Category: Family

#1084 theoldmortuary ponders

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This morning I set a winged unicorn off on her return migratory journey. If this sounds like the opening sentence of a fantasy novel, that is a coincidence, it was my lived experience this morning.

Last weekend my Hong Kong located granddaughter asked for a cuddly unicorn for her 6th birthday. An easy gift, I thought. I could easily have transferred money to her parents and they could have bought one locally. But that never seems quite right to me. A birthday gift should not, in my opinion, just be a transaction. She should receive a unicorn that I have chosen for her and it should be accompanied by a card with  messages written by her Nana and Nona. Which is exactly what she will unpack in 6 days time.

It was impossible to find a British-made unicorn. Which begins the migratory story. The unicorn I settled on was made of soft plush fabric with a rose gold horn. Oh, the choice of unicorns is extensive but her request was for a cuddly one so I ruled out glitter, sparkle and sequins. Those materials make for a very itchy and ultimately unsuccessful cuddle. My unicorn of choice was made in China just a few miles North of the border with Hong Kong. She was then shipped to a prestige toymaker in Britain who posted her to me after an electronic exchange of money.

Just one brief day in Devon and she was boxed up, with a card and posted off to Hong Kong. Her first journey from China would almost certainly have been by sea in a container and that would have taken roughly 30 days. Today she will travel by lorry and aircraft and that journey is predicted to be about 6 days.  If she becomes a favourite cuddly friend she may travel back to visit us with VV in less than 24 hours, which is why I consider her to be migratory Unicorn. I was told that a horn was essential but wings not so much. This is the exact point of me choosing our unicorn because she has wings. It makes the whole migratory fantasy more believable and in turn more magical. Grandparents who live at a distance from their grandchildren already live in a fantasy magical realm. We are not a daily reality or any practical use to our grandchildren. We inhabit a sort of untouchable imagined world for the majority of time. A similar place to the fantasy of  Unicorns. So why wouldn’t I max up the capabilities of a gifted Unicorn and make sure she has wings to travel.  Sometimes I wish I had wings of my own to visit more easily, or a winged Unicorn to carry me.

P.S 6 years ago most of the thinking adults in our family poo-pooed the very idea of unicorns. Our small people who are 6 and under have taken no notice. It seems we must follow suit.

#1075 theoldmortuary ponders.

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I realised this weekend that a lifetime of a recurring dream was based on an actual place rather than my imagination.

My early childhood holidays were shared with my older and physically disabled cousin. All our destinations had to be accessible by car and a child in a wheelchair.

On a previous adult visit to Ansteys Cove in Torbay I had wondered if this was the source of  my dream but discounted it as some of the geography felt wrong. But this weekend we stayed in a flat opposite a lane leading to the cove. I realised that viewing somewhere as a child when there is magic and the unexpected around every corner is very different from being ‘the grown-up’

The magic of ancient woodland, steps and handrails leading suddenly to a beach with a cafe was probably created by my parents walking on the coastal path to the cove in order to burn off my under 10 year old energy. My cousins family would have driven to a car park on the lane opposite my airbnb, and used a steeply sloped private road to push her to and from the beach.

Another thing that didn’t quite sit well in my head was that, as supposedly my parents favourite beach in the West Country, they never once suggested visiting it when I moved to Plymouth which is only an hour away.

Just giving the whole scenario a bit of a ponder I realised that life had changed so dramatically for them that they were probably just preserving happy memories and not making themselves sad.

My cousin had died young as a result of her disabilities and my Aunt and Uncle had fled to Australia never to be seen again. By the time I moved to Plymouth my mum was in a wheelchair and my dad would have known that the slope to the beach would have been an impossible task for him or any of us.

I am very glad to have revisited and given the whole family dynamics a good old ponder. Sad that we never discussed a visit, because I’m sure we could have driven closer and gained access but maybe they really needed to preserve it as a happy memory without revisiting what must have been immense and multilayered grief.

With just an hour’s drive I think it is time for me to visit more often. Had I realised all this two days ago I would have taken more photos but pondering can be a slow burn to realisation.

#1065 theoldmortuary ponders.

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What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

I would be devastated. I know things are just things but I quite like things. To lose all my friends and family would  be so much worse, but either is unthinkable.

Goodness I have been hanging onto these prompts this week.  We have been hiding out in the campervan keeping our germs to ourselves. The weather has been kind. But pondering has been a little on the back foot.

Powered by a morning bun that looks like a comma we geared up for a two year olds birthday party.

The weather was kind. It’s been a good week for the weather.  And today was a good day to be two.

Especially if you love bunnies.

#1057 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Serendipity2 Comments

27th September 2024, one year since the Sycamore of the Sycamore Gap was cut down by a criminal act and 90 years since my mother was born. The two things are both related and not related. I can’t claim to have a huge relationship with this tree, as others do, but somewhere in the photo albums of my parents there are a few pictures of me at varying heights and ages standing under this tree.  The photos would be horribly aged in the way that mass market photo development from the late sixties and seventies are.  Bleached out colours with a brown tinge. There may be a black and white image of me at age 5 standing under the tree.

Regardless I made the image at the top of this blog of a lone woman under the tree from images I found in a magazine.

Sycamore Gap is the red marker.

