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.
A new Christmas Star combined with blue white lights , vaguely reminds me of the accepted depiction of the Coronovirus.
As a creative person, fond of flights of fancy, it is somewhat disappointing that, the much anticipated, vaccine is a clear fluid, all very clinical and reassuring, I’m sure. The magnitude of the job, though, surely requires something that resembles a potion, served in an old chemistry lab beaker and smoking with the addition of liquid nitrogen.
The imagined potion would be green, Lime green through to chartreusse. I’m not overthinking this at all! Well actually I am overthinking this, I’m keeping my eyes out for baubles in this exact shade of green to hang in the Christmas tree alongside the Covid Star for this year. A visual immunisation.
In future years we will unpack the baubles and wonder why anyone would choose baubles in such an unseasonal colour. I wonder if I should do a bulk order of Reindeers to grant my tree some ‘ Herd’ immunity?
I blame these short days, the long nights allow time for folkloric Ponderings of a meandering and pointless sort.
One week from the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. These three photos were taken within the space of about ten minutes and all within the same geographical location at either end of the tunnel that leads to the sea from the Royal William Yard, in Plymouth.
It had been a very grey day but just at the last moment some colour grazed the sky. The photo above does have a filter applied and the other two are artificially lit but the vivid colours brightened up the end of the day.
These last few short days of December are my least favourite time of year. I completely understand why many cultures and religions choose to throw a festival into the schedule to perk things up a little. Two of the three daily walks get closer together as I try to catch the best of the day at either end of the available daylight.
Left to their own devices Hugo and Lola would not choose to interrupt quality sleeping time with scheduled walks at this time of year. They accompany me out of love not neccesity. To be honest I feel the same but we have never discussed it. Perhaps we should…
P.S This 10 year old post just popped up on Facebook, nothing changes!
Baubles, bubbles and the rule of 6. Driving home for Christmas 2020.
December 2020 in Britain and we are all finalising our rule of 6 festive bubbles to celebrate Christmas. Driving Home for Christmas is going to be different and in many cases impossible this year.
Nothing to be done about it. We are just going to have to sparkle within a confined gathering. Except sparkling may not be exactly what we do. This weekend we ventured into a physical shop to buy some festive clothes. Like hybrid magpie/moles, in drag, we are normally drawn to sequins and velvet accesorised by high heels( briefly) for the festive season. This year we’ve plunged into the high tech world of thermal underwear and wicking layers all the better to enjoy our outdoor gatherings. The high heels forgotten in favour of walking boots. Flamboyance is not found in the aisles of the thermal underwear world. Sparkle on a personal level will be replaced by the gentle glow of a pair of women who have the double security of knowing that the vest that is tucked into their knickers has additional thermal qualities. Seasonal Security in a 2020 world of uncertainty.
We are really clocking up the footmiles this weekend. Fresh air and thermal underwear, the 2020 theme for buzzingly busy pre-christmas weekends. Except the buzz has been replaced by lateral conversations and an intimate knowledge of the state of neighbours illuminations.
Last night took in some luminous examples of house decorating and bush trimming. This one stands out because it has been done to raise funds for a charity and with all the ingenuity of a Covid world it is very easy to donate by following the instructions on a sign.
Donating is the easy bit, pondering rarely takes the easy bit. @theoldmortuary spent some time reading the charities web page while our feet throbbed from our pavement pounding. The work they do is significant and hugely important. The published case studies kept @theoldmortuary awake last night.
The United Kingdom is in a funny old place in this run up to Christmas. An apolitical truth is that none of this is the fault of anyone under 18. Christmas 2020 will put on a brave face but its midwinter, Stygian understory will be every bit as bleak as those Christmases of Dickens or Rossetti/Holst.
Those of us that are able should donate to charity, just like shopping, small and local is probably better than large and corporate.
A quiet day at The Box yesterday. Being in a gallery I’ve talked about a bit gives me the chance to talk about a very old ponder that took place in The Plymouth City Museum, the forbear of The Box more than 25 years ago.
It happened in the galleries that are now called Port of Plymouth. 25 years ago I was a very regular visitor to the museum , particularly when the weather was not good and I had two small children to entertain. We always spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the case that held Plymouth Argyle artifacts and memorabilia, because my son was obsessed with football. On one visit a face and a name caught my eye from a 1920’s team photo. The name , Jack Pullen, and the face reminded me of someone I was at school with and briefly I wondered if they were related. In many respects this was highly unlikely as I went to school in Essex, The player in question though was a Welsh International player and my school friends name was Dai so it was not a completely unreasonable thought. In fairness I didn’t really dwell on it too much.
