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.
1 day to Boxing Day . Here we are on Christmas Day. To borrow a theme from Dickens.
Christmas past.
A 24 hour shift, a 300 mile drive and this is the only picture that survives from this Christmas Eve gathering 13 years ago. I suspect the fact that I am sat down suggests that I may not have been a hugely active party goer.
A similar era photograph of my children who are now fantastic parents themselves. Which moves us to Christmas present.
One of our small granddaughters taking Christmas morning one present at a time.
All of us, three generations are likely to be part of Christmas Future, but for now the future is just a ponder.
How are you creative?
My blogging and the images I create for the blog are a daily creative practice.
Which brings us to Y in 26 Days to Boxing Day.
Y for Yule! How lucky is that.
Yule runs from 21st December until 1st January. A traditional Pagan festival that has neatly been incorporated into the Christian Calendar.
I knew the topic of this Christmas Eve blog when I started the countdown to Boxing Day on December 1st. As it happens the planned blog melds rather comfortably with the prompt from my blog hosts. In fact the prompt focuses the mind somewhat.
I have a hierarchy of influencers/ influences in my life.
All generations of my family that I know or have known.
My Friends
Books
Music
Colleagues and acquaintances
People that I don’t like.
1,5 and 6 are beyond my control. They just happen to me.
This group becomes A.
2,3 and 4 are chosen, an echo chamber of my tastes and likes. This group becomes B.
Honestly so difficult to say which group is the greatest influence on me. I believe it is a healthy mix of both.
Pondering this is mind meandering. Give it a try if you have a few minutes over the festive season.
And so to X on 26 Days to Boxing Day and a late revelation of another factor in choosing ’26 Days to Boxing Day’. X on Christmas Eve is easy, Xmas. Christmas Day will be Y for Yule and Z will sort itself out on the Day.
Oh dear, how I dislike the abbreviation of Christmas down to a reductive Xmas. My apologies now but I find it such a difficult word to think about. It feels like that awful squeak of chalk misdirected on a blackboard. I have chosen the bright colours on the blog inages to visually create that wince making sensation. The other word I dislike for the same reason is ‘kids’.
Sometimes and rather awfully those two words appear in the same lazy sentence at Christmas.
Happy Xmas to you and the kids.
Eughhh!
Happy Christmas to you and yours.
Same sentence, more or less, but much more comfortable. Or is that just me?
We filled the shortest day of 2024 with colour and bright lights. The day started and ended in Devizes, a town very close to Sronehenge where Solstices are always celebrated. But actual daybreak and sunset were experienced at Battersea Power Station in London.
The shortest day unexpectedly took on the colour of Orange. My raincoat is Orange and it became the theme colour of my day.
We even drove to London in an orange car but more of that at the end of the day.
Breakfast at Borough Market with all the fun and pleasure of meeting up with people we haven’t seen for a while. And all the excitement of Christmas in an authentic everyday market.
Borough Market.
Lunchtime was spent at Fortnum and Mason. A place famed for a particular shade of blue, but even they had used Orange as their accent colour for Christmas.
At Fortnum and Mason, we found some fabulous orange hued paintings that reflected the slightly rainy but warm hued feeling of our day.
These paintings by Francis Hamel exactly reflected our late afternoon return to Battersea.
A sprinkling of rain and fairground rides.
As dusk arrived we hit the road west to home and one last orange encounter.
Our vehicle of choice for the day.
Here is the last orange tale of the day. We were parked up in a rural market town, Devizes, on the last Saturday night before Christmas. The local lads were merry. We were sat in the car outside Marks and Spencer. Bright lights and christmas lights outside made us invisible. A group of lads streamed around the car.
” ‘ere will ya look at that car “
“Boys lets get a photo”
” Mate, mate if my cock was a car it would be this one”
Let’s just think about that.
Conclusion reached later.
Stubby and orange and runs on electric.
And so we get to 26 days to Boxing Day. V for the Victoria Line and Victoria Station.
Victoria Station and the Victoria Line were part of my commuting journey for many years and Battersea Power Station was a twice daily feature of my commute. Which is why I painted it before it was redeveloped.
P.s even the guest towel at our friends house was orange.
6 Days to Boxing Day. Always carry Christmas Lights in your heart.
When are you most happy?
6 Days to Boxing Day. Winter Solstice. The shortest Day. From here,in the Northern Hemisphere the days will start to stretch out. I couldn’t be happier.