Every year we would make the journey from North East Essex, close to Cambridge on this map, to Glasgow to visit my paternal grandfather. Sycamore Gap was where we would stop and have a few hours out of the journey and a late breakfast. My Dad always liked to leave home at 2 a.m for these adventures. The journeys stopped when my Grandfather died and I last visited the tree at about age 15 on a school trip to Hadrian’s wall. That aspect of my family is entirely lost to me apart from their names on my family tree. One stands out.

Why did me and my mum never discuss what a cool name her Grandfather had?

A tree and a family tree are the flimsiest of connections for this blog. Underneath the canopy of both trees is the thought that I never talked enough to my parents while I had them. Do any of us?

#1010 theoldmortuary ponders

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We have empty bed syndrome. Our Grandchild quota has been cut by 2/3 over night. No longer a family all in the same post code and soon enough not in the same time zone.

Peace in our duvet as the sun rises. Somewhat artificially we have arrived in late summer by mid-August. The summer we prepared for is done, over for another year. Ahead is the bonus summer, the scrag end of summer admittedly, but one where anything might happen.

Because we have had our imaginations reset by a five year old and our joy in the mundane enhanced by the wonder of two under-twos.

A quiet duvet is just the start to new adventures.

#1007 theoldmortuary ponders

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What colourful nonsense is this Friday Blog? The end of a week  when play has been at the heart of everything and soft play has been the giddiest of all the play events.

Soft play areas are vast creations of indoor multi-storey, multi-sensory ,padded, wipe clean  climbing frames for the under tens. Our visit yesterday was to a Cornish Copper Mine themed one. Earlier in the week we were in soft-play Steam Train world.

Nothing about these places is subtle. They are loud, brash, palaces of pleasure and excitement. Adults use the crazy plastic construction in order to supervise their small people, but clambering and climbing over brightly coloured, soft shapes, with very little chance of physical harm is such a fun thing to do, it surprises me no-one has ever built one of these things to adult proportions.

Over-enthusiasm on my part has led to minor injuries in the past. Grown-up backs and knees complain mightily the next day. I kid myself that it is because everything is a little too small and awkward for me, but the truth is, I have circled the sun many more times than the under tens for which a soft-play zone is designed and I am not as pliable as I once was.

© Miners Play

https://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk/miners-adventure-play

A well stocked cafe with good quality coffee and snackage soothed my aches and dried me off after a quite different sensory experience. Working Wi-Fi would  have been advantageous, just for five minutes, for a brief phone call. Miners Play is in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and no phone signal. Staff were very helpful in pointing out the exact spot where a signal could sometimes be found in the middle of an outdoor field. Twenty minutes in the rain found me a signal,and with calls done I returned to coffee, a bacon sandwich and somewhat ironically working Wi-Fi.

Admin done I returned damply to my family. Still adventuring wildly,there was still an hour to go in our session. Small sweaty hands pulled me to enjoy their moments of triumphant clambering. Small sweaty hands. Nothing better

#868 theoldmortuary ponders

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Yesterday we attempted a big Hollywood style welcome for our granddaughter who was arriving home from France.

Everything was set up, we knew which window to wave at. We had tracked the ferry.

Everything was set.

And then we missed the moment by a moment.

You might think that a docked ferry suggests more than a moment, but from regular ferry watching I can assure you that sometimes it takes me longer to reverse my car into a parking space than for these ferries to nip backwards into the port. I am confident that we will be easily forgiven by an 18-month-old. But next year we really do have to get our ‘A’ game on. It is always the people who live closest that are late.

#851 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Firestone Bay1 Comment

Privacy and a woman who ponders daily online might not seem a natural pairing.But only a very small percentage of my ponderables or imponderables are blogged about. People don’t feature much in pictures. Today is an exception  This blob on a beach is our middle grandchild enjoying a soft sandy  beach close to home. This is a week of very high tides, something that can be a flood worry. The other side of the story is very low, low-tides which is how we found the soft sandy beach, way beyond our usual rocky shore. The sand was so very soft and clean she immediately ducked down to run the damp sand through her fingers and became a living version of drone filming , a technique that has become so popular as infill in film and television story telling. Artists and designers also love a flat-lay image. It is probably not going to catch on as a portraiture fashion but I rather like the image. Low tide near home is not my usual thing, the rocks are slippy and slimy but the area of the beach that only gets seen infrequently seems much cleaner and kinder to my ankles. I may become a low-tide wanderer. A reliable habit, of more value than being a cranio- caudal portraitist.

#842 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Serendipity4 Comments

My random blogging suits the way I ponder life. Back in January, I followed a challenge to accept a prompt every day and incorporate the prompt into ponderings. Initially, I dreaded the prompts but 31 days of a very dull month, with prompts, taught me a little bit. By using the prompts WordPress shares my blog a little wider than my usual small group of followers. I have since gained a few more.  There are prompts available year-round and I suppose I use about 1 a week in ordinary circumstances. So it is unusual for me to use two in a weekend. I was about to ignore this morning’s prompt but it could work on Mother’s Day.

Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.

Congratulations old thing, you made it to 100. 100 years of being an imperfect human, mother, grandmother and friend. Following a delightful female inheritance of not being a stereotypical perfect woman. Sometimes barely even making the grade of ‘ good enough’ which was exactly the standard you set yourself.

Enjoy 100 and beyond, Perfection is over-rated.

Xx

I have two children and three grandchildren. I have been the oldest woman in their maternal line for nearly 30 years. So not just their mum but the oldest woman in their Matriarchy.

Just like beautiful weeds they did just fine, better than fine as we muddled along with no elder wisdom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who just make it up as they go.