Category: Friends

#1264 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Yardening1 Comment

Not exactly an Easter Egg but as close as we got. Fueled by this Bagel we tackled big jobs in the Yard. Both had the potential to be grim jobs but neither were too bad either.

But first a recipe for Easter.

Not for the squeamish. But the results are just like regular compost.

We use two rhubarb forcing pots to recycle coffee grounds, teabags and dog poos that are done in the yard. If such a thing can be described as a recipe then the recipe has served us well for the eleven years we have had Hugo and nine years of Lola. The method worked on the clay soils of South London, the excellent soil of an old mortuary in Cornwall and now on slightly raised beds in a city yard. The pots never smell and we use the compost for flowers and shrubs.

The process couldn’t be simpler and the compost is excellent.

Ingredients

Coffee Grounds

Tea bags

Egg Shells

Dog poo picked up with bamboo fibre toilet paper.

A handful of juicy worms from a friend’s compost heap.

Method

Place rhubarb forcer on soil ( Lid optional)

Randomly layer the ingredients as available. Worms just once.

Empty from below in the Spring wearing gloves and with a hand fork.

Pick through the compost to remove stuff that has not been turned into compost. The biggest culprit seems to be tea bag fabric  occasionally and friends who pick up their dogs poos with non compostable plastic bags.

I estimate that good compost is created in about a year with a three year cycle. Our pots seem to operate at about 2/3 full. We have two. When one is full to the brim we put the lid on and move to the other. The level drops surprisingly quickly.

In the Spring I harvest about 2/3 of each pot of compost from below and leave the top third to drop to the bottom when I stand the forcer back up. I always return a lot of worms to the top after I have done this.

We have moved house 3 times in 11 years there has never been a problem just bagging up and disposing of the small amounts of uncomposted matter at the top of the forcers.

Goodness knows why I felt the need to share this recipe. Except that we watched an Easter Special cookery programme that featured a ‘ What to do with left over Easter eggs’

Not in this house.

No programme ever features ‘ What to do with your left over dog shit’

@theoldmortuary USP perhaps.

The second job of the day was more tricksy, replacing a large plastic barrel home made ( not by us) water butt with an actual water butt provided by our water provider. First the full water butt had to be emptied and the water stored. Then there was butt wrestling to get the old one out and the new one in. And then refilling and landscaping of the new edition. All achieved before we went to a friends house for some Easter nattering.

It’s funny isn’t it, the conversations you have just as you leave these things that would have been so much more valuable at the beginning of the evening.  We discovered the couple who left at the same time as us lived 1/2 a mile from us in Crystal Palace 8 years ago. Both relocating to the same patch of coast nearly 300 miles away. The funny thing is just a slight fleeting familiarity not associated with our current location. Conversations for another day…

So much achieved on one Bagel.

#1262 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FriendsLeave a comment

Easter weekend returns us to greige…

Our morning’s domestic admin and dog walk were done in terrible rainy conditions. Enlivened only by a trip to Jacka Bakery where we picked up Cardamom Buns and a bedraggled friend, he was as anxious as us to hide in a coffee shop and play parking space jeopardy. A game where you assess the risk of Parking Wardens patrolling the timed free spaces and catching you stretching two hours out of one.

The wet morning turned into a wetter afternoon so we turned the afternoon into a time warp. We are both former rowers and had somehow managed to miss the Oxford and Cambridge Boat race last week. Not only that we had both managed to avoid the race results. So two hours were happily spent watching a sports programme that was 6 days old from start to finish, interviews, statistics and of course the endeavour of rowers whose pain, win or lose, we understood.

Madness how easy it was to fill a rainy day in interesting, to us, ways.

The evening dog walk was as wet and greige as the morning. Not a scintilla of colour anywhere. The picture below has every speck of colour available . Mallard Ducks on the sea.  When I was growing up a bad day of rainy weather was described as,

“A good day for ducks”

I’m not sure if even the ducks were having a ball yesterday.

Although a friend is in Egypt currently and things were not a lot better for her.

© Charity Evwierhoma

#1208 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends1 Comment
The Chimney view at lift 109

It has been quite the week of nattering in the real world. My head is spinning from the snippets and gems of conversations I have had with work friends who become real-life friends. A fiftieth birthday and a retirement party in the same 48 hours were the source of my natterings.

Work friends are an interesting concept. Some slip away when jobs change others somehow transfer into longer term friendships.

Social media has helped me keep some of these friendships alive and relevant,for others there are personal connections.

I have observed the ex-colleagues from hell rarely feature at retirements or other informal gatherings of past work colleagues. Is there some other place where they all gather and share grief, gloom and gossip with as much  enthusiasm as lovely colleagues?

Even as I write this my head is laughing at the shockers I could put in my Reunion Room of undesirable colleagues. The threshold of which I would not cross.

And that is the beauty of time moving on. Lovely people remain lovely. While the less-than-lovely have their toxicity depleted and diminish over time to be irrelevant or laughable.

There may even be another reunion room for the blands. Those people who barely register on the workplace eco-system. I might cross that threshold, in case I missed a gem of a person while I was working or enjoying the company of the lovelies.

