Category: pondering

#1085 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Serendipity1 Comment
A colourful land crab.

Writing a daily blog is a constant evolving habit. Some days I know exactly where the blog is going, other days I respond to a question from my blog hosts. Some days I wait for a nugget of inspiration as the day unfolds. The only rules are that I write something each day and give some thought to my subject matter.

Not particularly blog related but  I regularly like to look at my photo archive held on my phone or in the ‘Cloud’ and see what was uploaded on previous 24th Octobers. Or any other date for that matter.

Doing so proves to me that within lifes repetitive cycles there are always significant moments.

The colourful land crab at the top of the blog was actually photographed on the 20th October 2015 in Sai Kung, Hong Kong but on the 24th October I cropped and edited the photograph to use as my screensaver on my phone on the 24th October.

Wembury

Late afternoon in Wembury 2012. 24th October. Wembury is somewhere I take the blog often. On this particular day I was pondering the fairly recent death of my fathers friend who despite coming from Essex was very familiar with this coastline. When I was a child  my parents friends were just part of my childish outer circle but knowing  my parents friends as an adult was a lovely experience and it is sad when those connections are lost.

Brick wall, City of London 2018

This was a brick wall in an underground car park in the City of London between Smithfield Meat Market and St Bartholomews Hospital. I only ever parked there once despite working at Barts, but was thrilled to find this really old wall and an advert for a long lost coaching inn nearby.

The underground car park had originally been an underground railway station in the 1800’s for the meat market at Smithfield. It was also the location of the MI 5 headquarters in the James Bond film, Skyfall.

Which moves me on, pondering to another wall on 24th October 2017.

I had a new app on my phone that meant I could ‘hang’ any of my pictures on any wall I chose. Giddy times. Finally 24th October 2021.

Cafe Au Lait

My peak moment at Dahlia growing, the last dahlia of our last dahlia season at the actual Old Mortuary. The Dahlias were lovingly moved to our new city home. The Dahlias were not impressed with city living and checked out. Who knew they could be so fastidious.

24th October a routine kind of day but stuff still happens.

#1070 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

I’ve pondered sudden windfalls of large amounts of money for most of my adult life. I have also pondered just how long the words One million would still have the cachet of seeming like unimaginable wealth. I realise all these things are relative.

Lets chip away at the One Million Dollars.

£ 765,155 pounds would not even buy me my first flat in South  London which had 3 bedrooms.

A suburb where people with ‘normal’ jobs owned or rented normal sized flats in unremarkable streets.

Going back further to when I was first properly aware of the true value of money and how I had to work to earn it.

Right now if I had a windfall of  £765, 155 the last thing I would be doing is giving it away, away.  My family could be more comfortable and I could make a difference to small, local organisations and charities by making bigger donations than I  do now.

How much longer can the word Million continue to pretend that it represents unimaginable wealth?

#1047 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment
© Gill Bobber

What would your life be like without music?

In theory, rather empty, but my head has the most delightful, personal Juke Box, playing in my subconscious, on demand. Sometimes in the form of earworms, when I least expect it.

©Lee Hunt.

As I write this Avalon by Roxy Music is playing. Absolutely no idea why.

©Lee Hunt.

#991 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, ponderingLeave a comment

Yesterday, I managed to tackle all admin work while Hugo enjoyed a longer walk without him needing pain relief. It was a productive day with a refreshing sea breeze as I balanced work and caring for Hugo. This was my working-from-home location during one of his rest periods.

I suspect Hugo is loving the attention of the last week since he hurt his back. My route yesterday around the harbours of Plymouth is one of his favourites because there are many cafes that he approves of. Yesterday we chose a cafe themed towards bikers with engines.

Predictably their dog biscuit offering is fairly butch. Far too challenging for fluffs with small mouths, but the industrial concrete floor soon turned a bulldog style biscuit into something a poodle could nibble at.

The slower pace of this week’s walks gave me a moment of contradiction yesterday. Despite walking past and walking into this old building on the edge of Sutton Harbour, many times, I had never read the blue plaque.

The Custom House was built in 1586 or round about. The time when Plymouth was at its zenith as a Pirate port.

