Category: Friends

Pandemic Pondering #118

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Serendipity3 Comments

Sweet Peas, such a thoughtful gift from a neighbour who we’ve come to know better during the pandemic. Gil and his wife Jen live just down the hill from our renovated Cornish Hedge. Gil is also a South Londoner, by birth rather than adoption like us! I found the perfect vase @theoldmortuary for a gift from a native Londoner.

I also tried another ‘flat-lay’ with the Sweet Peas, the orange painted 🍊 box and inadvertently my foot.

Gifted sweet peas are a happy reminder of Hannah’s mum who always gifted us large bunches of them and my grandfather who always delivered home grown flowers. With him Sweet Peas were always safer than his dahlia deliveries which always came with a side serving of earwigs that nipped small fingers.

Another gift this week of gooseberries has inspired another ‘Flat Lay’, thanks to Mel and Ed for the goozgog inspiration to make Gooseberry Drizzle Cake and Gooseberry Fool.

Pandemic Pondering #79

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FriendsLeave a comment

Easing out of lockdown. Not so long ago conversations with people other than those that share the same home was a bit random or coincidental. We may have been deprived of hugs or the normal interactions with friends but our local to @theoldmortuary life has had some amazing revelations. We now know all of our near neighbours, and have had time to talk at length with many of them. We’ve made some new friends from distant places, distant in lockdown is not so far as it used to be. Being coincidentally in the same place at the same time made Coronafriendships. Social distance garden meetings have been lovely with our more longstanding friends.Today was a bit of a novelty, we had two meetings with two different pairs of friends . It felt novel and a little bit exciting . Giddy even.The morning started with a summer playlist . The stand out track was Peaches by The Stranglers . Such is my weird pandemic head that without thinking I chose these two garments to wear today, and the curious meandering that is Pandemic Pondering #79 formed itself.Back to The Stranglers. Peaches is one of those pieces of music that everyone is familiar with because bits of it are sampled in TV shows and other music. It was considered to be a seminal punk song in 1977 when it was released.
Listen to Peaches (BBC In Concert 23/04/77) by The Stranglers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/the-stranglers/peaches-bbc-in-concert-23-04Enough of the Peaches, back to the nattering. This morning’s meeting was with people I’ve known for around 30 years, there have been some gaps, but now we see each other regularly and laugh about ridiculous stuff. The talk is non stop. After three hours we had jaw ache. A brief break and we were off to nattering session 2 this time with someone we met a couple of weeks before lockdown , more nattering and laughing at preposterous things . We completely forgot to mention Book Club which had been the plan. More jaw ache.Laughter is an amazing thing , it jiggles your belly and burnishes your mind.With my mind burnished and my belly jiggled it’s back to peaches. I’ve had a trawl through the photo archive and plucked out some peach images and had a look in the colour theory books. The photo file was a richer source of peachy stuff than the books. Peach seems a little overlooked in colour theory world.Peach represents immortality in Chinese culture. It is named for the interior flesh colour of the white Peach. It is a range of soft colours between pink and orange. It was first mentioned in literature in 1588.Art Deco in the 1920’s and 30’s used a lot of peach.With the randomness of the internet I can also share a code , which I accidentally wore today. In the gay community a ‘ bear’ who wants to hook up with other ‘bears’ wears a peach bandana. Exactly my choice for the new government guidance of face covering for public transport.Peaches from the archive.Last year’s Cafe Au Lait Dahlias.Close ups of a peachy rose.Autumn foliage in the garden.A tiny shell on a beach in Cuba.A peach trumpeted daffodilFriends , peaches and The Stranglers, that was a curious blog, sometimes they just write themselves.Have a peachy weekend.

Pandemic Pondering #70

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends2 Comments

Another friend has died in this curious time of Pandemic Lockdown. Just as my beloved friend mentioned in Pandemic Pondering #28, the friend who died yesterday died an anticipated death , unconnected to Coronovirus but most certainly affected by the restrictions imposed by the Pandemic. He died at home supported by a loving family.

We shared a love of books and music and he was kind and generous with his knowledge of both and equally enthusiastic about exploring new genres of either. I will miss his inspiration and enthusiasm.

Just as in #28 , I am a lower tier mourner. Unlike #28 I’ve had more time, as we all have to absorb the current way of marking a death. More experience too, our regular dog walk takes us between two graveyards and @theoldmortuary overlooks a church graveyard. In consequence we witness many restricted graveside services as voyeurs. We’ve become accustomed to the new way of marking death.

Not being able to join friends in a celebration of life at a traditional funeral has become an acceptable fact of life. The promise of attending a Memorial Service in the future is not something I’ve ever experienced before. It will, for many of us, be a new reality once communal gathering can take place.

For now, all I can do to mark a friend’s passing is quiet contemplation. Very Zen.

Pandemic Pondering #12

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends1 Comment

I realised yesterday that in one virus induced action all of my friends have become people I no longer see.

Some of those friendships have 55 years of longevity graduating down to those that have a tiny lifespan of a few weeks or months and may have fizzled to nothing in normal times. The pandemic preserves them all equally in digital ice like fertilised eggs at a fertility clinic. Granted equal potential to survive, or not, over this period of real life isolation. Many of them will be re-implanted into my future life to thrive, inevitably some of them won’t make it and they will be replaced by new friendships created during this highly unusual circumstance . Thinking about this is overwhelmingly sad if I consider the people I may never see or interact with again.
Thankfully none of us know specifically on which metaphorical doors the plague crosses will appear.

I realise fully that this is a highly pessimistic blog and in part it was induced by a photograph that I took a couple of years ago either in Cuba or Spain.

It was lost for a long while in my pile of digital images . Once I rediscovered it it was filed , waiting for its appropriate moment in the sun. Meloncholia seeps from this image but I love it .

For all our sakes I have some gorgeous optimistic flower images to lighten the mood.

A gift from a new friend. A lovely gesture .