Category: Anecdotes

#1387 theoldmortuary ponders.

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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.

#1350 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Anecdotes2 Comments

I was never a fan of Circuses or Fairs when I was a child. I was not a fan of performing animals or clowns. I was always a fan of a great big tent appearing somewhere locally, just the arrival of the tent was enough for me.

I have become older, and Circuses have reinvented themselves. Music festivals have big tents so live music and skillful human circus acts are both something  which I now enjoy in a big tent as an adult. I still prefer to observe the excitement of fairs from a distance and I avoid clowns and, as a subset, magicians.

This freshly erected big tent in a local park still gave me that conflicting thrill feeling, a sense of happy anticipation even though I may still choose not to participate in whatever is going on inside.

Such was my dislike of clowns and magicians as a small person they were often part of my dreaming world. Never nightmares, just quiet dreams where I wandered through whole towns built of big tents, successfully avoiding the things I didn’t like.

I don’t believe I am Coulrophobic because I could easily engage with both clowns and magicians. I just choose not to.

Sadly there is not a word for people who just love big tents for their own sake. But I am that person. Day or night.

For this blog, I pondered what my best big tent experiences have been.

Authors reading their own books or very skillful actors reading someone else’s book to a large and enthralled audience at a Literary Festival.

Discovering a new band or artist in a big tent at a music festival.

The flower tent at agricultural shows.

DJ sets in a tent, wherever that can occur.

New Age stuff, even if it is nonsense dressed in tie dye. The smells are always fantastic.

The produce tent at a village fete. Again the smells but also the people watching.

#1247 theoldmortuary ponders.

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It has been a really busy 3 days setting up and running an art exhibition. Hardly time to draw breath or write a regular blog that is not exhibition centric. But today we hit the halfway point. The Private View was held last night and now we have 3 days of welcoming our guests and taking some time to enjoy the experience that has been created. I have lost count of the fabulous and fascinating conversations that I have had, but one when the hanging team were exhausted has stuck with me. Almost as a mantra for life.

We were installing art within two huge spaces in a Grade 1 listed building. The obstacles and impediments of the hang were demanding and often required improvisation.

Two artists, up high ladders were nattering as they worked.

“We are just going to have to bodge first and finesse after”

Bodge and Finesse. My new favourite word pairing.

So much of life could be described in that way. I would argue that often, to finesse is bodging and that bodge is the epitome of finesse.

Normal, less arty blogging starts next Tuesday.

#1045 theoldmortuary ponders

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The weekend of the most unfortunate allergic reaction. A weekend when it was impossible to hide away and allow antihistamines and time to work their magic.

A weekend when I just had to put the lippy on and brazen it out as a woman who had visited the most inept plastic surgery practitioner ever.

To think, some people pay to look like this.

Before leaving the house I tried to catch myself in a good light.  But from the curious looks I got when out in the real world I realise that normal daylight or artificial light was not as kind as I had hoped.

Thankfully my unplanned and inexplicable tweakment has subsided. I will start the week looking more like my usual self. I will never consider fillers!

#971 theoldmortuary ponders

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It is not every day that a tree presents itself as a pair of handstanding buttocks.

Last weekend I was singing a song cycle celebrating The Green Man.

Yesterday I found him, butt naked, cavorting in a local park. A briefly sharp sunbeam  alerted me to his performative bottom. I’ve just digitally tweaked his butt to make him a little more obvious. ( Not a sentence I would normally share on the blog!)

Happy Sunday.

Then I flipped him over.

Green Man buttocks.

#863 theoldmortuary ponders

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What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

The first hour of my day looks a lot like the picture above. Until the tea ritual, blog ritual and coffee ritual have been performed. These three regulars can all be compressed into half an hour or extended to an hour and a half. There are side rituals like loading the dishwasher or washing machine. Today in particular I need to be alert to April Fools Day jokes. I am a gullible soul and I have friends who are very adept pranksters. Last year I called at their home on April 1st. As I pulled at their door bell it came off in my hand. I harrumphed at once again being caught out and took their doorbell home with me as a punishment.

