Category: Peninsular Life

#1257 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Peninsular Life, SerendipityLeave a comment
Early morning rain.

A splash of rainfall gave jewel-like embellishments to our morning walk in a rose garden. Walking though the streets of Stonehouse,to get to the ferry, the pavements and stone walls reward us with the muskiness of petrichor.

Ichor, or fluid of the gods,is an ethereal golden fluid that flows through the veins and arteries of Greek gods and it smells wonderful apparently. There must have been a lot of Ichor letting in Stonehouse overnight. Which is a slightly more romantic version than the human wee and cannabis combo that can be the fleeting fragrance that greets us. Petrichor is infinitely preferable. Being able to smell the key constituent of Petrichor, geosmin is a human survival tool. One that we are lucky enough not to need anymore.

I think I prefer the pleasurable aspects of Petrichor to the protective or even the mythical. It is just a fabulous fragrance to start the day with as is a garden of wet roses.

#1360 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Peninsular Life, Stonehouse Lawn Tennis ClubLeave a comment

An early start yesterday for wildlife. Not this beautiful seal, she was definitely a bonus. But one of my regular meetings with a Pest Control contractor called Annie. The Tennis Club I help to run is very close to the sea and considered to be a Winter Palace for the rats who choose to live on the coastline. For two years we have been diligently discouraging the Winter Palace theory with bait boxes and regular surveys of the rat population. Diligence has paid off, living in a Tennis Club is no longer seen as the Winter Dream of the local rat population. They will never be eradicated anymore than our Seagulls , but their numbers are manageable.

Of course the rats, seagulls and resting seals were all living here long before humans arrived possibly during the Iron Age. And certainly before humans thought it would be a good idea to run about hitting small balls across nets.

Seeing the seal just calmly doing her thing with no care for what century she was in was just a lovely peaceful way to start the day.

There are worse places to start the day.

#544 theoldmortuary ponders

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Our familial needs on beaches are significantly different. Yesterday the human bobbers took themselves off to their favourite beach, for a somewhat gloomy, just after high-tide swim, at 4 pm. We like to swim near to high tide, as an incredibly useful set of concrete stairs lead us into chest high water, with no need to pick our way across seaweed strewn rocks. The dogs however prefer a low-tide beach precisely because they can pick their way over a rocky seaweed strewn beach. At 8 pm we went to their favourite beach for a low tide meander.

I almost never photograph this beach at low tide. On the opposite side of the peninsular to our swim beach, it faces the Hamoaze, a broad section of the River Tamar as the river meets Plymouth Sound and then the Ocean. Centuries of old industrial stuff washes up on this beach from the dockyards, one of which, no longer an active dockyard, is in the background of this shot. Hugo could spend hours here, rescuing seaweed from the waters edge. Lola is less enthralled, as am I, particularly on a gloomy day. However there is often some quite fancy sea glass, my pockets often return home with a few little glass triangles of ‘ Pirate Treasure’ . The washing machine engineer takes a dim view of ‘Pirate Treasure’ in the filters. Evidence that I am not a diligent pocket emptier.

Anyway, however gloomy it was yesterday, a little arrangement of sea debris caught my eye. A broken periwinkle shell, an oyster encrusted on a rock and some foraged, by Hugo, seaweed.

Nothing big to write a blog about but a little highlight of the day.

#532 theoldmortuary ponders

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Spring is definitely asserting itself now. A bright shaft of sunlight caught this blue bowl yesterday.

Ferries to all sorts of places have started their summer services. Great big passenger ferries travelling to France and Spain leave from in front of the house. Although there is a cliff between us and them, we can feel the gentle power of their engines and hear their public announcements. Things that would quietly excite me if I were  a passenger.

dav

I have never actually caught a ferry from here which is why the name of the Ferry terminal was a big surprise to me while writing this blog. I had always assumed that it was just part of the Millbay dock complex. But actually the Ferry terminal is called the St George Terminal.

Not knowing the name of a Ferry port that I walk past every day is not as mad as it seems. From my side,the port is labelled Plymouth Port and it shares gates and staff areas with the Royal Marine Barracks. Like many places in Plymouth the outlook from my home was changed forever during World War II. Currently we overlook a school playing field beyond the field is the rocky outcrop that forms the small cliff that blocks the view of the port.

