This morning National TV is covering a remarkable ‘bob’ . A military veteran with only one arm and a huge personality is swimming 1000 metres to raise money for REORG . A charity that introduces Brazillian Jiu Jitsu to Veterans, Military personal and Emergency Services staff, to support their physical and mental health.
This may be the freshest blog ever. Mark has only been out of the water for twenty minutes as I push the button. Normal bobbing will occur this afternoon. No Drones. Please follow the links for proper journalism. Happy Friday.
And another day of rain! Thankfully I had to go and replace some spotlights at the art exhibition so I could at least see some sunshine in paintings as I worked.
This picture has everything, sunshine, maskless faces, and a crowd. Spotlights fixed, I had hoped to take a walk around the Industrial Heritage, old mine workings, around Gunnislake, but the weather chased me into the car and back home to domestic admin. Finally just before sunset the rain stopped and the sun popped its head out for 30 minutes of golden moments.
The harbours captured the best images of the turbulent clouds.
This was our usual walk around Sutton Harbour, Cattedown and The Barbican, the sun put in only the briefest of appearances. Luckily one of the entries at the art exhibition shows the Plymouth Gin Distillery in a better light than we saw it last night.
We didn’t actually attempt loving our local gin. Its not a good midweek habit on a school night.
That really was a weekend of dodging heavy rainfall and sometimes being defeated by the gallons of water falling from the sky. Yesterday the only dog walk that wasn’t done in raincoats and wellies rewarded us with this lovely old window aperture. It overlooks The Elizabethan Garden. Nearby this brave rose had bloomed unseasonably early only to have its outer petals battered by the weather, but the internal folds look just like rippled ice cream.
Increased rainfall changed our plans but we just replaced walking activities with talking activities and eating out with eating in. Normally a weekend spent talking to friends and family might be described as ‘ putting the world to rights’ . But with a world with Labyrinthine problems, not unlike the folds of this rose, we talked ourselves in circles and had a great time doing it. The name of this fishing boat neatly sums up our revised weekend.
A wet day out. Today we went to Fowey, a town we regularly visit but it is almost 2 years since we last were able to come. Many old favourite shops and cafes remain closed, maybe for ever, which is very sad. New kid on the block, North Street Cafe, looked very fine.
The weather was not kind to us but the occasional bursts of sunshine encouraged us to walk much further than usual and we found a secret garden on the site of an old Grammar School.
And watched sail boat racing. The day took on a dark turn , not only with the weather.A new sculpture has arrived in Fowey.
The sculpture celebrates the work of local author Daphne Du Maurier and in particular her book The Birds.
On a personal level the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name scared me silly when I was a young Human. I’ve never really felt an affinity with birds since , particularly when they accidentally get trapped indoors. I’m not so daft that the sculpture bothered me but at the end of our walk we sat by the Boddinick Ferry slip way to eat ice-cream and enjoy a rare moment of vivid sunshine. We were opposite Daphne Du Mauriers house. As the sun burnt through the rain clouds a huge cacophany of Crows calling and squarking filled the air behind us in the Rookery near by. The valley was filled with the sound that Hitchcock so effectively used in his screenplay. Right opposite the authors house, it must have informed her original writing. Anyway it unnerved me so much I failed to take a picture of her old home. It is easy enough to find it on the internet.
Yesterday we did our usual evening swim at high tide. When we were leaving we passed a small non-swimming bay . The rising tide had brought a bouquet of long stemmed flowers to the surface, someones ashes had obviously been scattered earlier in the day. Scattering ashes on the shores of rivers or the sea is significant in some religions and something that many people choose to do religious, or not.
7 years ago I was creating work for a group exhibition in London.
On the way home from work I had seen a group of bikers scattering ashes on the beach of the Thames,a rather muddy location and not too far from Tate modern. Alongside ashes and flowers they had laid old motor cycle sprockets to be gently lapped and then consumed by the incoming tide. In Memoriam worked very nicely with the theme of the upcoming exhibition and with the help of a friend, Pat Calnan, who sourced old sproketts, for me, I was able to recreate the act of remembrance and make a series of paintings.
Choosing to scatter ashes in non traditional places can give family and friends spectacular places to return to as an act of remembrance.
The Bikers resting place. Below Millenium Bridge, London.Unknown persons resting place yesterday. Firestone Bay, Plymouth
I realise in this smaller picture of sproketts in mud I’ve made them look a little like old headstones in a Victorian cemetery. Accidentally closing a circular creative thought process.
Yesterday I got the art cards printed that will be sold during art exhibitions this year. I realise I’ve chosen two smelly subjects as my images of choice. Scratch and sniff card seems to have gone out of favour but even if the print shop had offered such a service I doubt I would have chosen the option.
Mackerel smell wonderful when freshly caught and grilled, like all fish not so good after a while, and this chap was painted two years ago!
The second card is a digitally enhanced photograph of the back stairs of a disused Plymouth nightclub. For many years the club had been closed and was the desired location of a Super Church. While interminable and ultimately unsuccessful planning permission was sought the building was mothballed. Again not a great option for scratch and sniff.
Mothballs was not the fragrance that tickled my nose as I took this picture. Damp, mildew and the vestigia of human sweat, tobacco, beer and pleasure were the backnotes to the headier notes of urine and weed.
