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.
Here is a Dartmoor Sheep demonstrating where a Scrag End of Lamb is anatomically. However for the purpose of this blog the sheep is actually chasing down the Scrag End of Summer. Which has been officially declared in this house. Just like Swifts, the birds ; the last of our summer visitors have left the building today. Our Swifts, our family have flown, not for sub-Saharan Africa but for Hong Kong and Canada. So the main events of Summer are done.
However I am a big fan of the scrag end of summer. The slightly faded landscape, the gentler heat and even the unpredictable weather. Sometimes I fool myself that Scrag End Summer is a pretty long time period. But right now we are missing our summer visitors and a bustling busy house. It will take a little adjustment and a few cups of tea before we fully embrace the reality of the Scrag End of Summer 2025.
Yesterday was a day of peaks. Fitting a lot of local tourism into a day and achievements of different sorts all slotted into the day like pieces of a jigsaw.
I would like to say we peaked early in the day calmly by taking down the marquee at the Tennis Club. Our family of tall and fit individuals were invaluable.
But just before that, I had hit a peak of stupidity and miscalculated who was where and had house keys. Neatly managing to lock the house with no keys on the outside. Luckily I had managed to only lock the front of the house. Just a twelve foot stone wall to clamber.
Luck was with me, as it was for the whole day. I had also locked out a former Welsh Guard who did a very athletic vertical wall climb to save the very early part of the day.
Dilly Dallying firmly behind me , the marquee was taken down and we visited our Canadian Cohorts Airbnb to see very familiar sights from a different perspective.
Their accommodation was over our favourite coffee shop.
Then with peak efficiency we hit our Family Gathering Brunch exactly on schedule.
Entertained vividly by the RNLI we posed by an old crane.
Then straight off to Tinside for a swim.
Although that particular peak experience was to swim in the sea so we were a little to the left of this picture.
Then up to the Hoe for some posing and musing about the Beatle Buttock print sculpture nearby.
And just like that the last schedule of the day was on the horizon. Dinner at Nora”s with Norah.
But while we were busy being peak performing tourists something funny was happening. This blog started reaching a record number of views. Peak viewing.
The wonderful thing about hosting out-of-town family is that we fill the day with lovely things. So much so that locking everyone out of the house is just a minor inconvenience.
On August 16th, 2025 Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club celebrated 80 years since Japan’s surrender spread and World War II officially ended.Bunting and Union Jack flags were strung between the clubhouse and the marquee, enrobed by camouflage netting, protecting from nothing more serious than the sun on this occasion.
Sunshine, good food, great music and some wonderful dancing set the scene for an afternoon of catching up with friends, meeting new people and enjoying good nattering time with our family. Some dancing from the era of WW2 was achieved elegantly by some, less so by the rest of us…
80 years since the end of WW2 at Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club.
The hard work that these events require from a few for the pleasure of a whole community is always amplified in value if the weather is good. Yesterday the weather was very very kind. Just a slightly nippy wind that made flags, skirts and hats fly but also cooled what could have been an over hot afternoon.
Today was a day when the stars aligned. Dog grooming appointment and high tide .No need for fantasy swimming, the real thing at Wembury was glorious. Then basking in the sunlight, all while the dogs were being primped just a mile in-land.
The real thing was very glorious but a few hours later as the tide dropped a massive field of seaweed revealed itself. I considered if crossing it was a sensible idea and decided that on balance it was. As it turned out balance was the problem and I soon slipped on the rocks made slippy by layers of seaweed. Like a wallowing hippo I splashed around in the shallow water. Neither getting deeper or getting out was an easy option.
Out was the sensible thing as other swimmers made the same perilous journey with similarly awkward results.
My bathing costume had become a bag of writhing slippery seaweed. Our beach day was over. The outdoor shower was too feeble to move the loathsome stuff to any great extent. My journey home was deeply uncomfortable. Maybe fantasy rock pool swims are a good idea
I’ve been a lone bobber more often this year than any other. A good summer and warm water calls me when the tide is high.
Lone bobbing and group bobbing are two completely different experiences. Group Bobbing is a life-affirming experience that jiggles my soul and gives me plenty to reflect on.
My Private stairway to watery heaven.
Lone bobbing is all about quiet reflection . Just bobbing about in the water pleasurably reflecting on life.
Group bobbing is the most restorative of the two submersions. The weight of the world can float off my shoulders when I am bobbing with the bobbers. My grumpies/worries really do get reframed by social bobbing. I don’t believe I would go for a lone bob if I was cross with life or people. Maybe I should try it sometime.
Coastal Grandma style has been a bit of a summer thing for the last few years. Regardless of ‘style’ I am, at many levels a Coastal Grandma even at my least stylish.