Before the war I would have looked out on two rows of Georgian houses, and tucked in amongst them a Primary School called St Georges. Further away there was also a Church called St Georges. The school, houses and church were all destroyed by German bombs and incendiary devices. The land was eventually cleared after the war and only the Primary school was rebuilt. It is very weird to think of the carnage that occurred a few steps from my front door. But beyond the rebuilt Primary School the name St Georges is not used in this area at all, so it is a huge surprise to discover the real name of the ferry terminal.

There is a strange tie in with all this and our Easter activity. We are painting our hallway, it is a big job and my task is the bannister and spindles of the staircase. The bannister shows a huge scar where something must have fallen during the bombing. Some of the spindles also show signs of damage and repairs. We will need to do more repairs just to give the staircase a bit more rigidity too. The rest of the house though is as solid as the rock it is built of and on. Luckier than its neighbours.

It is amazing what plaids can be made with some painted spindles. Time spent when I should actually have been painting spindles!

#476 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Peninsular Life, Serendipity1 Comment
Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach- W. Stanhope-Fores 1885. The Box, Plymouth

The Museum where I work has had a spring refresh, lovely new exhibitions for people to enjoy in early 2023. I have loved this painting since I was a young and not because I lived anywhere near the West Country. I must have seen it when a Newlyn School Exhibition came to London in the seventies. This painting is part of the Plymouth Permanent Collection. Obviously it goes off on its travels around the world, but for now it is hanging on the wall of its home gallery. Home is the link to the other picture in this blog. Unlike Fish Sale this one is completely unknown to me and the artist who painted it is not credited. The painting is of the Sir John Hawkins Boatyard in about 1830 The boatyard was demolished in 1962 and I walk on the same location most days. The boats are much smaller and somewhere in the background is the plot of land our house would be built on later in the same century.

The church in the picture was damaged and later demolished in the second world war but the grey building on the horizon still exists. I don’t think I have ever lived in the background of an oil painting before. I buy coffee and bread from behind the boat with the flags. The boats I look out while enjoying my coffee are not quite so fancy. The built environment is hugely changed, but the winter sunsets for all who worked in those dockyards would have been a lot like this.

#360 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Peninsular LifeLeave a comment

Sharing the care of a newborn gives plenty of time for pondering, not so much out and about, but lovely Facebook Timehop provides substance to ponder over. 5 years ago on the 8th October I was at Devils Point, taking the picture above. Nothing in my life at that time would suggest that in five years time I would be a Stonehouse local, living 5 minutes away from the tidal pool.

Art is always busy in October. 8 years ago I was exhibiting an abstract inspired by Cornish tin mines at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

I love that painting, it lives in North London now. At this time living by the sea could not have been further from my thoughts. Living and arting in Dulwich Village was brilliant fun.

But 5 years ago I was a little closer and living on the shores of the Tamar Valley, watching a steam train cross into Cornwall.

October is also a time for visiting Art Galleries, a couple of years ago I chanced upon this brilliant piece of art/prose. Right up my street.

©Jasmin Kay University of Texas at Pocklington Gallery, York.

Since then life has taken more than a few twists and turns. For us, but also for the world. We have washed up on the shores of the Atlantic at Stonehouse. Currently I am looking at Stonehouse from a distance and loving the Stonehouse Sunrise from a distance, courtesy of a fellow sea swimmer, who long ago was a work colleague.

© Rachel Sample

However wonderful Wimbledon is I miss my nearly daily dips. A trip to the Ladies Pond on Hampstead Heath it will have to be, or failing that the nudist beach at Brighton because even the most organised Nana does not pack a swimming costume for a birth.

Pandemic Pondering #527

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Peninsular Life2 Comments
©Debs Bobber

Bobbing in 16 degrees water temp nicely finished off Sunday. A day that had started well with freshly baked bread, still warm from the bakery oven.

Bread that tasted as good as it looked. In between these two activities we threw in domestic chores and dog walks as well as a local produce market. All of these things done in sunshine and warmth. Having been proper grumpy on Saturday with traffic congestions the car had a day off and everything was achieved on foot. On one of the walks home I found a lost toy by the churchyard.

I hope his small owner finds him.

A Sunday well spent.

©Debs Bobber