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.

#894 theoldmortuary ponders

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Green Woman, Eden Project

Yesterday was a mindblower, I discovered two things I should have known for much longer than 24 hours.

Both facts that have evaded my ‘ Mine of useless information’ *  and involve subjects starting with H.

* My mine of useless information was a source of  consternation to my dad who had a normally functioning brain. Unless we were playing Trivial pursuit together as a team and in that scenario he could appreciate my value. My mum who was probably also a  synesthete quietly accepted my quirks.

My two ‘H’ fails yesterday were Horticulture and Haircare.

Both subjects close to my head or heart.

Starting with the heart one. My mum adored Magnolia trees. My dad was very unsuccessful at growing them. As am I. Every Magnolia season my mum would look wistfully at magnificent examples in parks and public gardens. At home there would be a sorry tree of sticks and some leaves lurking somewhere in the garden border.  It was probably symbolic of their marriage, high hopes, lots of effort, but some disappointments. I am certain neither of them knew that Magnolia Trees are hugely historically significant, evolving 95 million years ago,and shared the earth with dinosaurs but not Bees.

Magnolias are pollinated by beetles.

My other H is close to my head. Hair. I never knew there was a whole classification chart for curly hair. I am somewhere between 2C and 3A.*

Neither of these revelations are life-changing but you never know when a fact will come in useful. How did they reveal themselves?

A glacially slow walk around the Eden Project with an eager toddling grandchild. Time to read even the most obscure pieces of information. Time to appreciate the sunshine and buds of Spring.

P.S suddenly I am seeing curl categories everywhere .

#893 theoldmortuary ponders.

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What makes you nervous?

I am not by nature a nervous sort of person but I suffer from retrospective  nervousness when I hear that something I have been involved with has not gone to plan. I question myself as to whether I had done my best in that situation, done what was required of me and done anything extra that would have smoothed the wheels of a positive outcome. I wonder if that is a normal reaction. I would say I am a fairly confident person but not supremely  confident. As a woman I am without balls, both real and metaphorical. Here lies the pondering part of this ponder. I have often wondered what it would be like to try out some testosterone for about a week. Nothing whatsoever sexual in this,just a week of being in someone elses size 10 boots being male about everyday things . Goodness I know so many absolutely lovely men who are just a pleasure to know. But in life I have met some absolute corkers of bad examples of malehood, men who I really struggle to empathise with or understand at any level. Would a week with testosterone give me any level of understanding or insight?

The reason this question prompted this quite random ponder is that some men would not bother to consider that anything they had done would contribute to a less-than-positive outcome.  Cocksure springs to mind.

There is no female version.

Quim Questioning has a nice ring to it.

” The Marquee blew over the sea wall,   he was somewhat Cocksure that everything had been done correctly”

” The Marquee blew over the sea wall, she immediately Quimquestioned if everything had been secured correctly”

A week of feeling cocksure might be quite revelatory, no retrospective nervousness.

#892 theoldmortuary ponders

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How do you unwind after a demanding day?

Sometimes I just let difficult days take their own course. A series of awkwardnesses and challenges during a day is the prompt we all need to rethink things . Demanding days are just that. Facing up to the reality of the challenge,  accepting  it and searching for a resolution, even an imperfect one just moves the whole thing a few steps forward. With just a slightly different perspective and a cup of tea ( or coffee) things look different.

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How do you use social media?

Hmm, how do I use Social Media. Or does it use me? The latter is almost certainly true. This advert pops up everywhere I go online.

But as a Social Media content manager for a series of Arts organisations and now a Sports Club, I am unable to boast, loftily, that I have nothing to do with Social Media.   Social Media evolves quickly, using it effectively, rather than the other way around keeps me on my toes. I publish my personal blog on two platforms. I keep up with people and places that interest me. The weather in Kent for instance.

Facebook keeps me in touch with paintings that I have sold and social events I have enjoyed with memory features.

Sometimes Social Media lets me know the sad things in life like the death or illness of friends, colleagues or celebrities.

Today is the nine year anniversary of a job leaving me, rather than the other way round. The Heart Hospital in Marylebone closed and all the staff either moved to Barts in the City of London or moved to different places of their choice.

I’m not sure me and a job have ever parted company quite so elegantly before or since.

Social Media lets me share jokes with friends.

