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 Ponderings#21

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BooksLeave a comment

Evolving Bookworms. I belong to a small bookgroup. We provide ourselves with book sets loaned by Cornwall Library Service, we’ve just read our last book issued before libraries closed their doors as part of Coronovirus. The system is pretty easy, groups choose a years worth of book sets from a list on the Library website. The sets are then delivered to our local library once a month. The system is not foolproof and we don’t always get a set that we selected but every month there is a set of books waiting for us at the library. Unexpected books have given us the opportunity to read something none of us would have chosen, we always have lively discussions regardless of how much the book was enjoyed.

So that’s pre- pandemic book club, but now we are in Pandemic Bookworming.

We opted to use WhatsApp as our platform of choice, too many of us to use the video function but we could record voice messages and obviously write our opinions. We used it live for two hours during the time our actual meeting would have taken place. One unusual aspect for our group is that the book remains with us so I’ve been able to reread bits of the book with new insight provided by my bookworm colleagues. I can re listen to their comments and read the written notes. Normally we hand the book back.

Why did we never think of a WhatsApp group before? Bookworms unable to attend the meetings could have been fully involved even on months when attending a meeting was impossible.

For the next month the WhatsApp group remains open for bookish chat and for our next month two hour meeting we will bring a piece.of poetry to the group and talk about our individual literary adventures.

Initially I’m switching gear a bit. Swapping H E Bates Uncle Silas, a book that was not much to my taste despite some amazing descriptions of country ways.

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk was in my holiday reading pile until this morning. A pile that will sustain me for some time.

If reading about books is your thing I can really reccomend this blog.
https://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles

I’ve been reading it for years. This woman is single handedly responsible for my dreadful piles … Of books.

dovegreyreader lives on Dartmoor, not far from here. Her blog is based on books but roams on Dartmoor and ponders on a variety of stuff.

Pandemic Ponderings #20

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment
Fanny the Gipsy Hill cat, always attentive, listening

Today has been all about listening. Social Isolation and the restrictions on life imposed by Governments to slow the spread of Coronovirus are impacting every part of our lives. This morning I attended a Zoom Commitee meeting. It was a significant meeting and the chairman used the mute function and gave every Commitee member the space and time to talk, uninterrupted, about the subject of the meeting. It was an extraordinarily powerful experience. Listening intently to each person, knowing that you would also get your chance to have your say. I think we got through a tricksy meeting with more grace than I usually experience with this group. I am by nature a listener and reflector, it felt very comfortable for everyone to be constrained to do the same.

Later in the day a book club I belong to managed a meeting using WhatsApp, using a mixture of voice recorded comments or written texts to discuss our views on the book we’ve all been reading this month. Again this was an experience of accurate listening and responding either by text or recorded message.

Listening , a very powerful tool. Strangely revealed by these curious times.

Illustrated by some ears found in my image file.

Carousel Horse, Port Dalhousie, Lake Ontario, Canada.

Pandemic Ponderings #19

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PangolinsLeave a comment

Pangolin fever @theoldmortuary hit new levels yesterday when a Pangolin popped in for tea on his way to Truro to join Miss VV’s menagerie.

Pangolin posed for pictures in the garden before being popped in the post instead of an Easter egg.

Pangolin particularly liked the litchen on our old bench as it seemed to be to scale.

The old hedge was less comfy but gave a good moment in the sun.

Happy Sunday to humans and Pangolins wherever you are…

Pandemic Pondering#18

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings1 Comment

How will this period in our world history be viewed ? There will be retrospective judgement on decisions made by governments and individuals. We will all lose some links and forge others.

Whilst we are in it it feels like a huge pause in life. Within this huge pause , I took a little pause this week. I’m not entirely sure why. Like many of us I have some very serious concerns about friends and the future. I’m struggling with my lack of personal freedom and by the restrictions placed on us all for the common good.

My world has become so small and yet I can still fill every waking moment with something. Good books, dog walking , cleaning, painting both creative and domestic , uninterrupted conversations, gardening. Thoughts

My head is full of the positive things I’m experiencing , but my political thoughts also get ample time to rant . People who have been lovely get fully celebrated and mentally showered with gratitude.But oh my goodness if someone pisses me off, the things my head creates for their retribution is not pretty.

