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.
We are not really flower growing people but the eccentricity of Dahlias has led us to attempt a little autumn colour. Last year we had an amazing show of audacious blooms. Despite proper care over winter this year has been not so good.
Pests are likely to be the cause of this year’s tatty blooms. One of the few bonuses of autumn is that as the temperature drops the pests decline. This week we have four good blooms.
I suspect dahlias inspire a certain nerdiness . Instagram search #dahlia has taken me to a world of gorgeousness. Back at home we are making the most of our four precious bugfree blooms.
In other less photogenic news our local library has opened for the first time in 7 months for browsing and borrowing. No books about Dahlias though. Shame
Coffee and books, some days just ooze with pleasure.
This one started well with the arrival of our coffee prize from Extract Coffee. Our beans were roasted by hand restored roasters Big Bertha and Vintage Betty at Extract Coffee.
Coffee at my elbow, it was time to Bookclub Zoomstyle.
Again no spoilers, we all felt very much the same about this book. A complex beginning that could be off-putting but a good tale once the narrative established itself .
Three of us shared an emotional moment that had happened when we met earlier in the week,with the group. @theoldmortuary and a Covidfriend all lost our parents at an earlier than average age, we all loved our parents dearly. A passage in the book had made us all have a little weep. And then another weep when we discussed it and then today when sharing the tale of our weepings, there were more weepings.
The protagonist had never known her mother and now her father was close to death.
“On the third and finalnight, a bright light shines from my Father’s body. And in the sublime peace of his face, I saw my mother waiting for him.”
” I had never seen my mother’s face and had longed beyond all longing to one day see it. I still do.in fact- that is a desire that age hasn’t softened- because that night her face was hidden, covered by the thick tress of her dark hair.”
” But I knew it was her because she used words like mine and daughter and her breath was of the sea.”
” My father said to her: Hello my love. You’ve come back to me.”
” My mother said: I never left.”
“And in those three words was a lifetime.”
” He said: Shall we go then? And they turned to me and they said: Can you let us go do you think?”
” And I could say nothing. I raised my hand, a feeble attempt at a wave, I think. But I could say nothing. Because I was 14 years old and all I wanted to say was, Please, don’t go.”
There’s not much that can follow such a passage but fortunately the book offers a very upbeat Bonus Material addition to the book.
To be a Reader
by Sarah Winman
To be a reader, for me, is about entering a world of unimagined possibility; to have the willingness to suspend disbelief and to journey trustingly across the terrain of another’s imagination.
To be a reader is to feel a little less lonely. To be a reader is to be challenged. To feel anger, to feel outrage and injustice. But always to feel, always to think. To be a reader is not a passive state, it is active, always responding.
To be a reader is to have the opportunity to question ourselves at the deepest level of humanity – what would we have done in this situation? What would we have said? To be a reader is to feel empathy and compassion and grief. To be awed and to laugh. To fall in love, with characters, locations, the author. To be a reader is to learn and to be informed, and to rouse the dreamy inner life to action.
To be a reader is to take time out from the group. To not fear missing out; to turn off the TV, YouTube, the Internet. It is to slow down and engage; to be of the present. To be a reader is to find answers. It gives us something to talk about when we are unsure what to say.
To be a reader is to have the chance to collect stories like friends, and hold them dearly for a lifetime. It is to feel the joy of connection.
We’ve had a shockingly wet weekend, tasks that would normally be difficult have been made difficult and uncomfortable. Just before the rain set in I snapped this picture. It seemed like a metaphor for the current Pandemic, although I think the dark alley might have a bit of a way to go yet. I’m not sure what the ladder represents, maybe a vaccine, as yet undeveloped. currently however as much use as a ladder laying on its side.
We went to a cafe in Burford , we met our Covid Friends there. The cafe is situated within a church building. It is a warm welcoming cafe with a soft buttery/ creamy interior and the smell.of good coffee and smiling people within it. There was a striking image of a hug just as you walk in.
