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.
24 little hours in Seatown. Another blog featuring home grown sunshine in January.
One day the January sun might just have caused a little reddening of the cheeks. And the next our faces were whipped to a pinkish blush by harsh wind, sideways rain and seawater in the air.
Night and Day, that’s who you are.
An unexpected Christmas tree in mid-January.
Lobster pots and Buoys at West Bay.
Brains are funny things . Mine immediately picked out two songs written in the 1930’s to accompany these weekend photos
Night and Day- Cole Porter 1932
What a difference a Day Makes- Dinah Washington 1934.
These songs are absolutely on the periphery of my experience. They have been stored subliminally in some hard to access , dusty warehouse in my Neo Cortex.
Neither were a family favourite. My parents were small children in the mid to late 30’s
Two pieces of music that I have never given a moment of thought to until their titles exactly matched the theme of the blog. Stored subliminally from background music on radio and T.V throughout my lifetime.
Actual English January sunshine captured in the glass of a picture frame. We hopped along the coast to West Bay in Dorset, where the sun gave us a golden glow. There was not a moments temptation to get into the rolling sea however. It was a day for hats gloves and good coats.
Caught in a shaft of sunlight. My sunlight promise of some sunshine every day in January would not ordinarily feature art. But here I am within an art work by Marta Minujin. Part of a collective of Womens Art that we visited in Hong Kong.
Judy Chicago was the thinking woman’s artist in the 60’s and 70’s. Her Dinner Party installation of Dinner plates decorated with Vulva’s was a big talking point in the Sexual Health Clinics of rural Essex.
The Feather Room is a little more accessible for a 7 year old. Not that my blushes were ever spared from the womens chit chat that happened between my mum and her work friends at that time.
I think the Art we experienced in Asia and Australia might push my blogs through February just as the Sunshine from both locations is informing January. And by the time February is over that is Winter done.
Storm Goletti.The storm named after an Italian Cockerel was scheduled to strut around our Peninsular from mid-afternoon.
My grandad kept Italian Bantams at his smallholding attached to his pub. They were very opinionated little hens with fancy feet and extravagant plumes of fancy feathers. Tsthe hens very much liked to sit on eggs, not necessarily their own. The pub guard- geese were very much working women who left their over-large eggs in the tender care of the fussy little bantams. Several bantams sharing the care of one goose egg. The Italian Bantam Cockerel went on guard duty with the geese. He almost certainly thought he was in charge. He just fussed around at their feet, occasionally attempting a more sexual liaison with no chance of success.
Storm Goletti was nothing like a Bantam but everything like an arrogant Cockerel in our neighbourhood. Noisy, all over the place . It knocked down our bins and scattered and picked over our rubbish. We got off lightly.
But I did put the sensation of the storm to good use and painted a stormy version of my beloved sea pool at Coogee.
Storm over Coogee
I was even giddy enough to use hand made paper. What else could I do when confined to the house after a government Red Warning for winds and flying debris. But there is nothing quite like painting a storm while in a storm.
This photo landed in my lap yesterday. It was a freezing cold day and cloudless, until it wasn’t. Out of nowhere, two black labradors, brushed past me, off their leads and owners nowhere to be seen. In that moment the clouds gathered around the sun and all colour drained from the scene. Smaller dogs and their owners scattered, alarmed and protective. Moments later the dogs were gone and the bright day was back. As if the two things were linked.
And as if I had imagined the whole thing. Spooky things don’t generally happen in broad daylight. Digitally I popped a full moon behind the trees. It creates a haunting image much more in keeping with the sensation of the day.
Is an ownerless dog as other worldly than a riderless horse?
The dogs were like creatures from another realm. Fast and fleeting. Bearing down on me, lLola and other wary smaller dogs. Black Labs overbearing one minute and gone the next.
Their owners insouciance irritating. Their languid body language, indifferent to the unfolding chaos.