So I’ve had a pause, I’ve had a good old think and am hugely grateful to be where I am.

What’s the toilet roll story ?

I’ve had some loo roll thinking time.

Back on Pandemic Pondering #1 Day, @theoldmortuary was running out of loo roll. It was the height of panic buying and bulk purchasing in British shops. There are only going to be two of us here for quite a while but the only amount of loo rolls we could buy, locally, was a massive 36 roll pack. That just seemed a bit stupid and put me in the same league of idiocy as all the fools overbuying products for their homes. We had enough for the week so the problem was not critical. Decades earlier my grandparents used to cut up The Daily Mail and the Daily Express for bum wiping , the only useful thing for those publications and quite a lot of British newspapers so I already knew there were other options.

Then luxury caught up with me. 4 roll packs of toilet paper were available. I had the option of only peach coloured loo roll impregnated with either Shea Butter or Aloe Vera. Caution was thrown to the wind and one pack of each found their way to @theoldmortuary.

There are many problems with this. I am a woman of life-long use of bog standard white toilet roll.

My first experience of turning around after a wee was shocking, peach loo paper combined with very standard straw coloured wee, gives the appearance of something very wrong in the urinary department!

How did anybody cope in the seventies with gaudy porcelain toilets and brightly coloured toilet paper. The reason I’m a white loo roll woman is because my mum thought coloured toilet roll was common.Her views were the same on toothpaste. She saw nothing wrong with one bathroom in Avocado Green and the other in Tropical Turquoise while the outside loo was Sunshine Yellow. Nothing common about our sanitary ware as long as the toilet paper was white and the torn edge hung down the back. These are rules I can abide by.

Sadly my mum was already deceased when moisturised toilet paper became a thing. I don’t know what her opinion would be. I can guess though. When did moisturised toilet roll become a thing?

Why?

Toilet paper is for dabbing dampness after a wee, why would my lady garden or your boy bits need moisturising at this point, or indeed any point?

Secondly it’s for clearing up after a poo. A slippery, slithery,at times,sticky activity, what possible benefit does extra moisturiser bring to this particular party. None. What you need is a little tooth or traction on the surface of your loo paper to get the job done.

Now clearly two different moisturisers must have different qualities. My bog standard butt, trained only on white bog standard loo roll , discerned no difference whatsoever. The introduction of moisturised papers to my sanitary areas brought no benefit . No increase in walking speed as my buttocks slid silkily over each other, no astounded looks from passers-by as I exuded Aloe Vera or Shea Butter enhanced side steps whilst maintaining social distance . No delicate fragrance eminating from my jeans hinting at a subtly moisturised buttock cleft

Something tells me , and it may be too much time has been spent thinking about this, that fancy toilet paper is just a crock of sh**e

I leave you with Standard White, as perfect as it gets.

Continue reading “Pandemic Pondering#18” →

Pandemic Ponderings #17

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

April sweeps in with more promise than March. These two months share the joint responsibility of bringing in Spring and hosting the Easter holidays. This April of course will be unique and this Easter, unusual, because whatever way we traditionally spend the four day weekend. This year will not be the same, in any way, for humans.

The natural world and built environment knows nothing of our 2020 restrictions. Away from our homes all these things are happening. Aprils past have provided these images.

The only one I’ve actually seen in 2020 is the first, 500 yards from @theoldmortuary.

The others are out there, but not for this year.

Wild Garlic brings vibrancy to rural lanes, and fragrance to the kitchen.

Sunshine illuminates beaches effortlessly.

While wild grasses hold the dunes in place.

Old cars twinkle in London Streets.

While bossy notices fail to realise Bill Stickers is currently Socially isolating, untroubled by threats of prosecution.

Closer to home a city beach and sea water pool look crisp but chilly.

Even closer to home the bridges between the rest of the World and Cornwall look super sharp in the evening light.

For now we are at the far end of these bridges and nowhere else.