The painting represents the return of the prodigal son, but just like the alleyway it takes on a different meaning in our current situation when hugs of this intensity are denied us in almost all circumstances. This weekend however hugs with either of us would have been damp affairs. A planned weekend of business away from home but in the pouring rain has depleted our small supply of clothes packed into overnight rucksacks. The saying ” There is no such thing as the wrong weather, you just need the right clothes” exactly sums up this weekend. Luckily beyond rain we were also showered with the company of friends and family who were very lucky not to have to hug us but who made onerous tasks easier and more joyful with their presence.
@theoldmortuary are having a strange old week. Lots of work to do towards an anticipated end point without ever quite knowing where that end point might be. As a consequence we’ve had no wi-fi and poor signal coupled with too much physical work for pondering. On a positive note there has been time for reading this week. I’ve finished the book club book mentioned in Pandemic Pondering #236. Some bits needed rereading before the Monday Zoom meeting.
My choice of reading has changed with the pandemic. With more time I’ve given myself the chance to enjoy a broader range of styles. This book is as marvelous as it’s title. A contemporary dose of magic realism. A tale of the West Country with the cliché content woven in a unique way.
Book number two in the informal @theoldmortuary Book Club is…
This is quite a ride. Is it poetry or prose? A breathtaking, stay awake long-after-bed-time read. No spoilers here. I’ve never read anything quite like it in its style. It has the punch of a short story with twists and turns that made me squirm with anticipatory caution for the protagonist.
Finally number three
This has everything that book one has in using geography I am really familiar with, London. Coupled with Modernist Fine Art and a Windrush generation narrator. The Spanish Civil War is also a massive character in this book.
In my Covid Friend Collection I have gathered a scatty English teacher who probably winces at my punctuation and grammar but can also talk the hind leg off a donkey. I’m pushing these three in her direction so we can have a good old book natter. Happy Sunday xxx
Since early in the Pandemic Lockdown @theoldmortuary have been trying to minimise plastic use. We’ve got a good stock of bottles and jars and we have largely been quite successful . Occasionally though particularly tenacious stuff stays stuck in the corner at the bottom of a bottle even after a good spin in the dishwasher. What we need is a good old fashioned bottle brush , we’ve looked sporadically for one but it’s not always remembered and we are trying to avoid too much Amazon shopping. Preferring, where possible to shop both independently and local.
Our trip to Burford provided us with a Bottlebrush Epiphany!
A selection of bottle brushes that would make you giddy even if you didn’t need a bottle brush. Other brushes too; but I kept a tight hold on my excitement and came away with two brushes for those hard to reach places and grubby nooks and crannies.
Had I realised that the current cold and stormy weather was going to send many spiders into our house I might have bought the gorgeous creation below instead of just photographing it for texture.
October started @theoldmortuary with a touch of socialising with our Covid friends that we first met in Pandemic Pondering #44 on the 2nd May. A chance meeting in a coffee queue at Hutong, Plymouth, has led to a summer of meeting and exploring various locations in Devon and Cornwall. Again quite by chance we were both staying near the Cotswolds town of Burford. Given the location of our meeting it would have been uncivilised not to have met up for a coffee. Covid friends know the area well as they lived in Burford for a while. For us Burford is somewhere we pass through but never stop because it is always somewhat crowded with tourists. One of the bonuses of the pandemic is less tourists, so today was a good day to stop and have a wander. Burford is hugely picturesque and my photography is never going to be as good as the images you could find on the internet, so Google Burford to find all the gorgeous images and information that others have provided.
Cotswold Stone
The morning colours of Burford were amazing. It helped that October arrived wearing sunshine first thing in the morning. There was still dew in the nooks and crannies of the churchyard.
We also found a petulant cherub on a grave. She/he looks like the sort of toddler to avoid rather than a second order angel to spend eternity with. She/he may be unhappy because someone has dressed her/him with her/his wings under her/his chin. Speaking as someone who recently put a hoody on the wrong way round, I understand the grumpiness. It’s hard to be effective with either thing on back to front.
