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.

Pandemic Pondering #455

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment
Chalets on the cliff at Whitsand and Bay

The Rame Peninsular in South East Cornwall is often called the forgotten corner of Cornwall. As it is on our doorstep it is not forgotten by us, but it managed to surprise us a few years ago. At the time we were living in Gipsy Hill in London and a neighbour rented a chalet on the Whitsand Bay cliffs for the New Year and excitedly told us about the breakfasts he had enjoyed at the Cliff Top Cafe expecting us to know it. With his recommendation it became a family favourite until one of our family members was killed in a road accident and we couldn’t quite face the cafe without her. Time has passed and this weekend we got up early and headed off for breakfast without any misgivings.

Hugo took posing for a photograph very seriously.

http://www.clifftopcafe.co.uk/index.html

Whitsand Cliff chalets have had a bit of a metamorphosis in the last 20 years or so and many are rented out as Airbnb. The cafe sell this lovely postcard which sums up the general vibe very well.

http://www.tidelineart.com/ © Nicola White

I used a postcard image of the cafe because the necessary outdoor structures to comply with current Covid-19 restrictions and regulations don’t let the cafe look as pretty as normal.

The postcard, though, took me on another little circle of research about the artist and she too lives a London/Cornish life the link below takes you to a magazine article if you are interested.

Meet The Beachcombing Artist Nicola White

What intrigues me, reading this article, is the similarity in our London experience. Living in South London the Kent coast and the River Thames become substitute Cornwall. There is nothing similar about them but the call to water can forgive the differences and nourish a coastal seeking soul. The Cornwall/London circle turns for many of us. The sea also allows memories to return more comfortably after a while.

Tregonhawk Cliff, Whitsand Bay

Pandemic Pondering#454

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Rituals, SwimmingLeave a comment

Summer solstice, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has been rather a damp squib. ( A squib is a small firework, a damp one does not go off. Thus a damp squib of a day fails to live up to expectation.) The dawn swim occurred with a backdrop of gently changing greys and raindrops landing on our salty faces. The Bobbers, of course, were a brightly coloured pod of swimmers all there to be in the water at sunrise to support the three Bobbers who were in the water to swim a kilometre for a local charity. Dry land supporters were also there. Visible sunrise, or not, the elite Bobbers raised just over £800 for local charity Barefoot Project.

https://www.barefoot.org.uk/

The gap between sunrise and sunset continued to be a damp and grey day but a solstice is a solstice and Bobbers who could not make the early morning dip commited to swimming at sunset.

The sun turned up just in time to set, like a friend who makes it to an agreed meeting five minutes before everyone else has to leave. Not one to just slip in quietly the sun was spectacular.

Even blessing the Madonna with a large coffee cup with some rainbow bathing, what a difference 16 hours makes!

Eventually only two Bobbers made both a sunrise and sunset swim.

But it was a day well lived.

Pandemic Pondering #453

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

Solstice swim part one, we got up at 4am to swim at sunrise for the summer solstice. A second swim tonight will mark the end of the longest day.

The torch in a dry bag was the closest we got to seeing actual sunlight. The longest day crept in under the cover of rain and clouds, let’s hope sunset is a little more photogenic.

Pandemic Pondering #452

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn To The Valley ArtistsLeave a comment
©Suzy Billing-Mountain

It would be true to say that for many of us the last 18 months have not gone to plan . @theoldmortuary this weekend has not quite gone to plan but where unplanned gaps in my schedule appeared I was lucky enough to fill some gaps with art. Drawn to the Valley are supporting an Art Trail that shows the work of both members and non-members.

©Sue Coleman

The trail has also had its own unplanned moments and was postponed because of Covid restrictions. Suffering the same fate as the Open Studios event that is was organised to replace for the same reasons. In consequence it has been some time in the planning. Sadly one contributing artist has died between the planning stages and the actual realisation of the trail.

©Glenis Blakiston

The widower of Glenis Blakiston had decided to open her studio just as she would have done.

Pandemic Pondering #451

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life, Bobbing, SerendipityLeave a comment
Recycle, repurpose, reuse

This reused headstone gave me all the excuse I needed to repurpose the same outing into another blog. The gravestone forms part of a beach footpath that is regularly damaged by winter storms and high tides. Another reason for recycling is that bobbing at Wembury is far more gentle than our usual locations and I could take the camera into the sea using my dry bag/float without worry of mishap.

St Werburghs Church from the sea.
The South West Coastal Path heading to Heybrook Bay from the sea.
Wembury Beach from the Sea

We met another Bobber this morning, she lives just round the corner from here but chooses to swim the rougher waters of Plymouth Sound because the company of other bobbers on a regular basis is an experience not to be missed.

Cornish Bobber, Local Bobber

Sea weed and sea water from the sea were also small excitements of the morning.

Back on dry land we found a coastal lily and a pretty piece of driftwood.

Then after a quick peek at the view from the car park…

Looking towards the Mewstone.

… we set off to visit some friends who are in the middle of a big building project. Having lived through the big rebuilding project that was @theoldmortuary a few years ago there is something nostalgic but not necessarily in a good way about seeing people trying to live their best life in an atmosphere of disruption and concrete dust. The thing that is great about visiting people in the middle of a big build is their expertise in making ‘ builders tea’ which is the perfect way to drink tea after a swim.

A quickly recycled blog for a Saturday. The original one will follow this, as these things do in a newest on top way. Have a great weekend.

Pandemic Pondering #450

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Van LifeLeave a comment

Dog grooming day takes us to this delicious location for breakfast. The forecast storms have not blown into the Southwest peninsular over the last couple of days so a campervan breakfast followed by a swim is the morning schedule.