When the sun came out again the men and their dogs were nowhere to be seen. As if the clouds, men and dogs had been a wrinkle in reality, ghost dogs and their masters from a different realm.
Just as I reread this blog before posting I noticed the silhouette of a ghost dog on his hind legs in the first picture. I knew there was something strange going on!
Yesterday was a day of really bright sunlight and a temperature of about 2 degrees Centigrade.
It was a day of dog walking, admin and another painting of Coogee Beach, more sunshine.
Coogee Beach, 27 degrees.
Beyond my day’s domestic plans, there was also some Tennis Club admin that needed to be done with a friend.
Beyond Tennis chat, we talked about Christmas, Grief, an erotic novel, kitchen plans, and our holidays. Mine in the past and hers upcoming. She is heading to Bergen and beyond in Norway. She is expecting to experience sunshine and temperatures of about -30.
The whole conversation blew my mind a little bit. Mostly because travel blows my mind a lot. The ease with which we discuss such things as women in the 21st Century is a delight unknown to most women in the past.
The kitchen that we sat in, nattering away, was built about 175 years ago. A home suitable for professional men and their families . The men would have worked either in a nearby Military base or Dockyard or been involved in the Maritime or Fishing industries. Plymouth was linked to London by train in 1848, making Plymouth an International Travel hub. Travel would not have been an unfamiliar subject even when my kitchen was new.
Travel would have been much more complex. Timescales would be significantly different. Climate adjustment slower and riskier
Sailing to Australia would have taken three to four months, one way. Sailing to Bergen took about two weeks.
Luggage of only 23 kg is more than adequate for either of us to have the right clothing for hugely different climates.
I cannot imagine how much luggage we would have needed to make such journeys 150 years ago. English women of all classes were wearing Bustles.
Just one dress would weigh more than 23kg!
Very few women travelled for pleasure or exploration in 1850. For the most part British women were shipped around the world to service the sexual and dynastic needs of British men abroad who were busy doing British things like Colonisation.
British men being the powerful people. Taking political, economic, and cultural control over other territories and populations. Exploiting resources, labour, people and land for the benefit of Britain.
How lucky are we in 2026 to be able to travel quickly to anywhere in the world and to any temperature with just 23k of luggage. Know with almost 100% certainty that we will return, to natter, at the kitchen table after our travels. Safe in the knowledge that travel will expand our minds and not require us to search for a husband or create children.
My car is iced up. There is frost on the grass . One month ago this was my reality. If the day was not, in itself, hot enough the hot colours of two of these beach huts raises the temperature a little more. ( I am not so sure about the lilac one/)
Just looking at this makes me feel instantly warmer.
Being in hot places in the run up to Christmas presented some delicious conundrums. Images of snow where it could never possibly fall and images of roaring fires in a home that requires near-constant air conditioning.
Returning home to the Northern Hemisphere just on the cusp of Peak Christmas has given me a very casual approach to post-Christmas. Can I be bothered with denuding my house of the festive gaiety I only finished putting up on Christmas Eve.
12th night purists, or Boxing Day, early tree strippers will look on in horror as twinkling lights continue to twinkle in our house well into January.
Christmas is a delightfully social time, there have been several holiday anecdotes to share over a mulled cider and mince pie.
Naked swimming with a StingRay went down well with a Canapé.
Not only the actual and accidental naked swimming with a Sting Ray but also the Origin Story of my small habit of swimming naked on occasions. Just Because.
When I was 17/18/19 and on the cusp of leaving home for college in London, a new hotel was built in Brentwood, Essex that featured an outdoor swimming pool. It had the gloss and pzazz of California and the weather of Essex. People posed around it in long dresses and Dinner suits. The hotel was very popular with Ford executives from nearby Dagenham for parties and dalliances. I had a friend who was regularly booked to DJ at corporate events there. Brentwood was between London home and home home. So if he was doing a gig there I could catch up with him from either direction as an assistant who enjoyed a free to me party for dancing, I also lugged numerous boxes of vinyl as my part of the bargain. Dancing and lugging vinyl was hot work, even in December. Why not have a quick swim in a barely used pool before catching the last train home in whichever direction I was travelling. Long before security cameras I doubt anyone ever knew.