Note the date, a parody on Covid.

How do I use Social Media. In a way that I feel comfortable with.

#890 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Yesterday was a great day of life imitating art and glorious colour.

This magnificent tree was on my walk to my favourite haberdashery store. Where I needed to buy a spring green thread.

I just caught the tree in his skeletal form before the sunshine brought on Spring growth.

I was also on the search for some orange buttons. My favourite navy blue cardigan has contrasting (non-contrasting) dark brown buttons. Every time I put the cardigan on I feel the energy drain away from my soul . Dark Brown with Navy Blue! Make at 140 saved the day.

https://www.makeat140.co.uk/

Now things are much more joyful.

Joyful too was the end to a recycling project. I store bigger, older canvasses in the garage. I had three, all the same size that I was planning to paint over once the weather improved. A couple of weeks ago I discovered that the local mice had started a recycling project of their own. Two were unusable but one was in perfect condition. Their nests must be in glorious technicolour. I haven’t painted many large paintings since the Covid lockdowns. Smaller watercolours or prints have been my thing since then. I  wondered how two years of painting small would have affected painting big.  I also now live in an urban and maritime environment rather than rolling countryside. My subject matter, this week, was a curious mix of urban and natural. 

We live in an area with lots of old concrete built as defences for the Naval Dockyard and Port of Plymouth. Some of the older concrete is a bit battered and breaking down. Nature manages to find a way of rehabilitating the ugly angular shapes. In this picture Sea Holly fills the gaps

How has two years of small watercolour painting and some printing affected the bigger picture?

Confidence I think, in painting with colours that I would not naturally use much of , and accuracy in creating layers. Spending time with the bobbers, some of whom are obsessed with turquoise and blues. Just for comfort’s sake, I hid my favourite reds, golds and purples in the underpainting.

Erygerum and Concrete is ready for some Summer exhibitions. I am so glad the sun is out and life is full of colour again.

Erygerum and Concrete. © theoldmortuary

#879 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Early morning sunshine swimmers.

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

Not a chance that I could pick just one random encounter with a stranger. I have a ‘stranger’ face. An invisible tattoo on my forehead that says “Talk to me ‘

My family and friends can see a random encounter as it approaches, they melt away and feign deep interest in things some distance away. Leaving me alone. I like to think they are a safe distance away.

Not all strangers are strange, many have been lovely. How do I  even define ‘positive’ to encounters with strangers. Mostly they are benign.The few that have turned out not so well have been escapable.

Last weekend’s random encounter was with a holidaymaker moving into his Airbnb which was over a Vegan cafe. I am no expert on Veganism or the etiquette of holidaying above a Vegan Cafe. But my ‘ Stranger-magnet’ face marked me out as the woman to discuss his moral dilemma with. Should he put his honey-flavoured yogurt in the fridge as the bees would most certainly have been trafficked. Looking at his box of groceries, dairy goods and bacon, trafficked bees seemed to be the least of his problems. Wisdom and past experience made me cautious* Luckily the yogurt was Greek. There was zero chance that the honey in the yogurt was from wild bees living in an Olive Grove but that was what I focussed on while reassuring him that his holiday food would not cause a crisis in the North Cornwall Vegan community

* I am cautious because one of my stranger encounters was with a 90-year-old man who was mourning his wife, and their inability to have children. On a windswept cliff, in an attempt to move the conversation on, I asked him how they knew it was her who could not have children. ( This sounds wrong on many levels but not as wrong as it might seem. It was a second marriage I suppose I was hoping there was a child from his first marriage)

His sobbing stopped and he turned his reddened, rheumy old eyes to me and asked what I meant. I explained that men can also be infertile.

He looked bewildered and then sad again. They had just accepted and had never been tested. All I had managed to achieve was adding doubt to his long-held narrative. Not my finest hour.

No swimmers.

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Another morning and another empty beach. Lola’s tolerance, was about 10 minutes, Hugo’s infinite.

I’m with Hugo on this one. Sunshine + beach+book, me, or + seaweed, him, is too good an opportunity to miss. Lola didn’t even bother with a swim today.

But blue skies, that is quite the game-changer. Now here is a blog that changes direction. Unexpectedly a second beach 30 minutes away appeared on the daily schedule.

A beach visit with two of their favourite people.

A beach where Lola is fully engaged for over an hour!