Effectiveness is the key word for this blog. @theoldmortuary has more things to do than the time available for a couple of days. Blogs will be brief but hopefully not dull. Link below to properly explore Burford.
As September slips gently into October it seems the pandemic has erased Halloween from many of the places it would normally be a quite obvious marketing season. ( Quite honestly I couldn’t be happier I have always hated it’s trashy threatening undertones) Mexican Day of the Dead is a whole different matter, a positive festival around the same topic.
The lack of Halloween has liberated me from disliking the colour orange at this time of year. 2020 the year of loving orange in October. Today started well with a spot of bright rust.
Followed by a gorgeous autumnal crema on my morning coffee
October is the time of the gourd and this year, so far, they are not being pushed out of the limelight by obese bloated pumkins.
Thank goodness there were some yellow squashes in this picture . It gives me the chance to lead into this zingy yellow Citroen.
With the absence of Halloween, Christmas has come a little early, so I managed to grab a little autumn colour enhanced by fairy lights, what’s not to love.
Without being overly contrived let’s hope that October goes swimmingly.
@theoldmortuary has been involved with a new museum and art gallery in Plymouth for the last couple of years. Until recently as a hard hat tour guide of the building site. A job that involved wearing shared PPE, hard hat, steel toe capped boots, fluorescent waistcoat and rubberised gloves to enable me to show groups of people around the museum site as it was being built. Tours stopped once the museum was ready for its internal fit out and the return of exhibits to the new space. Then Covid-19 struck and everything was delayed.
Yesterday the museum finally threw it’s doors open to the public albeit in a more controlled, socially distanced way than anyone had planned..
Staff and volunteers have had a few days of soft openings with restricted numbers of visitors to practice on.
Photographs were and always will be allowed but publishing them on social media, blogs etc was banned until the first full day of opening to the public. Rather than bombard you with many glimpses of the museum I will share pictures as I learn my way around the museum. I’ve done two shifts so far in the same space. St Lukes Contemporary Art Space.
The new fused glass window by Leonor Antunes is the first thing that dazzles visitors.
As the light outside changes the mood of the gallery alters significantly. Within St Luke’s there is an installation by the same artist, it is fascinating and relevant to Plymouth it deserves its own blog at a later time.
The link below is a positive piece of publicity that explains, far better than I can, the whole Box experience.
Sunflowers on a tricksy day. Pandemic Ponderings is not the place to share all the ups and downs @theoldmortuary . More a place to ponder on the pandemic and the effect it has on a fairly normal household. Today a small family pet went on that dreaded one way trip to the vet. Not one of the coffee hounds. Visits to the vet are a hugely affected by Covid -19 precautions and restrictions. So today was difficult plus difficult. Yet the vet we met was brilliant at expressing kindness and compassion at a distance and with a mask on. A sad experience made better by someone who was brilliant at being a good human.
The death of small pets, always seems to be a particularly poignant grief. I’ve always thought it gathers all the sadness that is laying around in your mind from other experiences and allows it a way out which seems disproportionate. I suspect the pandemic has magnified that sensation. Which is why I’ve allowed this subject into Ponderings.
Living through the Pandemic has probably made @theoldmortuary all a little bit more fragile or sensitive. The normal tribulations of life just seem that little bit more taxing.
Yesterday was a day for basking in afternoon sunshine. Autumn may have arrived but the sunshine had forgotten and we sat, like lizards on hot rocks, taking in the late September sun. The wind however was very much in Autumn mode and swirled and nipped at us whenever we turned a corner between buildings. In truth the basking was accidental , we were only on one of our regular dog walks but we had stopped for a coffee and some people watching. Neither were exciting enough to be pondered about but the sunshine was lovely. For reasons which I don’t fully understand the water which accompanied our coffee arrived iced and with a straw. Leave two women with a straw in strong sunshine and this is what you get!
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