I pretty much gave up naked swimming in my responsible years but since becoming a year round sea swimmer the occasional urge to be at one with cold water and nature in just my skin comes upon me.
Nothing untoward has ever happened until my StingRay moment last month.
I had positioned a large swim towel for fairly instant modesty. A towel which I completely ignored once I realised I was at one with nature that could quite possibly do me harm.
I scampered up this boardwalk butt naked with one name ringing in my mind. Steve Irwin.
A complete over-reaction I am sure, but my early years in the cold water of Brentwood, Essex had only prepared me for grumpy hotel staff. Not creatures with stinging, life harming bits.
Our Morning Glory reusable coffee cups from Morning Glory Cafe on Coogee Beach.
Holidays and Christmas firmly behind us, the first Monday in January finds us with a list of chores and jobs all made a lot more tolerable by beautiful sunshine.
The sun even penetrated the car cleaning chore.
Our reusable coffee cups are useful and a great reminder of our first breakfast in Australia.
I will take a cold West Country winter with bright sunlight any day but a warm early summer in Sydney in December certainly has made it much more tolerable. I feel like I have had a power pack inserted, I really hope it lasts until at least the end of March.
Sublime point is on the Illawarra Escarpment. Overlooking the Blue Mountains and a small section of the coast of New South Wales.
The views are breathtaking and awe inspiring.
But my inner word nerd was just as thrilled with the word ‘sublime’ being in general usage.
I love the words sublime, subliminal and sublimate. Liminal also is pretty gorgeous.
They are like triplet children whose characters and behaviours are significantly different despite having the same parents
The family name would be the latin word Limen, meaning threshold.
The only time I was an ‘A’ grade student in Chemistry was when I knew in an instant what Sublimation was. Not because I loved chemistry at all, but because I really loved to dance in clubs and pubs and the highlight of the night was when the Dry Ice was used.
I have always been a little shy of using the word sublime in general conversation . I wonder if it is a class thing…
Maybe now I have actually visited a sublime place I should be a little braver.
Making a point sulimely at Sublime Point. N.S.W
3 words, roots in the same place, and yet completely different.
About 18 months ago Google offered me the chance to have AI assistance with writing my blog. It was a brief research piece for Google
” Replicating your own unique voice”
I suppose I tried it for about a week, the results were dreadful, they never saw the light of day, and if my voice were unique in their AI way there would be no regular readers.
In art and photography there is a place for AI and digital skills. I use both for image manipulation but then I use tried and trusted analogue skills to replicate my own unique style.
I suppose the previous paragraph was written to reassure myself and all my loyal blog readers that I am not a flat earth dinosaur, AI luddite. But oh how I love the analogue skills I learnt in regular photography dark rooms and medical imaging dark rooms and the print rooms of art colleges. The joy of just writing down my whimsical ponderings is also a much loved skill. I know my haphazard punctuation and grammar slippages can be infuriating. I am analogue through and through wearing a voluminous cape of digital skills.
My two images for this blog are sunrise at Coogee near Sydney and Sunset at Portwrinkle in Cornwall. One month apart.
I asked AI what the connection was between the two and was rather charmed by the answers.
I suppose my connection was somewhat conceptual. I particularly love sunset because just over the horizon somewhere else is getting a sunrise. Conversely sunrise makes me a little guilty almost responsible for stealing someone else’s sun.
AI would never be able to replicate that convoluted thought process.
The conundrum of giving and receiving. One is more virtuous. I strive to be virtuous. But also love gifts. The joy of a paper wrapped surprise is a life affirming activity!
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