Category: Pandemic ponderings

Pandemic Pondering#435

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’m a little obsessed with the sad fate of Octopus mothers. They mate only once and after caring for their babies they die and are consumed. I always felt quite octopus-like as a mother, certainly wishing that I had more than one pair of hands. But very glad that the whole experience was not so all consuming that I succumbed to maternal death in order to provide my beloved children with a snack.

I’ve been doing a little Octopus research before I start a series of Octopus watercolours, and discovered a fascinating fact about Octopus anatomy that would explain a lot about some humans if only they shared the same anatomy.

We’ve all met some shockers of human beings. Often at work, certainly in general and public life and unluckily for some , within families.

Just look at this simple anatomy of an octopus.

Right by the Octopus heart there is a poison gland.

Everyone knows a human with one of those!

I’m not too sure where this blog is going. Watercolour research to fantasy anatomy.

But I think in the future when I meet a bad human I may try to imagine them being overwhelmed by their own poison gland. I hope it is unpleasant.

Bonkers Pondering.

Pandemic Pondering #426

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

This one picture is all that was left of the day once weather and breakfast had taken what it wanted out of our waking hours. The Pandemic, guilty as it is for so many things, did not affect Sunday, or indeed this blog.

The weather was the most damaging. Another day deluged out of existence. This blog should have early morning action pictures of Pilot Gigs and happy rowers rowing on the Tamar. But the wind and rain postponed that. Nothing stopped our first meeting with friends indoors to share breakfast and natter over too much coffee. The rain continued to pour down on their courtyard garden , making everything lush and tropical looking. The trouble is we forgot our manners, we’ve not really used them for more than 15 months. A breakfast gathering suggests that other things might be done with the rest of the day. Not with guests like us! We left the breakfast gathering at 4:30 in the afternoon. We had talked and talked, fueled by good coffee and breakfast, but we had talked the day away, our ribs and faces aching from mirth. At 4:30 the rain still battered the streets but dogs needed walking, any pretence that anything else might be achieved was washed into the gutter with rainfall. A brief dog walk in waterproofs got the essentials done before book reading and cooking filled a couple of hours. Finally at 8:30pm we could find a rain-free period when dogs could be walked and 10,000 steps could be achieved. One day, one photograph, some sort of milestone.

Pandemic Pondering #421

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Life is starting to stack up. With every slight loosening of government restrictions our lives @theoldmortuary get a little busier. In many ways it feels as odd as the sudden deceleration of our lives over a year ago. We are not even pushing ourselves to the max possible.

Lunch indoors with one set of friends yesterday followed later by a meal inside a pub with different friends was lovely and an enormous pleasure but it felt both exotic strange and exciting to behave almost normally for once . Just as lockdown deeply affected my sleep patterns, last nights sleep was disturbed by recalling the days events. We also have some longstanding domestic admin that keeps us awake and an art exhibition to organise at the end of the week. Just as Covid-19 has the physical nasty that is Long Covid, all our lived experiences will suffer from the after effects of this pandemic for a long while even if we have been lucky enough not to catch the wretched disease.

Another period of sleeplessness will not be welcome in this house.

Some people are, of course, oblivious, although even this doggy naughtiness is Covid related. Thermal socks for outdoor socialising and post swimming are the best for chewing and there are plenty of pairs to be stolen.

In other news, the Advanced Blogging course has been announced for October. Alongside this announcement, the delightful Gentle Author has decided to return to teaching the art of blogging. I will pop a link below, his courses are wonderful.

https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/spitalfields-life-1516790/departure-arthur-beale-8006014249

So in a fine example of art imitating life everything is starting to stack up.

Pandemic Pondering #407

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May the 4th be with you. Except, of course this is the 5th. May the 4th always brings rich pickings of Star Wars quotes.  I’m unsure if just loving the original 1977 film, correctly and simply known as Star Wars makes me a Star Wars luddite. The surrounding films and obsessive fandom makes me feel saddened that the one original film can’t be enjoyed as one unique moment of great creative, cinematic collaboration.