Wembury is a regular destination for dog pampering. Even in poor weather there is plenty to do here for a few hours while the dogs are turned from rural scruffy mutts to urban sophisticates. We do coastal walks or rockpooling or just catch up with reading.

Today, after breakfast, some bobbers are meeting us here for a morning swim. But for now breakfast is the main event.

Pandemic Pondering #449

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Birthdays, BobbingLeave a comment

Pondering one of the positives of a Pandemic. The past 18 months have been a tough trot for most humans but for the Bobbers and their guest bobbers a somewhat drenched Phoenix is rising from the unlikely ashes that is a small beach in a city.

Plymouth is known as the Atlantic City. The Bobbers were mostly unknown to each other a year ago. A tiny group of old friends swam together once last June and thought no more about it. Then in September as it became obvious that the Pandemic was a more permanent feature in our lives we did it again. The next stage is as random as a new variant emerging. The tiny group of friends were all dog owners and because we were in a pandemic and talking for longer with people we met on our dog walks, we inevitably started chatting about our swimming activity.

This was happening on either side of the River Tamar, the border between Devon and Cornwall. Talking with other dog walkers covers a wide variety of random subjects with strangers. Strangers who also liked the idea of swimming in our local patch of the Atlantic. Bobbing became a thing, a WhatsApp group was formed. Initially we didnt even know each others names. As dog walkers often do we only knew each other as Ralph’s mum, or dad, Stan’s mums or even the lady who borrows a neighbours dog. About 25 people have swum with the Bobbers now, there is a core membership but guest bobbers are a regular occurance. Dog ownership is not essential, talking to people you don’t know is helpful. We have swum several times a week right through the winter, we have shared life events together. Last night was the first Summertime Birthday Bob, a far less clothed or huddled event than the Wintertime Birthday Bobs.

And for once warm enough for people to pose as a group without freezing their bits off.

Happy Birthday Kim Bobber

Pandemic Pondering #448

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns1 Comment

Foggy/Sea Mist morning is my excuse for late blogging, that and extreme domestic admin.

The sea mist is not the scenic kind. Thankfully blooms and bee bottoms have saved me from an empty space where a blog should be.

Actually as I write this the sun has burnt off most of the non-scenic mist but the bee bottoms have fully engaged me now. I even managed to gather a half decent bee in-flight picture.

Bees in the bright pink flowers are fidgety creatures. Resting only for a second or so it is hard to get a good bee bottom shot.

I’m unsure why this should be the pollen supplies look lush and plentiful.

Hugo and Lola required more dog biscuits today. The pet shop is attatched to a garden centre and more busy bees posed, this time no bottom shots!

There we are a late blog featuring a lot of bees, no non scenic sea mist and just because I can, a lovely baby fern leaf.

Pandemic Pondering #447

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

Bobbing with guests. Yesterday was the warmest day so far in 2021. Three guest bobbers arrived for the morning dip. Two with the normal two legs but one with four legs and he bought his own body board.

Stan took to the sea very calmly. There was a lot of fussing to get his life jacket on but even though straps went in some curious places he was a confident man when standing on his board.

Not much serious swimming happened with Stan around. He was very eager to lick the salty faces of his fellow bobbers but beyond that he just took in the views and let the light wind ruffle his ears and whiskers.

Swimming with Stan and his board gave a lovely youthful glow to the face of his mum. We may all swim with a yellow float in future. In other bobbing news there was much activity on the bobbing whatsapp group about another potential new member…

Boris Johnson takes a dip at G7 over the weekend.

Pandemic Pondering #446

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life1 Comment

An unplanned Sunday trip to our favourite beach, Harlyn.

Unplanned, because G7 security on the roads into Cornwall was very high Friday and early Saturday and we didnt really want to get stuck in road closures further down. Things relaxed a bit later on Saturday, once the Queen had left. She also did a Cheap Day Return trip by train because she had  Trooping the Colour to attend and some baking to do before POTUS arrived on Sunday for tea. Too bad really as she had practiced her look for the ‘ Festival vibe bar-b-que’ at G7 on Saturday night’

©Juno Rooms

Inexplicably but just like any other conference the male politicians turned up in the same stale suit they had been wearing for several days.

©Andrew Parsons/ No. 10

With the Queen busy elsewhere we tentatively planned an early Sunday morning trip. The traffic was unusually light and we arrived at our usual field with plenty of space to park the camper van.

Hugo and Lola were excited to be back. Christmas Day was the last time we were here.

The early morning sun lit up the clusters of mussels.

We were almost as excited as the dogs to get the first swim of the day done.

Harlyn is not a ‘ Bobbing’ beach. The waves are a good bit more rufty- tufty than our usual waters, coastguards show the safe places to swim We strode in assertively and did proper swimming in between having masses of water dumped on us by the powerful waves.

Lola also took to the sea, and was very proud of herself.

The mid portion of the day was spent keeping dogs cool and reading books and newspapers. Unusually there was some really good coffee available from the beach cafe.

Although the artwork was a bit counterintuitive, why depict one of the worlds most colourful artists in black and white?

A quiet, peaceful afternoon was temporarily disturbed by large helicopters circling the sky above nearby Newquay airport. Then AirForce 1 flew over the camper van taking POTUS off to Windsor Castle for afternoon tea, away from G7. We made do with camping tea which was lovely.

The afternoon swim was lively, we all got well dumped on by the powerful waves. I tried, and mostly failed to use my silky water filter on the phone camera.

An unexpectedly successful day at the beach. Sleepy dogs on the way home.