Maybe my art cards are not such a big ticket subject for Pandemic Pondering #400. But they are about recovery. Helping local business by spending money close to home.
Geddon- a word used in the Westcountry. It has multiple uses. Derived from two words get and on.
It is used to express surprise and disbelief, but in this context it is used as a word of encouragement. It can also be used as a greeting instead of hello or goodbye.
What a difference a degree in water temperature makes. Yesterdays evening bob had all the qualities of a holiday swim.
The sun was out, the water really was lovely, once we were in, and just as any normal holiday, there was a frantic rush by one person to go and collect something forgotten.
Bobbing as you all know has been a winter pastime. A group of us swim in Plymouth Sound about three times a week. Mad as it may seem it has kept us all sane during the most recent, long lockdown. Friendship and fitness have developed within a tenuously linked group of people. Casual conversations, about swimming, in parks during dog walks has created a group of bobbers/ friends that swim together and laugh a lot afterwards.
Yesterday the conditions made us remark how these swims have all the qualities of a beach holiday, somewhere exotic, without the stresses. And then out of nowhere came a holiday style stress. One bobber had to drive back home quickly to collect the essential hot drinks that had been left at home.
Forgetting seems to be a bit of a theme in Plymouth Sound on 26 April 2021.
80 years ago Plymouth suffered one of the worst civilian losses of life in Britain during the second world war. To commemorate that loss and as an act of remembrance Plymouth Sound and the Royal Naval Dockyard were supposed to be illuminated by ships searchlights between 9pm and 9:30 last night. The act of remembrance was supposed to be the subject of this blog.
Absolutely nothing happened anywhere. Not a single searchlight. Perhaps there is someone very important to this event, still at home looking for the hot drinks before the button for the searchlights is switched on!
This blog will have a PS later when we discover which organisation forgot to flick the switch.
P.s apparently the failure of the searchlights was due to a full moon and clear skies. Moments to appreciate nature are retrospectively a good way to appreciate a sky without unwelcome enemies arriving with weapons of mass destruction.
Some blogs write themselves. This one started life 80 years ago when 6 volunteer firefighters left the small Cornish town of Saltash to support fire crews, from all over the southwest, working in Plymouth during the Plymouth Blitz. Unfortunately they drove over an unexploded bomb in King Street and were all killed. This morning a service was held in the local church to mark 80 years since their deaths, later a wreath was laid at their graves, which are all in the same place in the church graveyard.
A vintage fire engine and crew attended the ceremony.
For a time the area in front of @theoldmortuary was busy with people attending the service and posing with the fire engine. A World War 2 Air Raid siren and the fire engine bell were strange sounds to hear on a sunny spring morning.
It is probably at least 80 years since a fire engine like this drove past @theoldmortuary. Strange to think that hundreds of mourners would have filled this little village and used the local pub to show respect to 6 local men who set off for Plymouth one night. Taking their fire engine across the Tamar on the ferry and never returning alive.
Yesterday England took a partial step out of Covid Lockdown. Among other changes non essential shops opened and food and drink suppliers could serve customers in outdoor seated areas. The media this morning are reporting a Monday like no other, ever, with people queueing to enjoy retail therapy and socialising, after a very long period of restrictions.
Not much changed @theoldmortuary. Our lockdown routine will probably only change with small incremental adaptations. Our swimming, ‘ bobbing’ life changed immediately though . The scone and landscape picture at the top of the blog represents absent friends, who were unable to swim last night because they were free to travel and stay away. Or had work commitments that were no longer screen based or as flexible as they have been during lockdown.
Not only were there less ‘ Bobbers’ last night, there were less swimmers in general. The Firestone Bay seal had huge portions of the sea to himself. He/she is the small dot in line diagonal with the two bouys.
The second scone picture of the day sums this transitional period up. There is some certainty and clarity in the immediate foreground but we can’t clearly see the outline of the future.
Today is an unusual pondering, not because it comes a day after the death of Prince Phillip, The Duke of Edinburgh. Although that fact is in some ways central to this blog. It is unusual because I can mention the great diarist Samuel Pepys for reasons other than his diary.
We did one of our usual dog walks near the coastal part of Plymouth Sound. Plymouth, being a naval city, was one of the locations of the 41 gun salute to mark the passing of the Queens husband. There is always something intriguing about witnessing something that has happened in the same location for many centuries, to mark significant events.
Gun Salutes started in the late Middle ages. Fixed odd number salutes of 21 and 41 were formalised as an economy measure by Samuel Pepys when he was a Naval adminstrator .
Another thing that was different today was that when HMS Westminster sailed out of Plymouth just after the Gun Salute the flag on her Jack Mast, the one at the back, was flying at half-mast.
Gun salutes are a complex old business. The link below will take you to a website with more information should you require it.
On a brighter note a couple fresh from their teeny tiny Covid Regulation wedding had their photographs taken at the tidal pool in Firestone Bay.
Coffee and tea was, of course, essential to a day of lots of walking, talking and listening to 41 Gun Salutes. Hugo and Lola do not get left out during comestible breaks.
Sun setting on another day of action in Plymouth Sound.
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