But without the hullabaloo, that irritates me so much, I would not have found a lovely quote from the actress Carrie Fisher who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise. She was open and honest about her, nearly life- long, struggles with drink, drugs and bi-polar disorder. She was also a wise and clever woman.

Discussing her difficult life patches she wrote.

” Going through challenging things can teach you quite a lot, and they also make you appreciate the times that aren’t so challenging”

A simple sentence that works under normal circumstances and especially as we emerge from beneath the pressures and sadnesses of the Pandemic.

Pandemic Pondering #390

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As the sun sets on a sad old week we are struck today by a coincidence. In Britain Prince Phillips coffin and his funeral will fill hours of television broadcasts and give the Sunday Newspapers plenty to report and speculate on. Exactly 4 years ago we were sharing a ferry journey with an unknown Hong Konger who was being returned to their home island for burial.

Just as at Windsor Castle there was only a small amount of family accompanying this person on their final journey.

Death is just a sad old business whoever you are.

Pandemic Pondering #387

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, Serendipity2 Comments

L’esprit de l’escalier is a French term used in English for thinking of the perfect reply too late. I think it is mostly considered to be a witty or clever retort that would finish of a conversational or indeed confrontational encounter more perfectly.

Where is the handy french term for when you/ I, have thought of the perfect retort and delivered it leaving the other person stunned and perhaps uncomfortable. A linguistic victory certainly but not always kind.

Kindness at the end of a conversation is another of those moments with no useful term. Hugely important during difficult conversations when serious, possibly hurtful and important points need to be conveyed. If there is love, care, affection or even just integririty that must be built into that conversation the parting words need to be perfectly judged if the conversation is to be effective rather than harmful. A lifetime of harm can be caused without the right conversational ending included. If only these things could be straightforward.

The whole business of ‘stair case wit’ which I have expanded to Staircase Wisdom is chronically complicated and acutely regrettable. I have a huge dusty box in my personal archive of conversations that were not perfect because I got the end wrong.

The trouble is, unlike this collection of staircases, conversation with another is never black and white, and it can be complicated and unpredictable. The conversations in my head always go much better to plan.

The link below takes you to a less personal consideration of L’esprit de l’escalier. I hope that is the perfect ending.

L’esprit de l’escalier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier

Here is a less than perfect ending , the steps that I imagine take me to my store of archived badly finished conversations. I don’t imagine I’m ever going to be diplomatic or wise enough not to need to store badly finished conversations in an imagined room beyond these stairs any time soon. These steps will continue to be well worn, a little bit smelly and unloved until I can no longer engage in meaningful conversation.

Pandemic Pondering #382

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Pandemic ponderings, Serendipity1 Comment
©Debs Bobber

Another Friday swim day with the Bobbers. A tiny Whats app group of 5 people has expanded to 12 regular swimmers and one land based Andy who keeps an eye on everything on land and in the sea. The swimming is the primary function of Bobbers but also loud natterings on any subject. Some of the natterings would make a nun blush, especially as we base ourselves below the perimeter wall of a convent.

There was a fine show of tugs today.

Tug Spotting

This one sailed out just before we plunged into the somewhat chilly sea. Sometimes if the conditions are right you can feel the resonant thrum of moving tugs when you are in the water. Not the case today. This busy tug sailed out before we got in and then back in again pulling a Royal Navy Survey vessel after we got out.


The reward for swimming yesterday was a tiny chocolate biscuit shaped like a penguin. Another unexpected treat is a visit to the same beach today at extreme low tide to hunt for goggles which were lost during the talking phase of the swim. Not a phase usually shown in swimming events but one in which the ‘ Bobbers’ excel.

Later, on a regular dog walk we chanced upon a new import being brought into Plymouth Fish Market.

If only I had known you could buy this stuff. I’ve had many unavoidable colleagues and huge numbers of equally unavoidable patients who could have done with a big dose of this stuff. Humans with no discernible traces of charisma are all over the place. As soon as this product becomes available on the retail market, I’m getting a pocket spray , the use of which the pandemic has made entirely acceptable. I am assuming it has a similar transmission but without the fatality of Novichok. When I meet those all too frequent people who have no manners or any measurable social graces, a quick squirt, will sort them out, probably only briefly, but for as long as I am forced to endure them.