Usually when I see old doors I like to romanticise about the people who have passed through them but certainly I cannot imagine too many pirates saying,

” Have you seen the new Customs House, we must pop in there on our way to the bars and whore houses, when we dock”

” I just cannot enjoy myself and really let go until my Import Tax is up to date”

That must have been quite the job to have in Elizabethan Plymouth. Everyone strolling right past pretending they haven’t seen your open door and welcoming toothless smile.

No playing Wordle in a quiet moment.

Just lots of quiet moments.

It is somewhat ironic that these two information boards are just a few paces from the old custom house.

The things I get to ponder on restorative, slow, dog walk days.

#980 theoldmortuary ponders

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My rain soaked blog of yesterday was written on St Swithuns Day. Traditionally if it rains or is sunny on his name day then rain or sun will be with us for 40 days. Thankfully this morning   is dull with no rain. Which put St Swithun on the spot somewhat. I thought I would check his credentials. An Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester born in about 800.  A quick google suggests that his actual career has been eclipsed by folklore and his miracle. Folklore is the 40 days of rain or sun theory. His miracle, apparently, was to restore  to perfection some eggs broken by builders on a bridge.

Unlikely, I think. But if those two things have eclipsed his career it suggests he may not have been a particularly effective Bishop in the 800’s. Sometimes these Saints  are best left unresearched.

#956 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, pondering1 Comment

How do you waste the most time every day?

At home or abroad I waste the most time pondering. Pondering looks unproductive to the outside observer but the time is never truly wasted. Pondering also occurs when I look gainfully employed. Pondering often gets me out of trouble because pondering sometimes causes a change of direction with human interactions and different endeavours. Mulling things over or reflecting are just other words for pondering.

Holiday pondering is just the same as home pondering but in a better climate. Today I pondered Donkey Milk. Unknown to me it has been a beauty and health product from the beginning of time. Donkey milk is the closest thing to human milk . Which puts a whole different view of the Christian Nativity. When I was young I wondered/ pondered why a nine months pregnant woman would want to ride a donkey. When a mule/pony/horse would have been more comfy for her blessed lady garden and or pregnancy created piles.

But here I am the daft one. Joseph on a last minute shop before they set off was sent for some formula, just in case.  Breast milk substitute and transport all in one cute package.

I’ve just gone for a face cream. Two choices 24 hour, or wrinkle.

The wrinkles arrived a while ago so that seemed like a lost cause but 24 hour cream regularly applied could give me eternal life should I choose. Warding off the grim reaper one day at a time.

#938 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Paintings, pondering2 Comments

A day of transforming a yard from off-white to white turned out to be both extraordinarily colourful and a self-limiting occupation. The colour change can be seen just by the O of off-white. The early morning dog walk set the colour bar high when I noticed that the luminous cows had moved.

To make way for a very fancy shoe, advertising a Theatre show.

Nature also created wild flower paths between cows and shoe

Dog-walk over it was time to flip off the paint pot lid. With just a moment to tweak Pure Brilliant White into something a little more lively, with fingers still clean enough to touch my phone.

Radio at the ready and I was off.

6 hours later, I had not reached the end of the job but  the end of the pot of paint was a most welcome sight.

So much for providing myself with many different audio treats, mucky fingers meant I was stuck with Radio 4 for the day.  My ears and mind were taken to places I might not necessarily have chosen. Other people pondering the concept of unconditional love. Very thought provoking. I had some thoughts to add, but radio isn’t like that unless the show offers a phone-in and I would not have had clean enough hands for that sort of shenanigans. Rolling news reports. And some poetry, who could possibly have predicted gentle tears while painting.

Phillip Larkin

#936 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

I love a complicated image, first thing in the morning. Coffee and a complicated image, which is what this was, is even better.

On reflection, I fear I may have been a bit harsh with May. All my moaning on, about rain and dull days. I blame my genes. I was reading about the wettest and dryest cities in England yesterday. If you were to draw a triangle with each corner being a top 3 driest city. Cambridge, London, Chelmsford. All in the East of England. 75% of my gene pool comes from that geographical area, making me wet-intolerant. The other 25% comes from Wales and Norway. If I was a plant nobody would set my roots in the 3rd wettest city in England , Plymouth, and expect me to thrive. But that is exactly what I have done to myself. So if I am a little droopy in the long, wet, autumn/winter/spring months I have only myself to blame.