Only to discover that I had broken their 100-year-old doorbell mechanism.

I am having nothing to do with them today.

#372 theoldmortuary ponders

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Tallow Pot

A great day out yesterday with a few more blogs to come but this is the tale of a tallow pot. Our travels took us to Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton in West Sussex. I was last there more than 30 years ago with my parents and small son. The Museum preserves ancient buildings and the crafts and skills that are needed for their continuous care.

My dad was an engineer but his great love was carpentry. Despite living in Essex the museum, briefly, became one of his favourite places to visit.

I had forgotten that, but the smells and tools of the Carpentry work shop brought decades old memories and grief sharply to mind. How strange that it would be a stinky old tallow pot that would be my trigger.

With apologies to anyone unfamiliar with a really popular TV programme, this blog goes off on a tangent now. I suppose the link is the curious importance we give to things that are linked to people we have loved and lost. FYI I do not treasure my dads old tallow pot, that really would be a tribute too far. A quick sniff yesterday was a fabulous treat though.

The repair shop is filmed at Weald and Downland Museum. I believe the programme can be seen around the world. The premise of the programme is that an ensemble of very talented craftspeople have the skills to fix almost anything the public can bring to the picturesque barn.One of the original buildings in the museum grounds, the ban has been set up as a multi- functional work-shop studio. Inevitably for good T.V the objects chosen for refurbishment are often associated with someone who has died or that have a good back story. It is a rather gentle, slow programme and the talents of the craftspeople are genuinely impressive. Coincidentally they were filming yesterday so we could not visit the barn too closely.

But we got a very cheery wave from the main presenter, Jay, just moments before we took this photo.

Harpooned a bit by decades old grief, we had the most glorious day out, grief really is a part of normal life for many people, it is not always unwelcome. Happy memories are life affirming.

#103 theoldmortuary ponders

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Blogging was a lot like these little boats today. Left behind by the tide of my own technical inadequacies. I had failed to charge my laptop and then plugged it in to a socket that wasn’t turned on. Zoom meetings had to be attended on my phone. Irritating as this was it was enlivened by WhatsApp messages from friends.

One friend was moving his hot tub to his new home. It looked like more fun than I was having.

©Mark Curnow

Another friend who lives in France was thrilled to find a biscuit selection that included custard creams.

©Angela JS

However much I yearn for in- person meetings. It would be rude to get my phone out so this newly learned meeting brightener will be shortlived but I may now default to my phone for Zoom meeting’s just for the onscreen entertainment.

But the joy when I got out of my second Zoom meeting of the day was palpable. Maybe the dogs will prefer it when I no longer Zoom at home.

Pandemic Pondering #472

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Debs Bobber

Hard on the heels of the Friday blog is the Saturday blog. The waters between Drakes Island and the tidal pool is a very busy stretch of water. Some of the most regular users are the Dockyard Tugs. This one is Faithful and is a Twin Tractor Unit Tug, built in 1985.

All the Bobbers love it when a Tug chugs past on a swimming session, there is a delicious thrum that goes through the water and resonates in our bones.

The name Faithful also gives me the chance to share a rare Celebrity anecdote. Sharing is the rarity. Having worked in Harley Street and in proper London Hospitals we’ve many an amusing tale filed away but confidentiality is a hurdle to witty celebrity nattering.

We were at a festival a few years ago when we saw some kitten heeled feet sticking out of a bush, closer inspection found them to be attached to a woman, still holding a glass, we grabbed her arms and pulled her out and she carried on walking without comment. Coincidentally a similar thing had happened to us at a different event about a year before. The women’s surnames were Faithful and Pallenburg. It’s not everyday you find someone in an awkward situation but finding two Rolling Stones muses in separate bushes is quite a story. Of course both the women in question were substantial people in their own right, but it can be argued that their fame and friendship began when they were associated with the Rolling Stones which is why I’ve allowed myself to use the word ‘ muse’.