Catching up with the lovelies is a great way to spend 48 hours.

#1207 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, SerendipityLeave a comment

Did the surprise, surprise. Yes it did. Even though we were doing it in an hotel with airport level security. So it took engagement with and the help of security men and a receptionist. What was fascinating and charming was that several hours later the same staff were interested to talk to us  and discover if the surprise was a successful and happy outcome for all of us.

Planning surprises always have a degree of jeopardy, that is what makes them great when they work out.

This set of surprises had all of us with our feet not on solid ground for most of the day. Lunch and a hotel room in London’s highest building and then a trip up a Chimney at Battersea Power Station. 10,000 steps on the ground but many trips in funky lifts.

No photo opportunity ever missed.

Aerial views in another blog later today.

#1123 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends3 Comments
Reverse Blue Sky thinking.

What technology would you be better off without, why?

I have no idea which technology I would be better off without. I believe technology is a scientifically invented force of nature and selecting one type to remove would have unforeseen and unwelcome consequences elsewhere.

I had an online natter with a friend yesterday which shows how technology evolves

I discovered when we moved to our current house that without the communication technology that we were accustomed to, organisational life slowed to a snail’s pace.

A first world problem so easily demonstrated by the fashion pages from the year my house and Polly’s were built. I would have moved house in the 1880’s looking like this.

I could only have written to Polly to commiserate with her new house communication woes. I could perhaps have sent a telegram. I presume her only woe would have been how far the walk was to a post box or post office.

I would have been unlikely to even have a landline.

And Polly would have looked like this in the 1930’s and may have had a landline. She could also have sent a telegram.

How times/technology change.

First World predicaments on the subject of nattering.

P.s Writing this made me look at the house deeds . It is actually 20 years older than we thought.

The dresses just get bigger!

#918 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Love1 Comment

I found this lone Californian Poppy yesterday. He was growing in an inhospitable space. Caught between Tarmac and an old concrete wall. A brutal, liminal space for something as fragile as a poppy.

My head was in a bit of a liminal space at the time, as I was fresh from attending a London work colleague’s online funeral. Always sad affairs funerals are moments to pause and reflect.

One of my ponderings in that reflective space was when we had last met and last communicated.

I’ve just about nailed down the last meeting which was by accident in a gloriously beautiful old pub in Marylebone in London. Close to where we had worked together.

Our last, long, on-line natter was four years ago when we discussed this cookbook.

Both about 4 years ago.

In that time we have had occasional exchanges on Facebook, but essentially we had lost touch. Which is the nature of work relationships. And a measure of my sorrow yesterday.  I’ve not lost a huge relationship, but one of those small complicated mosaic pieces that make up life’s rich pattern.

Obviously, yesterday, so many people in the room at the Crematorium had lost a much bigger piece of their lives.

Although,in truth, a good description of her is, small and complicated.

What was not small or complicated was the massive amount of love in the room. Visible because family and friends ran the whole service. No religion or non-religious celebrant. Just swirling love. Fabulous.

Great music too.

Into My Arms https://g.co/kgs/5hiKQgc

#722 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Serendipity1 Comment
Deconstructed Fruit and Nut Chocolate bar. Gift making in November.

November is one of my favourite months. It feels like a pause or a moment of restfulness before the hurly burly of the festive season. The quality of light when the sun appears, makes normal things more luminous.

November is also my favourite month because my birthday appears in the middle of it. This week I discovered that the authors of two blogs that I follow also have their birthdays in the same week. And we are all virtually the same age. I consider these two women to be blog friends, mentors and inspiration. Their blogs can be found on the links below.

https://claudia-mcgill.com
https://ididnthavemyglasseson.com

Real world friends with similar birthdays would probably gather on a comfy sofa and natter away amongst plump cushions.

Cushions in a Coffee Shop in St Agnes

We would talk about our friends, families, pets and life in general.

Hugo and Lola in a sunbeam

I would certainly moan about the two viruses that have dampened the spirit of November 2023 for me. Dampened but not damaged. Although by keeping away from people because I was a walking virus pool I have been a lot less social in my real world this November.

Old piece of timber washed up on a beach.

Friends, be they virtual or actual are one of the magic ingredients of life. They are invaluable wherever and however they manifest themselves. They help us make sense of the world.

Cornish Beach

Happy Birthdays November friends.

(All photographs taken using November light.)

#720 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Serendipity1 Comment

An early morning trip to a bleak industrial estate on the edge of a damp and bleak Dartmoor had me running into my archives to find some quick colour sketches done on Dartmoor on brighter days. The top one was a crumpled crown from an amateur dramatic store on the far north west boundary of Dartmoor. My subject for today may also seem somewhat bleak so bright illustrations will lighten the mood. Rather sadly I have three friends who are experiencing the deep grief of the recent loss of a loved person. I found this interesting piece of prose that really reflects the grieving experience and life beyond it.

A real nugget of wisdom for bleak times. I have found three bleak paintings which represent Dartmoor as it is today and perhaps reflect something of the prose.

And then finally a little uplift of colour and the knowledge that colour does eventually flood back into a grieving heart. Pumpkins in the sun.