Category: blogging

#993 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Serendipity2 Comments

It’s been a week of damp,grey days and yesterday was the dampest greyest. I found a two year old photograph of a watercolour depicting mussels to illustrate a greyish post.

The problem of the week has been the admin of a club I belong to. The problems are not matters of life or death but goodness they do take up some time. Much of the admin of clubs is constructive leading to a useful outcome.

Quite a lot is ‘ Niffnaff’ and some is people management, not always in a good way.

Real mussels hiding on a painting of mussels.

Sometimes problems are hiding in plain sight. This week the big problem of the week was caused by Testosterone and Ego. A clever script writer could write a drama or comedy  set in  committees in Britain, maybe elsewhere too. Where the best efforts of many are thwarted by an abrasive and/or disruptive individual, sometimes individuals. Although this week’s problem was male derived, women can also be egostic and disruptive in the same setting.

But with enough effort resolutions can be found and using the same mussel analogy. People working well together can move clubs, organisations and indeed whole countries forward.

All is well that ends well.

Unless you are a mussel in a white wine sauce.

#976 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Serendipity1 Comment
More buttocks

The yard has started to produce a small handful of strawberries. Today’s haul gave us two bums.

This week has been all about gathering things, mostly lovely conversations with friends. And also some stray thoughts because my life is all about gathering virtually useless information.

Strawberries are not called strawberries because they are habitually grown on straw to protect from slugs. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon language when they had a descriptive name of Stray Berries because they throw off runners to create new plants.

I also learnt a new acronym.          ‘ There we are then’ a really polite phrase that neatly responds to the news that someone has behaved in a particularly vile or unpleasant way.

Another offering from the yard for Friday is sharp evening shadows . White Agapanthas and my newly white painted wall.

Random thoughts for a Friday.

#959 theoldmortuary ponders

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While I was away one of my photographs was having a moment in the sun as an edible cake topper at a Centenery Celebration The photo featured my home made bunting. If I had good enough baking skills it could have been a triple creative skill creation, a tri-athalon of making. Better for everyone that I stopped at two levels of creativity

We did a reasonable length dog walk from home and found the perfect counter point image to one I took last week.

Last week.
This week.

Hot summer. Soft summer.  The colours tell the temperature just as much as a thermometer would. Yesterday was a day of washing, drying, walking, food shopping and finishing our holiday reads. Back to the real world today.

#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 .

#866 theoldmortuary ponders.

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How to make a silk purse out of a sows ear?

Or indeed how to write a blog from a pile of ironing?

Yesterday and the day before were days  of catching up after the long weekend. Largely insignificant tasks but in this Winter and Spring of interminable rainfall the ironing stood out as a glimmer of something different.

Long ago when sunshine was a thing and washing could be dried outside, a load of white table linen was dried and then put away unironed.  I decided to get the job done while catching up on podcasts. The minute the steam of the iron hit the crispy linen all the natural fragrance of a summers day filled the room. Sea breezes and the smell of an English summer.  A few seconds of a hot July replaced the dankness of our current April.

In other news, I attempted some Dartmoor walking yesterday. I was defeated by really slippery mud and mist. Not for me forlorn,damp ponies or stoic sheep. Just a quietly arriving ferry close to home.

Surely a sign that Spring is somewhere close.

#860 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Clutching at straws, or in this case, clutching a Pangolin. A couple of things coincided yesterday. This little sleeping Pangolin turned 4 yesterday, I painted him when it was suggested that Pangolins might be the animal that transmitted COVID-19 to humans in a ‘wet’ market in Wuhan. Four years ago this made me a little sad, as I have always liked the idea of a Pangolin. Current thinking is that the virus came from bats via Racoon dogs. I don’t think I would ever have the urge to paint either.

Pangolins sleep in this curled-up way, which I rather like. And gives me the chance to natter on about the circularity of blogging. A friend popped by at the art gallery and talked about blog #858.

#858 theoldmortuary ponders

Blog #858 mentioned the word camoufleur. My friend is a military historian and said he was surprised to learn the word camoufleur as a profession and then crafted a sentence using the word which suggested that our current government are very good camoufleurs at hiding their lies in plain sight. A much better sentence than I had thought of when writing blog #858*

As it happens I am currently reading a book about our governments response to Covid-19 with particular focus on the NHS. An awful lot of camoufleuring going on.

