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.

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On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home, Serendipity3 Comments

This patch of England has been my home since 1988, it is far from my place of birth and in that time I have not always lived here. But it is where my soul has its feet under the table. This morning for no reason in particular I wondered why Plymouth Sound was a ‘Sound’. Geography had the answer.

© Wikipedia

Yesterday we were at the far west reaches of the Sound, at Kingsand and Cawsand. The furthest point seen through the circle is, I believe, the far west point of Plymouth Sound before it becomes the Atlantic Ocean.

Conversely dog grooming occurs on the furthest easterly point at Wembury.

Yesterday I was able to take a photo of Both the easterly point and the most westerly with a wooden tall ship in the middle.

The Pelican of London had just left Plymouth and was taking quite a buffering from the wind as it sheltered in Cawsand Bay. Madness to think that a tall ship moored here would, in the past, have been ripe, low hanging fruit for the smugglers, pirates and wreckers of  all the places we love to walk our dogs and enjoy gorgeous scenery.

Bigger than a bight and wider than a fjord . Packed with history and landscape. 99% of @theoldmortuary blogs occur from here.

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On reflection

What things give you energy?

The serendipitous aspect of life gives me energy. The saying that life happens while we are making plans is such a sage piece of advice. I am not one of life’s natural planners although I absolutely know that a certain amount is essential to a smooth and anxiety free life. I hide ‘planning’ in the words routine, chores and repetitive. Things that must be done.

Looking back over my week there has been enough space in my routine and repetitive chores to allow some serendipity. The picture above is a serendipitous moment after collecting a parcel from the local sorting office. When this chore needs to be done I always combine the trip with an early morning dog walk to Oreston. The perfect reflection of the sea, boats, sky and buoys was immediately energising, the dogs got a longer walk than necessary and I harvested vitamin D after a few days of dismal weather.

Being with other artists at an exhibition energised me because we are all like little hermit crabs :isolated from one another in our work spaces doing our individual thing. Often having the same stumbling blocks. My artistic stumbling block has always been my inability to follow through with a sketch book unless absolutely forced to by the requirements of a course or tutor. Another artist clearly suffers the same blocks and hesitance but has cured her problem by creating a loose leaf sketch book.

©Jane Athron

Why have I never considered that as an option?

Then there was my night of live music on Friday. Energy boosted and delight overload as the power of music made a whole room dance and jiggle with the glee and bonhomie created by skilled and happy musicians.

Another type of energy comes from meeting people at a birthday party. Random conversations can be scintilating especially if the participants have honesty and warmth. It may not seem very birthdayish but last night I discussed the spirituality of being with someone as they die with women who, like me sit on the atheist/agnostic spectrum. It helped that we all had professional experience of witnessing many strangers deaths but our conversation was based on the deaths of people we loved and it was uplifting/energising because there was an absence of faith muddying our conversation.

Thats enough energy for a Sunday morning!

On reflection.

P.s I forgot about cold water swimming, the best energy generator of mind and body known to this woman.

#687 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Music, Serendipity1 Comment

Live music in a standing venue is one of the great timeless experiences. Humans have been standing around in semi-circles listening to other humans making music for ever. Dancing in that semicircle can be a messy, sweaty, life affirming experience shared with absolute strangers. Beer, or sometimes worse, on your feet and trampled toes are a tiny part of the experience of moving as part of a human mass to music. Last night we joined the throng of three university’s worth of Freshers on Freshers Friday in the city centre.

We were there to see a friends band, Ushti Baba play.

https://m.soundcloud.com/ushtibaba

We had the best time. Nothing hits the spot quite like live music.

Ordinarily the question below would have had me pretty ponderingly stuck. My music tastes are eclectic, unsophisticated and possibly unpredictable.

What’s your all-time favorite album?

I don’t have enough time or head space to condense my love of music to one album. I love the effort involved in an album. Not for me a couple of highlight tracks or the shuffle option. I want to listen to an album as the musicians wanted it to be published, in the order that was argued over and then decided upon.

Had I not been out to listen to live music last night I would probably have skipped the prompt question. But I feel all topped up with good stuff this morning. Ready to be honest and say that it is beyond me to make such a decision. I may not yet have heard my all time favourite album. I have almost certainly forgotten some absolutely sublime albums. In my head there are many albums poking at my aural grey matter.

