were totally artificial but we had a great time being competitive indoors away from the somewhat murky weather .

We have been lucky in our new home, and totally grateful,that none of our Christmas visitors have involved grumpy old farts like this chap on the golf course.

My commiserations to any of you who have suffered a friend or family member who has cast shade on your festivities, there is nothing worse. If this Pandemic has taught me anything it is that life is too short to share extended moments with people whose habitual attitude to life tends towards the negative.

We have been extraordinarily lucky this festive season. Smiles and happiness overload.

#80 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Devils Point, Home1 Comment
Tranquility Bay

Three years ago I took this picture of a beach on 27/12/2018. Not in my wildest imagination did I think that I would become a year round swimmer from this beach, or that I would ever live just a short walk from here. It feels like yesterday. Not so very far over that blue horizon was an almost two year long, life altering and time warping Pandemic. It all feels quite unbelievable.

#79 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Home, SerendipityLeave a comment

Christmas in a new home is always a voyage of discovery. Past Christmases have sometimes involved up to 24 family members and friends joining us in previous homes. Our last Christmas 2020 drew our lowest numbers ever with just the two of us @theoldmortuary , due to Covid restrictions. This first year in our new home has hardly ramped the numbers up. We are 3.5 rising to 5.5 people this year. Curiously our new house is just a tiny bit older than Christmas reinvented. Reinvented meaning the Victorian mass introduction of imported or invented Festive Tradition . The new house has made a welcome and comfortable refuge for us all from the norma, not normal life of 2021. Time to just hang out together after a highly unusual couple of years. We are very comfortable here.

The award for the most useful room, at Christmas, in the new house goes to the utility room pictured above. This picture has been published in a blog before and inspired the most unusual and unexpected Christmas gift of 2021.

3 boxes of Thompsons Tea arrived from a blog reader who noticed we favoured Yorkshire Tea. She reccomended Thompsons as a good alternative to our favourite brew. We had never heard of Thompsons and thought no more about it until Christmas morning when we unwrapped a parcel from her. Suddenly the uncertain future of 2021 has a purpose! 3 new flavours of tea to try while we wait for Covid to pass. Contemplating boxes of tea on Boxing Day.

https://www.thompsonstea.com

#78 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent1 Comment

Christmas morning sunrise. The breakfast of Bobbers.

©Andy Cole

Christmas morning found us all at sea. Miss Spearmint also hauled up on the beach after a heavy Christmas Eve in Plymouth Sound. She will be sleeping off her over- eating until the next high tide.

Happy Holidays Blog readers, you rock.

#77 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, SerendipityLeave a comment

Here we are. Christmas Eve. Time to reflect perhaps, or time to hit domestic admin with gusto and efficacy. Gusto and efficiency for the last 36 hours was going to be rewarded with some cheesy chips from a local seaside cafe. Imagine my disappointment when they were closed. A disappointment compounded by Miss Lola delivering her lunchtime poo into the heart of a teenage thistle. Teenage thistles are a lot like regular teenagers. They look quite cute, a mix of the child you loved and the adult you will come to love. But whoa! Looks can be deceiving those cute slightly downy leaves carry quite a spiky message. How Lola delivered a whole poo quite so deeply into this moody spikey plant is beyond my imagination. She appeared to deliver it with ease. I did not retrieve it with anything like ease, to be frank, I yelped, as she certainly deserved to. For my troubles I have a nasty and unusual Christmas scar, not the traditional forearm one from retrieving baked goods from the oven. A thistle scratch, slight but jagged and ridiculously sore.

To get over my trauma I devised a new reward for my Gusto and Efficiency. An hour or two of dabbling with watercolour, typing and paper. I had success and hit on a happy accident of a paper that responds really well to typing and water colour. Have a Happy Christmas.

#75 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn AdventLeave a comment

And so. As the Northern hemisphere awakes it has gone through the longest night. My shortest day was spent at the speed of a 90 year old visitor. There is much to reccomend about such a speed. Less expectation to achieve everything and just plenty of time just to natter and almost meditatively wrap the small gifts that end up in stockings. Stocking-gift wrapping also gave me the wonderful aroma of beautifully fresh Navel Oranges , which must always be in every stocking. Surely a good reason to just breath deeply and relax.