Once the pandemic is over we could even repurpose all the sanitizer dispensers and make all our lives a little easier when interacting with increasing numbers of other humans. Charisma dispensers would really make emerging into the post pandemic world a little easier.

Pandemic Pondering #373

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Concatenation, Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

The warmest day, so far, of the year and day 2 of a loosening of restrictions in England and I’m still following the protocol of the last few months and walking the dogs and staying local. Just like this rusty supermarket trolley I am adrift from the social buzz of being amongst my own kind. Thankfully unlike the trolley I have not spent the last few months in a muddy tributary. I have yet to put concatenation into practice.

In theory the rules say I ( we) can meet in groups of six in the great outdoors. What I have failed to do is build the next chain in the series and go significantly further afield or meet other people for a natter . Its not that I’ve lived the life of a recluse but I have grown to love the days of a familiar walk listening to a podcast and watching nature unfurl. Today I downloaded a whole months worth of podcasts. I’m actually unlikely to need them once my social butterfly emerges from my Pandemic induced Chrysalis stage.

Socialising has been restricted to Coffee queues followed by a walk, or swimming followed by shouted socialising while we scramble into clothes,forcing not quite dry skin into garments that feel two sizes too small.

I know that once concatenation takes hold and I embrace the sequential changes as they ease me into normal life, slowly link by link, there will be no stopping me. But I am going to miss having the time to notice the small things.

Pandemic Pondering #366

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A mini festival of positivity of the past year. I’m not about to load you all with the downsides of the pandemic as it has affected us @theoldmortuary but in common with many we’ve had some dodgy days in this last year . But it has been a year that has been fully lived and many positives have emerged from the negative spaces created by the sad days.

We are much better cooks , not only baking but also healthy vegetable loaded meals. If only I could stop there and mention healthy snacks but we’ve succumbed to pouch chocolate . A packet of Minstrels is not safe in this house.

Covid-safe extended walks on a limited number of routes has curiously provided us with some lovely new friends. We already had some superb ones. Nodding with recognition on a regular walk or queueing for coffee in a pandemic has encouraged us to talk to strangers. If you do that often enough, over a year, people cease to be strangers.

Finally the wonder that is cold water swimming. Originally started because we needed to boost Vitamin D levels and our immune systems. I’m not sure either of us truly believed we would keep on swimming throughout the winter. With the swimming came the little support network we built. A Whatsapp group called Bobbers and a whole informal group of swimmers who swim in Tranquility Bay. Sometimes we share the sea with a seal and sometimes with something bigger.

Pandemic Pondering #365!

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings3 Comments

Sun rising on one whole year of Pandemic Pondering.

The United Kingdom is marking one year since the first Lockdown announced with a minutes silence at noon and a collective act of reflection and rememberance at 8pm, when people are encouraged to leave a candle or other source of light on their doorsteps.

When plans for a UK wide act of reflection was announced last week I had mixed feelings. One year on we are still in the midst of this pandemic with no clear idea of how or when it will end. In the future 23rd of March may well be the day we remember, reflect and count the cost of the Pandemic but at the moment it is still our lived experience and most of us reflect and readjust many times a day. The world may decide to have a different International Day of Mourning once this Pandemic has been brought under an acceptable level of control. The details of the end remain unknown and the only thing we can reflect on is our personal current running total of loss which is accurate. Governments figures will be adjusted up and down as the pandemic is considered over the years and statistical analysis is argued over. Individuals and families know with upsetting accuracy exactly what they have lost in one year.

I would hope not to still be Pandemically Pondering in a years time. An additional P for Post will be added just as soon as it seems appropriate. Thanks for reading along and commenting on various platforms, thanks for stopping me in the street and saying that you read and enjoy Ponderings. Tomorrow will be a festival of Positives sharing the good things that have happened over the past year @theoldmortuary