And that is the circularity of joy that blogging brings me. Sharing the pleasure of a new word over a cup of coffee.

* My rather tortuous sentence using the word camoufleur talked about a designer of abstract exercise leggings camoufleuring the ‘ camels ‘oof” ( It sounds better with a French accent) or manly bulge, which can be distracting in hot yoga classes **

** Hot yoga involves lycra and a lot of sweat in strange places.

Maybe an Easter challenge could be to create a beautiful sentence, Haiku or Limerick using the word camoufleur. Open to all blog readers. I promise to publish the best.

Pangolins have been in 4 blogs. Some readers will get the chance to read all 4 after this. Other platforms see not di helpful. Below is one of them from four years ago.

Pandemic Pondering#16

#848 theoldmortuary pondered

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, pondering1 Comment

This is what happened just after I pondered yesterday. A real life ponder, not a blog ponder, although now it is a blog ponder.

After a fairly normal morning routine. Tea, Coffee,blog,Shower,  I hit a conundrum, 45 minutes between shower and a morning dip in the sea. What to wear in that 45 minutes?

While I sorted out my after-swim attire Hugo took himself into the folds of the unmade bed. My indecision gave him those moments that he needed to catch up on sleep. Normally we would be out walking but the plan was for his walk to combine with my walk to the beach.

He effortlessly goes from pyjamas to daywear without pondering.

I opted for half putting on my wetsuit,  legs and bum only. Letting the arms and body hang down. A dressing gown completed the ensemble. Of course, someone knocked on the door and of course, as I accepted a parcel my two dangling wetsuit arms pushed themselves out from beneath the dressing gown. Nobody deserves that image etched into their morning routines. Which is why I am just sharing pictures of Hugo. The swim was also completely non-photogenic, wild and wet, rough and bouncy. We congratulated ourselves on how brave we are on these wilder days . Not, I might add, dangerously brave, just cautiously brave. Freshwater rain and seasalty fingers do not combine to take good seascapes.

A cheeky dog in the unmade bed is much more appealing.

#807 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, blogging, Daft Questions, Serendipity1 Comment

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

An ideal day cannot be predictably planned and is perhaps only recognisable as ideal once it has come to an end. Because I was involved in doing Bloganuary many of my ideal days went unmarked because they did not fit with the Bloganuary prompts. There were many days that would be considered to be ideal in January especially as the sun came out a lot more than usual.

Sometimes the tide was just perfect too. Or the light was in just the right place to catch a wave.

On one occasion some Pilchard Street Art popped up.

In very similar colours to some doughnuts I had just seen.

By superimposing those two images I created the header image of this blog.

An ideal day is harder to categorise than I could possibly describe.

#803 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Thursday February 1st 2024 9:15am.

No more Bloganuary prompts. A reason to be cheerful. Signing up to respond to a daily prompt was very against my serendipitous pondering style. 31 days of responding/conforming to writing about a subject generated by an external source. I knew it would go against the grain. Predictably for the first few days I slightly dreaded reading the prompt, but just digging in and accepting whatever came my way, became a brief and limited new way to think about blogging. The prompts took me to different things to ponder. I absolutely missed my freestyle approach. I also missed the repetitive nature of pondering and blogging about the normality of daily life. But Bloganuary has given me more to think about and I may mix up my blogging offering as a result of my January/Bloganuary experience.

But for February 1st I am straight back onto the daily repetition of the morning dog walk.

Embellished this morning by bright sunshine.

And the continued luminosity of the cows.

Happy St Brigid Day, patron saint of cattle, among her many other accomplishments.

Please disregard the prompt below. I am conducting a small algorithm experiment.

Write about your first computer.

My brain, nobody needs to read about that

#786 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Serendipity3 Comments

What is your favorite animal?

I am drawn to Hares, there is an elegance about a hare that a rabbit simply doesn’t have. The elongated body and oversized ears give them an unmistakable profile on the very rare occasions when they are seen out and about. Hares were a popular subject on Christmas cards that we received this year.

Hares are never a common sight in the UK but I grew up in the flat, rural part of Essex with large arable fields all around my home. Traditionally the best time to see hares is in the Spring, when they are looking for love. The best time near us was late August or early September when the harvest had just been done and hares ran across the fields almost unaware that their hidden paths through crops were now fully exposed.