And so to U in 26 Days to Boxing Day. As I sit here this morning I am a little flummoxed about which U I should use to natter about. A cheating woman would use Ule but then I would be stuck for Y.
Umbrella. Not exactly a festive word but from the photo above. You can see we needed one last night.
But what is the point if the umbrella obscures the Christmas lights. Better to be damp and enlightened. Or always carry Christmas lights in your heart. Or at the very least, under your umbrella.
A brighter shade of greige.An unexpected hour of Sunshine presented itself in the middle of a very greige day. The dogs and I just walked and walked. Half of the above picture was our slightly wooded walk which I played with to suggest two options with a magical feel. I also warmed up the sun a little in my pictures of the Hamoaze.
No reason to do this at all really, so clearly done for fun.
And so to T for 26 Days to Boxing Day. T is for time travel.
This new Blue Plaque is about 500 yards from my house. If I could time travel and meet him in a cafe. We could talk about his old School. Dulwich College in London which I am very familiar with. I could also of course warn him to be extra cautious on his last fateful expedition to Antarctica.But that could change the world in so many ways. Which is why Time Travel is not advised. Another observation is that Devon and Cornwall have a Polar Society! How niche is that.
8 days to Boxing Day. All Christmas cards are off on their journeys. The foreign ones are being tracked by the Post Office App. I am travelling vicariously with them as the cards slowly venture across countries and continents to my friends and family. Locally, me and the dogs had a fabulous morning doing a walking tour and delivering all the nearby, by-hand ones. Nearly three hours of walking in the wintery sun and nattering to people along the way. The afternoon was already well established by the time I got home. Yesterday and today’s tinkering with an unfinished painting accidentally created next year’s Christmas card. Tinkering indoors was a good thing to do to avoid really grotty weather
Work in progress
Let it snow, even though snow is fairly unusual in Cornwall where this fictional scene is set.
And so on to S in 26 Days to Boxing Day. Snow.
A snowy environment suits Lola’s colouring . Hugo is inclined to look a little grubby.
These are old pictures maybe 5 years or so. I am a theoretical lover of snow . In the mild south west of England snow is rarely this picture perfect. Dirty slush is the most likely iteration here and that is no one’s idea of picturesque.
Dandelion clocks, the flimsy seed heads of Dandelions are visible between March and October each year. As such they play no part in Christmas folklore. But a picture popped up today which showed a Dandelion Clock looking very festive.
A few summers ago I took some night time shots of Dandelions. One of mine looks very festive.
The fragility of Dandelion Clocks means they never play a part in any seasonal bouquet. It would be a very clever person who could find a way to preserve their transient beauty for floristry.
Nature’s win but the festive season’s loss
And so onto R in 26 days to Boxing Day.
The closest I have ever got to a White Christmas.
Remembering December snow in Crystal Palace a while ago. But not on December 25 th!
10 days to Boxing Day. Most of my life the next day or even the next hour is not quite as I pictured it. This prompt so perfectly fitted my day yesterday I felt compelled to answer.
This shadowy image reflected in a glitterball bauble should not have been standing here. Nana , Nona and our Monday Small Person had planned to be at a festive book reading event. An hour before this we were half an hour early and were enjoying good coffee and weak sunshine. In fact we were one whole week and a half hour early. What to do with that suddenly available two hours of time. The answer was to go Christmas Shopping. Not a concept that a 2 year old fully grasps. She did fine and we were surprisingly effective. We rewarded ourselves for unplanned shopping with unplanned Christmas film watching. Not the day I pictured at all.
And so to Q on the 26 Days to Boxing Day. Q is for Queen.
I am not particularly a Monarchist but I feel the cranky, eccentric, British system of a Royal Family works better than many Democracies with a Presidential figurehead. Our last Monarch was Queen Elizabeth II. Her reign of nearly 71 years was the longest in history. And there is a link to the festive season.
Postboxes , which most of us will use to send Christmas Cards.
British Post boxes are sturdy things and are marked with the reigning Monarchs Cypher at the time they were installed. Post Boxes are very long lasting.
Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years. So these two long lived womens’ Cyphers mark almost 80% of all the post boxes in Britain, six Kings , King Edward II, Edward III George V, George VI, George VII, and Charles III, get the remaining 20%.
King Charles seems to only have 1 post box installed in July 2024.
So for the forseeable future Christmas Cards in Britain will be posted in Queenly Cyphered post boxes. Random fact, unimportant but interesting.
1936- 52 George VI PostboxFestive Topper on a postbox.
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