Category: Family

Pandemic Pondering #265

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The Theft of the Family Baubles
Yesterday saw the gathering of three friends for breakfast @theoldmortuary table. For those of you who have read the ‘about’ page of this blog will know the table is where many Ponderings start.

All three of us had rather sad tales involving the theft of our familial collections of Christmas decorations. I suspect it is unusual to have such sorry tales involving something as trivial as Christmas decorations but the triviality underlines the unkindness of people.

Memories for all three of us are triggered by Christmas decorations. As a collective group of women we have been robbed of Christmas decorations that we knew and loved as children. Between the three of us they represented memories from Woolworths, Hong Kong, Poland, Harrods and many unremembered locations and events , in age they possibly stretched back almost 100 years. The theft of them says so much about the character of the people who took them as their only true value is within the loving memories of family members. Sadly, they are likely to all be in landfill somewhere now, as detached from their memories they do become worthless tat.

I think, encouraged by this sad talk, we decided to mark 2020 with some new decorations. We were aiming for gaudy colours with maybe a hint of retro and perhaps a little bit tastelessness. These new additions illustrate this blog.

Several things revealed themselves to us.

Gaudy and tasteless is not a thing in 2020.

Woolworths has gone.

The first week of December is way too late to get peak choice in Christmas Bauble World.

Some stars look a little like a Covid-19 Virus.

And to those Bauble thieves in three different locations – we know where you live.

Pandemic Pondering #227

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family1 Comment

Beach day after Storm Aidan. Last night was very stormy @theoldmortuary. It was a blustery walk at Seaton Beach this lunchtime.

As it happens it was good that we got out for a blow through on the beach, soon after we got home there was the promise of an evening briefing from the Prime Minister. This really can mean only one thing. A further Lockdown in Britain.

There was a little stone heart caught up in a pile of tidal detritus as we got onto the beach. Maybe a metaphor for the next few weeks. Some days beach days are also about the people who are not there with us.

This weekend was also the second birthday of our darling VV. This was her first birthday in Crystal Palace Park

This year she is living in more exotic places with different sartorial needs. Beach walks are not the same without her. These little feet are in Hong Kong now.

Meanwhile after the walk it is Saturday evening and time for Strictly Come Dancing. Even the Guinea Pig, Ginny and Hugo are ready.

Here we go headlong into another Lockdown, thank goodness this weekend was about a bit of mingling.

Pandemic Pondering #135

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Gardens and gardening, Serendipity2 Comments

August 1st 2020.

For a month Pandemic Ponderings will be slightly controlled by the prompt list that my art group, Drawn to the Valley is using to inspire a response from members on Instagram and Facebook during August.

As you know from PP#133, I am slightly churlish about prompts but am choosing to see this as a creative challenge not only for art but my creative writing/social history Ponderings.

#1 Gardens

About two and a bit years ago garden design @theoldmortuary took on a new angle when we had to make it safe for an anticipated grandchild.

At the time that little family were living in Hong Kong so we had time on our side for alterations to the structure of the garden.

Then with great excitement they returned to Cornwall to live and our garden plans were properly tested and found to be pretty exciting for someone under two.

Then the Pandemic hit and she couldn’t visit. Then the Pandemic hit in a different way and they have had to return to Hong Kong.

Here she is inspecting the garden for herself, from above.

Then she required a meeting with the Head Gardener to discuss changes and improvements required for when she is able to visit again.

By embracing prompts I have been able to explain in a gentle way why we’ve been a little sad for a few months.

In the future the little person will know that she was loved and we were sad to see her go in 2020.

I’m looking at prompts in a new way let’s hope I am not a recidivist and return to my grumpy prompt hating ways.

For completeness sake here is the picture I’m going to pop into Instagram for the Garden prompt.

Dead heading into a turquoise bucket.

Pandemic Pondering #131

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The boots have left the building.

For the past year we’ve been hands- on grandparents @theoldmortuary. The period of the pandemic has changed the way we can be grandparents, just as it has disrupted aspects of many peoples lives. As of today we have become Zoomgrandparents. Google has many sites suggesting different ways to be gramdparents when the physical distance and an ongoing pandemic make actual contact impossible.