“Choose me” they beg, giving me tiny earworm snippets of their favourite tracks.

” Choose me, because you love the artwork”

“Choose me, because you fell in love to my soundtrack”

“Choose me, because I am the best break-up album ever”

“Choose me because you grieved so deeply , my tracks were your slow recovery and salvation”

I am not listening, my mind is made up. I do not have a favourite album. I am aurally polyamorous. No shame.

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On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, WordsLeave a comment
Sketch for future project about cold water swimming.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

Writing gives me the chance to note down inconsequential things. As an artist I can sketch inconsequential things. Sometimes something of substance comes from these two activities. As September heads to a colourful autumn I am on the last leg of being out and about as an exhibiting artist. For the first time this year I did an event called Open Studios and am currently exhibiting in a gorgeous, medieval period, house called Cotehele.

Exhibiting this year has felt significantly different to the last couple of years. Writing, or capturing this thought gives me the chance to consider this sensation. Almost certainly 2023 felt like the first truly Covid worry free year for people who organise art events and for their visitors. Everything that people love about art shows was back. Sketch books, business cards and crowds. Boozy Private Views and long delightful conversations. There is so much to learn from the company of other artists and the people who love to look at art. The current financial climate has limited the amount of sales.

But the interactions with visitors have been wonderful. I have been so lucky. I’ve unexpectedly met some old friends and work colleagues for long leisurely conversations and put faces, names and personalities to people I barely knew before this summer. Some blog readers have also appeared which has been lovely.

What do I enjoy most about writing?

The ability to reflect and cteate a world that is both real and imagined , orthodox and surreal. A safe place to ponder. A place to take stock of the snippets of life that might go unnoticed.

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Morning clouds this morning. Followed swiftly by a rainbow.

There was just a hint of a double, but one rainbow or two they were uncomfortably close to the parking restriction lines. Parking fines certainly are a pot of gold for councils so perhaps the rainbow was in exactly the right place.

Exactly the right place was also the location of this picture.

It found a new forever home yesterday. After posing in a medieval entrance hall for a week it has been awarded the red dot of a sold piece of original art. Exactly the right place. Lucky me.

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On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Drawn to the Valley, SerendipityLeave a comment
Tessa Sulston- Turner walks in the Tamar Valley

If Turner had been walking in the Tamar Valley today he would not have been looking at any views. Today was a fine example of Tamar Greige. The grey lovechild of mist and rain rolling together in a fertile valley.

As luck would have it for me, I have spent the last two days in the gorgeous Autumn Exhibition of Drawn to the Valley Artists. So I know how beautiful the valley is when it is in full colour.

Calstock – Carolyn Wixon

My morning started close to home with my own painting showing the tidal pool in full colour which it certainly was not at 7:30 this morning.

Then a drive up through the Tamar Valley in the thickest of Tamar Greige conditions. Not for me the colours of Sonia Wicks , Looking for Luck.

But the mist did briefly clear, just around lunchtime. Cotehele House, a National Trust property serves very fine sandwiches with a great motivational message.

As an aside, I rarely need to be motivated to eat a sandwich. But at lunchtime I was not the only one nibbling and crunching on National Trust comestibles.

No motivational message for the squirrel on the bird feeder, they also need no encouragement to eat. This lovely lunchtime encounter happened as I overlooked the Cotehele Dovecot.

Dovecot-Carolyn Wixon

A completely greige afternoon carried on the weather theme but I can illustrate my return with one last painting.

Tamar Sunset- Michael Jenkins

A greige day, illuminated by some great paintings and a cheeky squirrel.

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Our morning walk,yesterday, took an unexpected turn, the sun put in a sudden welcome appearance and we jumped on a ferry to Mount Edgecumbe with no planning or forethought.

We arrived before almost everyone else and quickly made our way out of the more popular areas. How lovely to wander through beautiful countryside with no other humans about. Not that there is anything wrong with other humans in the general sense. Despite wearing inappropriate footwear for country hiking we made it to the folly.

The reward for such an intrepid adventure in flip flops was not, as you could easily imagine, blisters but coconut ice cream and a pasty.

This was such an abnormal piece of behaviour for the morning dog walk.