I live by the the sea.
My two children have made me a coastal grandma, although I am called Nana. I have three granddaughters who visit me by the sea.
Sometimes I wear beige/pale/cream clothes. But not always. Today coastal nana is wearing a denim blue t-shirt dress and a pair of heavy-duty green crocs with bright blue straps. While she does the post-visit laundry.
What is the ‘thing’. Certainly hard work in the home and in the workplace. Being there always for the significant people in my life and to an extent many others with whom I have shared a space or a moment. The ‘ thing’ is also about recognising and enjoying all the lovely moments of a life and surviving and then thriving with resilience all the bad stuff that has ever been done or said to me, or about me to others. It is about using criticism and harsh words as rocket fuel to jet me to my Coastal Space. The gorgeous thing about being a Coastal, or indeed Coasting Grandma is not about location , for me that is serendipitous. It is about a state of mind where the wonder of a two-year-old can mingle with a lifetime of experiences both good and bad and everyone gets something magical from the interaction.
Even doing the laundry had its magical moments today. One bed contained a Schleiche Lion wearing table glitter as a crown and a Schleiche Deer wearing a Sylvanian waistcoat. The other bed was scattered with lavender heads. Enough to have charmed a visiting Queen of England to stay a month in our spare room.
Coasting Grandma is probably a more appropriate title. Useful in so many varied locations.
Day 1 of being back to 1 girl. The fizz summer that is 3 grandchildren has dropped to the more normal level of 1.
Still fizzy, just less so.
So two fizzy girls are returning home and I have photographic memories to be processed and forwarded on. One fizzy girl invited us to a car boot picnic last night. Car boot picnics are all well and good when you are two, but adult heads need a little more headroom when eating chips and drinking ginger beer.
Could ‘Great Thinkers’ be considered a profession?
I am at my most creative when I indulge in disordered thinking. I am more than capable of productive and ordered thinking. To do so, I always have to translate my disordered thinking into ordered thinking. Sometimes I have to allow my ordered thinking to have a little freedom to wander into the realm of creativity.
I admire the undesirable qualities of great thinkers. Selfishness, reliance on others, assuredness, arrogance, certainty, single-mindedness. Knowing, that in my hands those same qualities would not lead to great thoughts but to an insufferable person. The world does need more great thinkers but it does not need any more insufferable people.
I suppose I admire great thinkers in the same way that I admire great sports people. Knowing that something that is a great achievement would not be in my best interests or within my skillset.
My balance, or imbalance as a thinker is 60/40 or 40/60. Constantly switching from one foot to the other to find my own equilibrium. I admire Great Thinkers, I just don’t have it in me to be one.
It is 17 years since I obtained my Fine Art Degree. A watershed moment in my creative life. Finally achieving the type of degree I wanted, rather than the career based subjects I chose to pursue at 18. Getting what I had always wanted was not as satisfying as I had imagined. In fact after I got my degree I went through the least creative phase of my entire life. 2 years of not creating any new projects or attending art courses. A very fallow patch. I think I needed it. A Fine Art Degree was not a bit as I had imagined. Luckily in my 2 years of zero creativity I lived in London and could visit museums and art galleries and stock my mind up with all the things that I had been taught to appreciate in real life rather than from text books. After the 2 year gap I atarted making art again and have been doing so for 15 years. There is a good bit of art stocked up in drawers and files around my home which is why When I needed to illustrate my blog of yesterday I could find a sketch of a Leviathan from my stash of art work.
Facebook reminded me today. of a large 2 metre by 2 metre painting that I sold about 5 years ago.
My leviathan is tiny in comparison but with the magic of a digital manipulation app I can put the two together. They sit comfortably together because the mark-making on both is mine and the relative difference in scale has been altered as can the perspective.
The large abstract painting has gone on its own journey, which is satisfying but the poor old Leviathan has been stuck in a folio with no obvious future, other than the tip when I am in my dotage or deceased.
But by playing around with both today he may have a future as a greetings card or a print. The Leviathan in Plymouth Sound is a catchy title…
Mythical creatures on a mystical night. We camped overnight under a full moon and read books about mythical creatures.
As luck would have it the mythical creature in the book was a Leviathan which we had visited earlier in the day.
Overlooking Plymouth Sound for overnight camping we were not troubled by the low sad songs of unhappy Leviathans. Instead they jumped and frolicked in the bright moonlight which was untroubled by clouds or any other weather predicament.
The Leviathan and a full moon at StonehouseThe Leviathan and Plymouth Hoe
It helps, of course, that Nana drew a Leviathan a few years ago.
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