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.

#958 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, Holidays, SerendipityLeave a comment

Traditional end of the holiday shot. The real life one, is of course, the washing machine churning her way through piles of sandy but barely worn clothes.

Our beach had two ends Bougie and Boho.

We were primarily Boho in our choices . Towels not sunbeds, happy Greek families not Golf Club types.

But the people watching and the coffee were fabulous in Bougie land. Bougie land had pool bars and women with inflated lips and men with inflated egos. Book covers on the bookshelves in Bougie land were as pneumatic as breasts and lips.

Both ends of the beach were rather fabulous. The snippets of conversation were infinitely more interesting in the bougie end, significantly because we could understand 50 % of them.  Although listening to Greek families nattering is what Greek holidays are about. A simple conversation always sounds like a drama.

And then the flight home, Bougies and BoHo’s all sat on the same coach and the same aircraft. All happy that they had achieved their holiday goals. All fairly similar in the cold light of an airport arrivals lounge. Everyone has dirty washing.

#957 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, Holidays2 Comments

A bug eating her supper. Someone else’s rose bush so I am charmed rather than irritated and so much prettier than a slug. Slugs are the main consumers in our yard. They never exude charm, just slime. A slug slimed across a pencil sketch I had left in the yard recently. Instead of a twinkly trail , she left a luminous yellow stream of consciousness. I pondered the point of slime that is twinkly in most circumstances but luminous yellow on white paper

There must be a reason but I’m not certain I can work it out for myself. On a dull day I will google slug slime and learn something which may or may not be ponderable. I know the beauty industry uses something euphemistically called Snail Serum. I have never seen anything slug related.

I’m just squeezing the last rays out of my holiday sun. Hoping for dry hair before the transition stage of coaches, queues and aircraft.

Paperbacks all cast out into the world of perpetual holiday reading for strangers, while I return to the electronic world of Kindle.

Long before daily blogging became a thing, we were regular Greek Holiday goers.

Covid put a stop to all that and then catching up with far flung family took a few years to achieve. Greece became one of the many things associated with the COVID hangover that we are all living through. Adding Greece as a tag and category in my blogging world feels like an achievement.

Tomorrow I will be back to less forgivable bugs eating rose leaves.

But before I go .

#956 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, pondering1 Comment

How do you waste the most time every day?

At home or abroad I waste the most time pondering. Pondering looks unproductive to the outside observer but the time is never truly wasted. Pondering also occurs when I look gainfully employed. Pondering often gets me out of trouble because pondering sometimes causes a change of direction with human interactions and different endeavours. Mulling things over or reflecting are just other words for pondering.

Holiday pondering is just the same as home pondering but in a better climate. Today I pondered Donkey Milk. Unknown to me it has been a beauty and health product from the beginning of time. Donkey milk is the closest thing to human milk . Which puts a whole different view of the Christian Nativity. When I was young I wondered/ pondered why a nine months pregnant woman would want to ride a donkey. When a mule/pony/horse would have been more comfy for her blessed lady garden and or pregnancy created piles.

But here I am the daft one. Joseph on a last minute shop before they set off was sent for some formula, just in case.  Breast milk substitute and transport all in one cute package.

I’ve just gone for a face cream. Two choices 24 hour, or wrinkle.

The wrinkles arrived a while ago so that seemed like a lost cause but 24 hour cream regularly applied could give me eternal life should I choose. Warding off the grim reaper one day at a time.

#955 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, GreeceLeave a comment

I have completely failed to mention my Kindle book reading. Which this year is my non-fiction holiday read. I am a good deal further into it than this picture suggests. I had excellent history teachers at my school and wish I could have studied it beyond O level but I wish that about lots of subjects. I have never wished for different History teachers until now. Shalina Patel serves up history  so intriguingly she would most certainly get an apple from me everyday.

The Hotel Shelf book has been chosen. It will almost certainly be the flight home book.

I picked up a fabulous life quote from my current read, soon to be set free to roam wherever with all the other Hotel shelf paperbacks the world over.

” We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity “

I will be taking that sentence home with me.

Necessity is the mother or father of invention. Overnight I remembered my dad sharpening pencils with glass paper ( sandpaper) . An Emery board has done a very good job. No pencil crisis any more.

In hotel bookshelf faux science I would say that the majority of guests here are German and they read a better standard of books than the British guests. There are some shockingly bad cover art examples in either language.  Predominantly ‘Romance’ novels that my mother was very dismissive of when I was younger. She called them pulpy kidney books, as if describing some terrible medical malady that would befall anyone reading such stuff. Not for her and her second wave feminist friends, except…

When it was time to clear my parents home following their deaths I found a surprise stash of exactly that type of novel in the back of her wardrobe. She didn’t sink to Mills and Boon but the subject matter was predominantly historical  and medical romance.

At death her kidneys were in fine form so maybe she never crossed a line or maybe she imagined pulpy kidneys.

#954 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, Greece, Holidays1 Comment

Book 4 of the holiday reading pile includes a lot of rape. Hardly surprising as the core of the narrative is the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War 2. In this book , so far , none of the main characters are involved. The brutality of the Japanese Occupation is the background to the narrative. I can revel in knowing the location well and slotting history into well-known locations is always fascinating.

In other news two new-to -me, Greek words have cropped up this week . Thanks to my fellow bookworms.