This morning, autumn had properly set in with wind and rain. Making yesterday’s impromptu adventure seem like the most inspired decision ever.

#683 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Pondering and Blogging are curious ways to start the day. Initially I rejected the prompt below because I felt I had nothing to say on the subject.

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Whilst not exactly a lesson, today’s observation is something I constantly need to cherish. All of my life my limbic system has been a great ally in my judgement of people, places and situations. Below is the complex explanation.

What Is The Limbic System? Definition, Parts, And Functions

Put in my simple terms I should listen better to my instinctive responses. Ignore them at my own peril. If I listened better, life may have been easier in places and I may even have been in different places.

This ponder is about location. When I first moved to the West Country 35 years ago, I immediately sought out the Water-colour painting community. The group I joined had regular demonstrations in a local Quaker Meeting House. After the session people drove off to a rough and ready pub in a dockyard area. I was immediately bewitched. There was often live music and the notes and lyrics bounced off the docks and harbours nearby. In my vivid imagination the wooden ghost ships of the past jostled for space on the already redundant wharves and salty old sailors were listening to the same tunes as a bunch of amateur artists. I immediately felt a sense of belonging.

Two years ago I moved within easy walking distance of that same pub. Both of us have changed, almost unrecognisably in the 35 years. I still imagine wooden ships and salty old seafarers in this location but am surrounded by tech startups and call centres housed in beautiful historic buildings.

Last night I was lucky enough to be able to visit a replica wooden galleon. El Galleon Andalucia. So my imagination has a little more heft. The photos are from my visit. The one below is just a coil of rope but exactly illustrates how life circles around and takes us all, to sometimes unplanned, destinations via interesting routes.

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Bad weather took away plans today, in doing so It freed up time for more plans. Right now I should be in the midst of Pirate Mayhem as the Tennis Club I am involved with was hosting all sorts of wonderful Pirate and Sea themed adventures at its seafront location. Dreadful weather with high winds was forecast and so on Saturday morning the whole thing was cancelled. And so a 24 hour gap appeared in our life schedule and the van was swiftly packed up for a mini adventure. I worked in Devon for a large chunk of my working life and have lived here for two years and have always wanted to explore the nooks and crannies, visit the places only ever seen on patients request forms. Devon being Devon explorations are best done in the tourist off season. The bad weather warning of yesterday heralded the tourists off season so we ticked off three places, never before visited. Noss Mayo, Bere Ferres and Holbeton.

Not a single photo of landscape beauty exists, but we do know where we will and won’t be taking a long wheel base VW in the busier months. We also know exactly how wet it is possible to get when a county gets a severe weather warning.

As luck would have it there was a coffee shop in the quickly created wish list. A coffee shop with three inside tables. Definitely a win win situation.

Home

Pirates 0- Coffee 1

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On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)2 Comments

Walking but not running is a huge part of my daily, dog owning, life

But running not so much . However in my vivid dream world last night it was all about running and shouting. I blame the large chocolate eclair I ate closer to bedtime than is usual. . Our evening had been spent enjoying pizza from a home pizza oven.

As an inaugural effort it was both hugely successful and intriguing. Three out of four were visually and flavorfully successful. One was structurally unsound but an epicurean delight. The evening was nearly thwarted by the pizza oven having a european plug. Trusty Waitrose, a rather middle class supermarket, had a travel adapter for all the European holiday makers flooding into Cornwall all summer minus their travel plugs. The consequence of pizza oven plug jeopardy was a delayed start time for eating which then pushed Eclair eating further down the time schedule.

Between eating and sleeping there was just the late night dog walk.

A sleep fueled with pizza and chocolate eclair with no real gap is not a restful event. When I woke up at six I was exhausted by my nocturnal adventures and then easily droppin off again I was plunged into a colourful world of events and activities that required me to run through airports and take part in vintage vehicle parades. When I woke up at eight and checked my phone the question below popped up on my blogging app. Any other day I would have ignored it , feeling embarrassment that running is not really my thing any more.

How often do you walk or run?

But clearly in my nocturnal life things are quite different. In my dream world I run around like a twenty five year old athlete. Parkouring where necessary, nothing gets in my way. Fueled by late night carbohydrates and fats, the world is, apparently, a place to be scampered through at speed. Who knew!