Eliminating the miles has always been a grandparent thing.

Distance is entirely relative, my dad didn’t get to see his grandparents often. It required my great grandparents to travel the ten miles between Braintree and Great Bardfield with a pony and trap. That’s 20 miles per visit and about 4 hours travelling time at a walking trot. Beyond rare visits the only other method of communication would have been a letter.

I lived closer to one set of my grandparents, a walk by road of maybe 2-3 miles. I was only about 6 when it was entirely acceptable for me to take a short cut, alone, though two dairy farms divided by a river. The other set of granparents lived 12 miles away. Unusually they both had cars. My grandad drove an Austin A40 and being picked up by him often meant sharing the inside of the car with barrels of beer for his pub.

In contrast his wife, my Nan, drove a Zephyr 6. She ran a private taxi company, lifts and visits to them were entirely dictated by their business needs. It was always a surprise as to which of these,now classic, cars would pick me up.

In contrast my children lived 100’s of miles from their grandparents. Visits were often long weekends the journeys to and fro in fairly dull cars on motorways. Contact in between visits would be by phone.

Zooming and googling, Different, but hopefully effective. A talking head.

Pandemic Pondering #96

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Serendipity1 Comment

Pods , Bubbles and Raindrops and a metaphor.

Rain did not stop play this weekend, but it did rain in Cornwall, this weekend. Our schedule had enough flexibility built into it to avoid a drenching. Thank goodness. We formed a government approved Bubble with my daughter and then socially distanced with some other familial bubbles.

If I know anything significant about bubbles it is that they pop in the rain. I would have felt safer if the government had used the word ‘pod’

Podding with someone feels robust and resilient. There is a protective element to the word.

Bubbling with someone seems frivolous and fanciful, flimsy.

A sensible mother would protect her child in a pod, we were only offered a bubble. People go into space in a pod not a bubble.

Without becoming over political this reflects the whole sorry state of Pandemic Precautions in England. Run by a government that chooses the flimsy alternative to the more robust one, every time.

We had a good weekend skitting about in our bubble avoiding rainshowers. Raindrops posed boastfully on flowers everywhere, calling attention to themselves and providing a visual metaphor for the virus that could at any moment pop our ‘ bubble’ of a slowly easing Lockdown.

Other flowers though had shrugged off the rain and were ready to get on with life as normal. A happy state that we humans are not quite at.

Hugo , being a dog flitted wilfully between bubbles and at other times posed in flower beds. Having completely misunderstood which restrictions have been relaxed.

Pandemic Pondering #95

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Father’s Day

@theoldmortuary we don’t have any fathers. Definitely a cause of sadness but within our micro family we have two Father’s, my ex-husband and my son. Today was a socially distanced family gathering to celebrate at a distance those father’s both with us and those no longer with us.

Celebrate takes on a whole new way of being when the only alcohol is in the hand sanitizer and everyone has prepared their own picnic.

Our destination was the Eden Project as previous visits, since the relaxation of lockdown, have been very easy. It is never busy and has plenty of space for a family to social distance.

Our progress is always slow around Eden.

Today, patterns was my photographic project , beyond the family of course.

This first image is a pierced stained glass design and it’s projected image stitched together and then tiled.

The rest are just pierced metal and bright sunlight.

Finally we have the three people,all in the same log, that celebrated Father’s Day with their Dads today.

Pandemic Pondering #81

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family4 Comments

A pandemic 1st for @theoldmortuary. A Day Out.

Today we went to the Eden Project in Cornwall to have a socially distanced meet up with some of our family.

The Eden Project opened to the public recently for the first time since Lockdown.
https://www.edenproject.com

The Eden Project has got socially distanced tourism spot on. You have to book a slot, so it can’t be a spontaneous visit but beyond that the amount of control is so deftly handled, once you are in, it is easy to forget the restrictions of the pandemic, without ever flouting them.