Pandemic Pondering#16

On By theoldmortuary.designIn artLeave a comment

Another day, another Pangolin.Pangolins are the colour of a winter sea. I am immediately inspired to paint another cuddled- up Pangolin painted in the colours of my favourite winter sea. That of the Atlantic coasts close to my adopted home in the West of England. The greens, blues and browns of seas and minerals stirred up by storms and winds in the wet months of October to March , most years, are every bit as beautiful as turquoise tropical seas.As isolation stretches into the distance , ponderation seems happy to hunker down and settle on one subject for more than one day.I realise not everyone may have had a childhood fascination with the Pangolin or Spiny Ant Eater . So today I’m going to share some top tips on Pangolins. Pangolin is a Malay word for one who rolls up.Pangolins are said to be the most Trafficked Mammal which brings us instantly back to Covid-19. For today I’m going to talk about pre-pandemic Pangolins.They are poached and Trafficked because their scales are highly valued in Chinese Medicine. This trade is illegal internationally. They are also considered to be a luxury bushmeat. I’m unsure if this trade carries a world wide ban .It should. China and Vietnam are the countries where most Pangolin are tradedPangolins are solitary peaceful animals, mostly nocturnal, who only socialise annually to mate. Mating is not instigated in the usual sense by males. They simply leave a bit of poo and wee around and a female sniffs him out when she feels in the mood for reproduction.
What thrilled me as a child was the Pangolin tongue. Longer than the length of its body it is stored in a pouch by the Pangolins hip.

Rear view of Pangolin featuring hip pocket for tongue with spare ants.

This seemed like a super power accessory we could all do with. Their spit is super sticky, all the better to gather termites and ants . Pangolins have no teeth and swallow pebbles to grind the ants into a pulp in their first stomach. Curiously they also have scales inside their stomachs to aid this grinding.Pangolins are found in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The illegal trade in their meat and scales has forced three of the eight species close to extinction , this coupled with the loss of their natural habitat by deforestation has put all eight remaining Pangolin species on an At Risk of Endangerment or Extinction register at various levels of severity as of January 2020.Pangolins in literature might be my Pandemic research of the day…

Pandemic Pondering #15

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Pondering the poor Pangolin.Being a small bookworm took me to some interesting books and introduced me to unusual creatures The Pangolin was a creature I felt an affinity with whenever one appeared in the books I was reading. At other times I sought them out in Zoos and wildlife parks, thrilled by their ability to lick up ants. Their tongue is longer than their whole body and is kept in a pouch by one hip. That’s like a superpower. Pangolins might have remained in a quiet recess in my brain had the current Pandemic not put them very squarely in the frame through no fault of their own. Their scales are prized in Chinese medicine and their flesh is prized as a delicacy, increasingly they are farmed and this unregulated trade puts them in unnatural close proximity to Bats believed to be the original species host of Coronovirus.
Katherine Rundell has written this uncomfortable account of Pangolin reality.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n04/katherine-rundell/consider-the-pangolin
The awkward path of Coronovirus from Bat to Human via the Pangolin in wet Markets in China will be the stuff of much research in the future.
For today I just wanted to sketch my childhood friend, the Pangolin.

As luck would have it, I had a curious wedding garment that I photographed in Greece in my image file . It was just what I needed to give this little chap some bling.

Pandemic Ponderings #14

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family3 Comments

Yesterday was unusual because I didn’t feel particularly inspired to write and was in the lucky position of having written two blogs in one day earlier in the Pandemic so had the chance to stay numerically correct . It is 14 days since Pandemic Ponderings started. I’m not sure what made me not want to write . We needed supplies so I drove the car to a farm for eggs and then hit two supermarkets for provisions. We went for another massive walk. In the same direction as #13 but the opposite riverbank.

The need to bake became imperative and a rich black Guinness Cake sits in the kitchen this morning, some of it already eaten.

In London Cornish Pasties were being made by my daughter and her boyfriend.

Last night we attended a virtual Pub Disco, streamed on Facebook. Hosted by family member Lee Anthony

So there was a lot going on.