On a positive note the roses of Plymouth are just fabulous this year. Our local municipal park has an informal memorial rose garden and after a few days of proper good weather the fragrance and colours are vivid in the late afternoon. I am hoping for a similar transition myself.

I may even do a whole blog about roses, particularly those with their roots in cremated remains.

I am not usually a fan of formal rose gardens but the randomness and slightly scruffy haphazardness of this particular one intrigues me enough to go back.

Somewhere in a cupboard I have a cremated cat called Jasper,I wonder if he fancies going in a pot with rose roots , he might make a wonderful show.

P.s  My parents cremated remains are buried in a dry old spot in the East of England, their choice.

Not for them the gaudy,giddiness of a mish-mash of blowsy multicoloured roses. They have a quiet country churchyard and were dug up by moles. I think I prefer gaudy giddiness as a memorial.

#904 theoldmortuary ponders

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First , proper sunshine swim of the year yesterday. We thought it would never come. The refreshing end to a day with the normal day to day events all achieved without a raincoat or indeed any coat at all. Even better the stone steps and walls in our swim zone had been warmed by the sun and radiated a little heat out as we changed after the ‘bob’

May the 4th be with you. A late start to Spring.

Thanks to Facebook Timehop I have been able to look at other more Spring-like May 4ths.

A vintage road trip

A Fox on the table.

Both London May 4th’s

Wisteria

And a delightful English Eccentric

Both West Country May 4th’s.

Who knows what today will bring but I am hugely happy that one of my favourite months has finally heralded some Spring Vibes. We have a destination of choice and so far, as I write this the weather of choice and we are off to enjoy a Christmas gift.

For full disclosure, I must admit to getting a little over-hot as I weeded the yard yesterday. The irony was not lost on me as that thought skimmed through my head.

4 days late welcoming May, what kept you?

Even my phone got a little giddy in the sunlight yesterday. This photograph took itself as I threw the phone into my swim bag.

Giddy is one of my favourite words, in my head it means silly exuberance caused by an external force. When I was a small person I was often told to ” Stop playing the giddy goat”

Are goats giddy creatures? My only real experience of them is at Agricultural shows or in Greece. In those environments, they always seem rather doleful animals. 50% of them suffering from over-large and cumbersome testicles.

Goats came to mind and then giddiness because two of our regular ‘bobbers’ were unable to swim with us yesterday . They sent this picture of their walk in Sussex.

© Gill/Marianne Bobber

No idea at all why I went down this particular Goat Path for the blog.

The Goat Path. Topsham.

But it is Saturday and the sun is out and who doesn’t need to know about Giddy Goats?

https://idiomorigins.org/origin/actplay-the-giddy-goat

May the 4th be with you

#899 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Sheela Na Gigs ©theoldmortuary

When do you feel most productive?

I am erratically productive. Naturally most productive from 7 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. Sunshine helps enormously. At 3 I am ready for lunch sometimes the first meal of the day. Then there is a creative hiatus until about 7 in the evening. 7 pm is my creative planning and thinking phase. Unrecognisable to outside observers who might think I am just being a regular human doing regular human stuff, but outside appearances can be deceiving. Inside my skull, all sorts of schemes are being hatched and discarded. Google Research is my friend at 7, both ends of the day if I get the chance.

Colour was my stimulation yesterday. Some Green Man Choir singing is always a good inspiration for some thinking,usually about the patriarchy and folklore. When I got home there was a lovely, accidental, Primary colour placement of some supermarket lemons.

Actually all the citrus fruits were feeling photogenic yesterday.

Ruby Grapefruit masquerading as an orange.

Only purple was missing from the mornings colour ponderings but as luck would have it Facebook had a timehop from more than 10 years ago in my Cornish garden. Obviously, a better Spring than we are having this year.

Creativity is such a strange phenomenon.  Trapped by being close  to the results/ punishment/rewards cycle of Productivity. Nobody gives credit for creative/productive thinking or experimentation. A huge amount of creativity never  creates a tangible ‘thing’. But sometimes intangible things gather together to become something. Sometimes failure becomes success and sometimes the other way round. Sometimes I creatively ponder around in circles.