On arrival there are ample public toilets, water stations and a take out coffee shop. The hosts who welcome you have the same welcoming charm as London 2012 Olympic Volunteers, and that was considered a Gold Standard of hosting. Hand sanitising gel is available as soon a you reach the welcome concourse and throughout the site.

Only the outside area is open during this pandemic opening. Visitors are guided to wander through areas that can be overlooked by anyone dazzled , quite rightly, by the magnificence of the Tropical and Mediterranean Biomes or the Science of The Core in more normal times. This is a fabulous chance to experience the outside with restricted visitor numbers. The peace is magical.

Instead of biomes we got intimate with bees.

And wandered down Cornish lanes.

Flower meadows and single specimens slowed us down. This was the most tranquil visit we have ever made to Eden

Fragrance is everywhere. Once we had meandered our way down to the Biomes more toilets were available and another take- away coffee stall, again social distancing was imposed with a gentle reminder.

A great time was had by all.

And for Miss VV, her first experience of being, very gently, escorted out of a venue as the last woman standing.

Pandemic Pondering #69

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Pandemic wanderings.

Today found us having a small permissible family gathering midway between London and Cornwall.

We met at Ashton Court on the outskirts of Bristol. Acres of amazing walks and plenty of places to have socially distanced picnics.

The house has some lovely architectural details.

and some curious graffiti.

Frosty Flakes anyone?
https://thebristolmag.co.uk/mr-mrs-smyth-the-history-of-ashton-court-estate/

The views from the park are phenomenal. In the distance we spotted a beautiful church. How often in life are there so few pressures on time that you can just go and find a church that you’ve seen in a landscape? That’s how we ended up at St Michaels Church, Dundry. It has spectacular views over Bristol

and the churchyard has an unusual project.

Many of the old graves have been planted with bee friendly, and other polinator friendly, flowers. This whole area of the graveyard has a softness and distinctive look, created by the flowers that makes it mystical and beautiful in a way that is unfamiliar in Britain.

The church door of St Michaels is guarded by two faces. One has definitely done more years.

After leaving St Michaels we took a scenic journey to Chew Lakes to finish up our picnic that was started lunchtime.

Two days of meeting up with much loved family members has exhausted us. We might gently slip back into full lockdown tomorrow for a rest. But it’s been wonderful to see everyone.

Pandemic Ponderings #14

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family3 Comments

Yesterday was unusual because I didn’t feel particularly inspired to write and was in the lucky position of having written two blogs in one day earlier in the Pandemic so had the chance to stay numerically correct . It is 14 days since Pandemic Ponderings started. I’m not sure what made me not want to write . We needed supplies so I drove the car to a farm for eggs and then hit two supermarkets for provisions. We went for another massive walk. In the same direction as #13 but the opposite riverbank.

The need to bake became imperative and a rich black Guinness Cake sits in the kitchen this morning, some of it already eaten.

In London Cornish Pasties were being made by my daughter and her boyfriend.

Last night we attended a virtual Pub Disco, streamed on Facebook. Hosted by family member Lee Anthony

So there was a lot going on.

My mind was almost certainly taken up with thoughts that swirled around reregistration as a Radiographer. A decision made for me by the government.
It was a big decision to deregister when I left London two years ago. My long career in the NHS had accidentally gone full circle ending exactly where it started at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

An injury in New York, I fell over a flower bed, had thrown up a number of health ssues I was unaware of and some that I had chosen to ignore. The pragmatic approach and slightly early retirement seemed the right answer to these problems. Which it was, the Health issues have righted themselves with rest, medication, weight loss and exercise.

Reregistration is usually bloody hard and involves crossing the government’s palm with Silver and donating time freely to the NHS to prove worthiness and usefulness.

As if by magic in a Pandemic, reregistration becomes easy, which makes me wonder why such apparently useful people have always been made to take a difficult path if they change their own minds.

No time to be churlish.

Both myself and Pandemic Ponderings will be taking a path unimaginable to me 14 days ago. Let’s see where serendipity is taking us tomorrow.