In 2010 I was living and working in London and the internet had changed communication in all sorts of ways. Dai, who lives in Australia, and I would exchange occasional volleys of emails. On one occasion I was nattering about both my grown up children working in hospitality at Plymouth Argyle. He responded by telling me his grandfather had played for Argyle for 10 years in the pre World War 2 era. My pondering of the team photo all those years ago had been correct. I did a little bit of research but didn’t find anything much about the talented player beyond what Dai already knew.
By the time I moved back to Plymouth the old city museum has been closed for a long time and the new museum was taking shape. It was only last week when I was working in the new museum that I remembered that strange coincidence.
Meanwhile Dai had misplaced photos of his grandfather. Once again the internet and chance/coincidence and serendipity took the old ponder and gave it some new life.
Whilst working in London I made a friend of another Welshman called Marc who had introduced me to a woman called Sarah that he had trained with. She is an ardent Plymouth Argyle supporter, not something you meet too often in the capital. Last week I contacted her and asked if she had any books about Argyle history. She didn’t but after a bit of research she came up with a really informative website.
Yesterday I said that dog walking could be repetitive. But today blogging is repetitive. Yesterday I was out early to catch the dawn and today was the same, strengthened by the knowledge that yesterday, dawn was about the only time the sun showed it’s face.
Forder Creek, at dawn. A wonderful place to walk at low tide.
Penzance to Paddington.Paddington to Penzance
True to form the sun rose and was briefly beautiful but soon the ghastly greige of a West Country winter set in. My morning was filled with delivering this month’s books to the Bookworms reading group. Lunchtime however brought a very bright surprise. I went for a dog walk with a friend in Victoria Park, Plymouth, followed by an impromptu visit to a wonderful interiors shop. But it was the exteriors that chased away the greige of the day.
Dog walking can be repetitive, particularly the walks closest to home or favourites. London Park walks became meditative but also made me really appreciate the subtle way the seasons shift and change. Walks in Cornwall have a bigger diversity even if they all start more or less in the same area. In 12 hours I have done the same dog walk twice. Into the town and then off for a run by the river. I wasn’t lacking in options for other walks but I needed to do other things in the same location and not everything was open at the same times.
Last night’s walk was brightened up by our local towns festive project. Winter Wanderland. Local people and businesses were encouraged to make illuminated window displays, using sillouettes to brighten up walking about town, in place of the usual Christmas Carol Festival
The was no worry about avoiding crowds. We didn’t meet anyone else doing any winter wandering. Ours is not a town that gets giddy with excitement at the best of times. The promise of illuminated windows did not tickle anyone’s giddygland in this Tier 1 destination, despite many of the windows being really good.
Less than twelve hours later , nature threw a visual sillouette party of its own.
Still no giddiness or excitement or even any other people , but definitely something good to look at on a dog walk.
The Theft of the Family Baubles Yesterday saw the gathering of three friends for breakfast @theoldmortuary table. For those of you who have read the ‘about’ page of this blog will know the table is where many Ponderings start.
All three of us had rather sad tales involving the theft of our familial collections of Christmas decorations. I suspect it is unusual to have such sorry tales involving something as trivial as Christmas decorations but the triviality underlines the unkindness of people.
Memories for all three of us are triggered by Christmas decorations. As a collective group of women we have been robbed of Christmas decorations that we knew and loved as children. Between the three of us they represented memories from Woolworths, Hong Kong, Poland, Harrods and many unremembered locations and events , in age they possibly stretched back almost 100 years. The theft of them says so much about the character of the people who took them as their only true value is within the loving memories of family members. Sadly, they are likely to all be in landfill somewhere now, as detached from their memories they do become worthless tat.
I think, encouraged by this sad talk, we decided to mark 2020 with some new decorations. We were aiming for gaudy colours with maybe a hint of retro and perhaps a little bit tastelessness. These new additions illustrate this blog.
Several things revealed themselves to us.
Gaudy and tasteless is not a thing in 2020.
Woolworths has gone.
The first week of December is way too late to get peak choice in Christmas Bauble World.
Some stars look a little like a Covid-19 Virus.
And to those Bauble thieves in three different locations – we know where you live.
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