It was too tempting not to include a book and buttocks in a beach sketch . Surrounded, as I am, by buttocks both beautiful and not.

All that buttock sketching has revealed an error on my packing. No pencil sharpener!!

The second word is Ekphrasis.

Vivid description, oh how I wish I had the words. I may no longer have a useful pencil but I do still have my paints and a camera to enable a vivid end to the holiday.

The first book from the hotel shelf has been picked up, lets see how that goes.

#953 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, BooksLeave a comment

Dawn on the longest day of the year. Summer Solstice. The bobbers are doing their thing in Firestone Bay.

©Helen Bobber

For solidarity we did it in Greece.

Early morning dipping in Greece gave us the pleasure of walking through a herb garden full of Basil and Oregano and a cup of tea when the swim was done.

In other holiday news book three served up another rape.

Three in a row and I managed to give myself nightmares.

” You don’t want to read that kind of stuff , you will give yourself nightmares”  are words that more than one relative has said to me in my prolific reading life. It has never happened until now. 3 random books from the bookpiles or bookclub. So all bets are off for the last book. The Piano Teacher by Janice YK Lee. A story of post-war Hong Kong.

Where did the nightmares come from? I can only assume that women writers don’t dwell on the savagery of the event but write about the lifelong impact in a way that got under my skin.

What better way to banish a bad night’s sleep than by a cool dip at dawn.

#952 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

It turns out that even my fancy pants camera is struggling to cope with the bright sunlight. This swan was fabulous though. Our little bay is idyllic but only my abstract photos really work. The plan is now to get up very early for some photography and of course the Summer Solstice swim at dawn.  The failure of photography forced out the painting kit today.

My outdoor studios were very warm.

I used sea water, fresh water and Sprite to create these two little snapshots.

Let’s see what photography can do at dawn tomorrow. Meanwhile two books down, and rape has featured in both. Both books written by women give the assaulted woman the upper hand as they are both equipped with professional cookery knives. An interesting co-incidence and not one I can really learn from, as my good knives live in my kitchen drawer. But the one time something approaching rape occured was when I was in a restaurant. Quick thinking rather than knife skills made me safe. But there is a similarity in that the two women and myself were in a quasi-work related location. In common with the fictional women, I reported the event to my boss and in common with the fictional women excuses were made for the perpetrator.

Just approaching book 3 of the holiday also written by a woman. I wonder if women are any better listened to in this one.

On a much lighter note the digital tweakment facility on my smartphone is doing some nice abstracts.

And I can play around too.

Bistro chair with glass bricks.

#951 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment
Glass bricks.

The repetition of a Greek Holiday has established itself after a gap of five years.  Breakfast , beach, lunch, rest, beach, supper on repeat with swimming and book reading added into the mix in all phases.

Book 2 is nearly done.

The next book phase is likely to be reached by lunchtime. The crossover when we start reading each other’s books. That is the stage just before the Hotel bookshelf phase.  Why not Kindle I hear you ask.  There is also a Kindle as a holiday reading side- hustle, but a beach without paperbacks is not a beach at all. Suncream, sea and sand give paperbacks a rich patina of gentle decline. Their spines crack quicker and the pages ripple with dampness from freshly salty hands and wet swimming costumes.

Food wise we are also creatures of habit.

Oregano Crisps, Spanakopita and bitter Cherry Juice augmented by Papadopolis biscuits are our daily diet.

Looking forward to the Hotel Book Shelf I note that my current favourite book series  Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher is very popular, but only in the original German. It would have to be a very long holiday before I could tackle those and an on-line linguistics course would have to be force fed to me via my headphones.

And so a relaxing holiday continues.

The End.

#950 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

My morning holy trinity of tea, coffee and blog. A relatively low maintenance morning routine. This mornings coffee however, has raised the intellectual bar somewhat. A challenge I am without the necessary tools to compete with. Having broadened our minds with travel yesterday. Today will certainly cover less miles. A whole holiday book/ bookclub book has been finished.

3 more brought with me, from my book piles and then I am off to the lottery that is the hotel library.

Today we are having an extreme weather event. Not for us screaming winds, rattling through our chimney pots. Scorchingly high temperatures. Which this 66 year old will not be clambering on coastal paths in, at the peak of the day.  Another life lesson, tragically learned from Michael Mosley.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/09/body-of-man-believed-to-be-tv-doctor-michael-mosley-found-on-greek-island-authorities-say

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/15/from-cold-showers-to-hot-tomatoes-michael-mosley-top-health-tips

#949 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Holidays, Serendipity1 Comment

@theoldmortuary are off on holiday. Despite home looking an awful lot like our chosen destination, Greece.

The dogs are also off on their holidays where the hollyhocks are signalling the need for a change of Government very soon.

Our Greek-style yard has settled into new pots and new locations.  Despite a much colder than normal June things are starting to bloom. The Agapanthus that we grew from seed are going to bloom very soon.

Its 5 years since we were last in Greece and the last time we were in Skiathos or Skopelos the first Mama Mia film was being shot. Two weeks of  bumping into  Abba and famous actors, and inadvertently appearing as extras on a shot that took a whole day to film but ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor. We even bought the DVD that included the out-takes and we didn’t even feature on that. Oh the ignominy!