And enough rust to keep me happy.

#877 theoldmortuary ponders

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This is the face of a dog who has had too much of a good thing. For the second time in a week, a really popular beach was empty at the end of our morning walk. Hugo has a dogged obsession with clearing the sea margin of seaweed. He can contentedly do that for hours. I can also contently read a book for a similar time. Lola has just taken up sea swimming but does not have the dedication to it that Hugo and I have to books and seaweed.

She tried feigning interest but by the time I took this photo she was done.

Thankfully we can all appreciate a sofa in a coffee shop for a similar amount of time.

Which was our next destination. No rain in a coffee shop. Rain was what added to the walk, in both time and expense. We are halfway through April approaching my favourite month of May. But my morning dog walks still have unpredictable aspects of winter. Thermal underwear, a sudden need to seek shelter and a very good chance of being drenched. But lighter mornings encourage me to go further and sit on beaches. I do not think I can ever recall such a soggy approach to May, by now the thermals should remain in the drawer, and Birkenstock blisters should be done for the season. Coffee shop stops should be a choice not a refuge.

#876 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Shall I start the week with a ring of bright daisies or a daft question from my blog hosts.

Lets put the daft question away.

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

Nobody in their right mind would answer this and not expect some trouble. Our family is a supportive force for good with a side order of niggles. Just as a family should be. Having a supportive family is the positive thing. Niggles are normal. But to pick one family member out for doing a positive thing would hugely increase the niggles to an unmanageable level. Everyone would wonder why their positive action has not been mentioned. Can you imagine the flip of this question being helpful.

Tell us something negative a family member has done to you?

Unimaginable in a well functioning family.

How is any of this linked to daisies?

These two pictures of daisies demonstrate that positives and negatives are not always clear cut and that pointing out a positive or a negative is not always good for the bigger picture. I love both these pictures.

These daisies are growing on the edge of a  grimy boatyard. They are a welcome piece of nature in an ugly urban environment.  Hard to pick out the most positive aspect of this picture.

Less than 500 yards away.

Another daisy family, easy to pick out the most positive aspect of the bigger picture

My family is just like these daisy pictures. Impossible to pick out the one positive that deserves a mention. But we thrive.

Here is the nubbin, the crux of my daisy ponderings on the bigger picture. Anyone looking at these two pictures would find it easy to point out the one stand-out positive feature in the two pictures.

The daisy family in the picture with all aspects being largely, equally positive survived untroubled. Nothing too outstanding to see

The daisy picture with the larger-than-life, perfectly placed tennis ball did not survive.*

* At least three committee meetings and many person hours sealed the fate of the tennis club daisy family.

My apologies for a meandering,  not precise blog. I’m not certain I demonstrated my point perfectly.

Praising one individual publicly nearly always diminishes  the others in their team( family) in some way.

Lost? You are in good company, find me in the daisy patch

#876 theoldmortuary ponders

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The rain stopped, and the sun came up so we packed up the van and had a night away in Tintagel. It’s not just humans exhausted by our long winter/spring of rainfall. The countryside looks wrecked and any farm animals’  lucky enough to have a dry patch of field are muddy from the boggy areas . Things are going to need a few more days of sunshine and dry weather before Spring can properly assert itself. The South West Coastal path is a treacherous, slippery place to walk right now but just doing a little bit to get a view like this was lovely.

Rainwater pouring down cliffs from the fields above illuminated rocks beautifully. I love this picture because it looks badly photoshopped.

Mosses have had a very good winter.

Soon enough this part of Cornwall will be buzzing with tourists, which is vital to the local economy but yesterday there was a gentler buzz of local(ish) people just getting out into the fresh air unencumbered by wet weather clothing. Everyone wearing smiles in honour of a dry day. My day peaked with some discarded fishing gear.

Texture pleasures.

Beyond nature I found a new Saint. Not one of the big hitters in Saintliness, it seems, but a popular woman locally with a church and a village hall. A quick google fails to find any evidence of her good works, just three churches that venerate her.

Her name,  St Materiana, works well with our contemporary consumerist society perhaps she is ripe for a rebrand.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Materiana

https://www.celticglory.com/spiritual/materiana-church-minster-cornwall

” Materiana, my darling what is it you actually did to become a saint”

” Oh, I understand. You were an influencer. Oh well done “