My mind was almost certainly taken up with thoughts that swirled around reregistration as a Radiographer. A decision made for me by the government.
It was a big decision to deregister when I left London two years ago. My long career in the NHS had accidentally gone full circle ending exactly where it started at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

An injury in New York, I fell over a flower bed, had thrown up a number of health ssues I was unaware of and some that I had chosen to ignore. The pragmatic approach and slightly early retirement seemed the right answer to these problems. Which it was, the Health issues have righted themselves with rest, medication, weight loss and exercise.

Reregistration is usually bloody hard and involves crossing the government’s palm with Silver and donating time freely to the NHS to prove worthiness and usefulness.

As if by magic in a Pandemic, reregistration becomes easy, which makes me wonder why such apparently useful people have always been made to take a difficult path if they change their own minds.

No time to be churlish.

Both myself and Pandemic Ponderings will be taking a path unimaginable to me 14 days ago. Let’s see where serendipity is taking us tomorrow.

Pandemic Pondering #13

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

Blogging in general is much in mind as I approach the end of March. Blogging through a pandemic is just an added puzzlement.

@theoldmortuary in its current form exists because I attended a blogging course at Spitalfields Townhouse, run by The Gentle Author. It was a hugely supportive and encouraging course with the most delicious blend of course members. We were encouraged to find our blogging style in a way that we could manage and sustain regularly.
https://spitalfieldslife.com/

Ever the nerd, I decided to follow the example of The Gentle Author and blog daily. It must be irritating to regular readers that my grammar is, at times, patchy and the narrative can be rambling. I am never going to have the eloquence or fascinating topics created seemingly so effortlessly by The Gentle Author. I do have cute photos though, a saving grace on days when my content quality wavers.

The deal on the first course was that I would publish a blog every day regardless of how finished or polished it is. This is a bigger deal than I imagined . Serendipity hand in hand with planning is the Key.

Be flexible like Water is useful little mantra.

Having been taught so well by The Gentle Author, it is very apparent that ‘ effortless’ is not a descriptive that fits with the creation of his genuinely lovely blog that has thousands of regular readers. I am completely in awe.

Soon after the November course I registered for the advanced course, being run over a couple of weekends in February and March 2020. After the advanced course I planned to look afresh at the blog to define its future.

Coronovirus leaves me needing that final twinkle of blog polish. As yet the date for the next course is unknown so for the time being the blog will remain what it has become. A daily pondering on something that peaks my interest. My terms of reference on a daily basis are much more limited with Social Isolation and yet even that is not strictly true. Today I looked at a post box I drive past many times a week. I had never realised it was a new design.

Todays local long walk took us down the hill about half a mile to Forder Village. Past this post box.

The tide was out and the sun was up. Hugo and Lola needed to be kept on a lead, this much mud and sunshine would make them giddy with excitement and not responsible for their actions. They do not look or smell at all good after a romp through this stuff.

Who can possibly guess where Coronovirus will take this blog. Where it won’t go is to the Advanced Level, like most things that is on hold.

Pandemic Pondering #12

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends1 Comment

I realised yesterday that in one virus induced action all of my friends have become people I no longer see.

Some of those friendships have 55 years of longevity graduating down to those that have a tiny lifespan of a few weeks or months and may have fizzled to nothing in normal times. The pandemic preserves them all equally in digital ice like fertilised eggs at a fertility clinic. Granted equal potential to survive, or not, over this period of real life isolation. Many of them will be re-implanted into my future life to thrive, inevitably some of them won’t make it and they will be replaced by new friendships created during this highly unusual circumstance . Thinking about this is overwhelmingly sad if I consider the people I may never see or interact with again.
Thankfully none of us know specifically on which metaphorical doors the plague crosses will appear.

I realise fully that this is a highly pessimistic blog and in part it was induced by a photograph that I took a couple of years ago either in Cuba or Spain.

It was lost for a long while in my pile of digital images . Once I rediscovered it it was filed , waiting for its appropriate moment in the sun. Meloncholia seeps from this image but I love it .

For all our sakes I have some gorgeous optimistic flower images to lighten the mood.

A gift from a new friend. A lovely gesture .