There are still many dark days to fill with introspection but as the world turns we are looking towards the light now.

There are many more stocking gifts to wrap up but just crossing the winter solstice gives me a lightness of thought.

Time to enjoy the lengthening days and the anticipation of gathering in modified ways for Christmas and the New Year with family and friends. Time to look forward.

P.S This is the sunrise at 8:10

#74 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent1 Comment

There is nothing like a bit of casual shop lifting to start the day. Yesterday we were on a mission to collect a prescious cargo from Southampton. I popped to our local coffee shop and bakery to buy some coffee, before our drive. On the way out I was seduced by a fruit loaf on the counter. I had already paid for my coffee and happily nattered about life in general as I packed the loaf into my bag, making no effort to pay for it. Fortunately the coffee shop team know a common thief when they see one and asked me very politely to pay for it.

Can you imagine if I had done that 200 years ago. With only a quick trial I would have been packed off to Australia on the next boat and Plymouth being a primary deportation port that would likely have been the next day.

Next stop Botany Bay. End of Story

#73 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, Serendipity2 Comments

I was pondering early this morning, on my dog walk, the sort of pondering that can only end badly. Pandemically and politically Britain is a bit f**ked. We are a week away from Christmas and none of us really know if it will be possible to do what we usually do to mark this time of year with our friends and families. The dogs, of course, played no part in my actual, dismal, pondering. Too busy following their noses to a street food van who was prepping something tasty.

Just like that I was catapulted out of my morose frame of mind by these amazing colours of the pre prepped veg. The dogs were there for the sizzling chicken.

The vivid veg quite cheered me up and gave me a direction for this blog. It was then easy enough to trawl through my archive of photographs taken in past Decembers. The best match for this veg was this tinsel, also found at a street market, in East Dulwich, 4 years ago.

This tinsel is one of lifes regrets. I didn’t buy it at the time I saw it. I probably thought it was too garish and not easy to integrate with my existing Christmas decorations. But this mornings colour jolt, when bright pinks and oranges, greens and purples spiked me out of pondering grumpiness, has made me re-evaluate its charms. As soon as I can freely visit East Dulwich and the glorious North Cross Road Market I will buy myself a swag or two of vibrant, unorthodox tinsel and make a little shrine to happiness in difficult times, and a reminder that when life doesn’t take the route I would choose it is still possible to find something bright and memorable.

#72 theoldmortuary ponders

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

This Christmas Decoration represents blog perfection. Just after midnight there should be a blog ready to be automatically dropped into inboxes around the world. I”m not saying it never happens but it is mostly an aspiration rather than an actuality.

72 days ago when the blog changed its title, while I was on a blogging course. The course leader suggested being a little kinder to myself and give myself more freedom to deliver blogs less often. While not, as yet, feeling the need to abandon whole days I do, on occasion cut myself a bit of slack and a later blog goes out.

Yesterday I thought laying about would give me time to be on time with the blog, in fact all I did really is be a bit unfocused.

Yesterday not much happened following a bout of food poisoning. Me and the Christmas tree were together a bit as I dozed between bouts of activity which is when I noticed the time on the Christmas decoration. In truth I was just a bit less of myself, low energy and a bit achy after my digestive tsunami.

24 hours of abstinence, apart from two bowls of rice crispies with oat milk, has created a fine dining monster in me but at low cost. The first cups of real tea were revelatory.

All the flavours of the Asia, blended in Yorkshire, dancing around my mouth like there was a post pandemic party going on. Who knew tea could taste quite so good!

The afore mentioned rice crispies embellished by oat milk were a comfort food, tweaked by my newly over sensitive taste buds they have become fine dining. Their vanilla notes enrobed in oaty richness.

Goodness knows what gustatory delights await me this morning. Toast perhaps masquerading as something far more significant. Today I will be more focussed.