Category: Procrastination

#1402 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn art, autumn, Paintings, pondering, Procrastination, Scrag End of Summer1 Comment

I have had a surprisingly arty week. This should not have come as a surprise because 2 days were set aside to fill in an on-line application for an arts grant, that included a budget proposal. I was always going to find other things to do rather than knuckle down to admin of that sort.

Betond normal life my procrastination of choice was two pieces of preparatiry work for known future projects. A huge and colourful watercolour with fantasy fruits and flowers and a coven of laughing, giggling women. Neither of which have anything to do with the Ocean based, arts grant, I was filling in.

One so colourful and the other monotone.

In other painting news, I bought some nice fat figs to pose on a favourite plate.

Which in turn took me down, or up a very tight aperure in a fig and to the tragic story of Fig Wasps. Another known procrastination technique

:https://theoldmortuary.design/2026/09/12/1401-theoldmortuary-ponders-3/

Mentally entering a Syconium via an Oristole. Two words new to me yesterday which led me to a third new word, the utterly delightful ‘Foundress’ meaning female founder.

I suppose I am the foundress of theoldmortuary ponders and it is illustrated with my mistresspieces.

We should reclaim these lovely female- centric words.

Looking at these particular mistress pieces I sense that although my heart is hanging on to the scrag end of summer my head is definitely turning towards autumn. If I look at a few images created this week there is a definite autumnisation to my colour choices.

One last piece of arty news for Sunday. We went to a play about the Artist Beryl Cook. The actress Kara Wilson delivered a one woman show/monologue while painting a man in a turquoise thong. All in the fruity colours of autumn.

#1299 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn art, ProcrastinationLeave a comment
Street Art Tweaked @theoldmortuary

Not a particularly arty day, 3 meetings. 1 veterinary, 1 arty, I tennis and 1 time sensitive proposal to submit before midnight tonight. On time for the vet, tennis and the  time sensitive proposal. Only actually late for the arty gathering. Of all of these things the proposal was hanging over my head and was certainly what caused so much creative procrastination this week. Form filling is not a favourite pastime but needs must.

Feeling mighty proud of beating the midnight deadline by six hours. I just hope the creativity keeps flowing now I have no reason to procrastinate.

The picture above is street art found in Plymouth featuring nine lighthouses.

I just stuck them together digitally and made the colours bleed a bit  . Of course what I should have been doing was filling in a form to be more than 6 hours away from a deadline that I have had for 3 months!

#1295 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment

After a summer of entertaining 3 granddaughters in arty pursuits it is time to put my studio in order.

I found a fabulous triple width pencil box in the bathroom. Previously it had held lovely beauty products.

Pencil cases are such a September thing. Never in a lifetime of September’s has there been quite such a useful pencil case.

Just organising it gave me the urge to get on with creativity rather than the procrastination of sorting out the studio. Not only Procrastination but this week I need to get an application for a commission submitted before anything truly arty happens.

For clarity the rather grubby tissue in the pencil box is actually a putty rubber.

An earlier blog mentions putty rubbers and my origin story with them.

https://theoldmortuary.design/2018/09/17/always-keep-your-putty-rubber-warm/

I’ve been buying them now for a little more than 50 years. Like many things I am not certain they are as good as they used to be…

#1291 theoldmortuary

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Procrastination, SerendipityLeave a comment
Saint, Good Witch, Goddess

I absolutely knew I was procrastinating while writing yesterday’s blog.

#1290 theoldmortuary ponders

I was avoiding the reality of my Washing machine having broken down at the worst possible moment.

Over the weekend a neighbours cat had found it’s way through the window of our bathroom and he had marked his territory in the only way non-neutered Tom Cats consider effective, and had blessed a bathmat with an enormous pool of his pungent urine. It had been marinated in the broken washing machine overnight.

Knowing I was procrastinating and pondering procrastination turned out to be an artistic journey.

Having an interest in the absurdities of Christian and Celtic Saints and their claims to fame and good works I googled

‘Is there a saint for procrastination?’

A negative result turned into a new little project . There is no deity, saint or witch with any responsibility for procrastination. There is however a male Saint who acts against procrastination. Saint Expeditus.

©wikipedia

And just like that I felt the urge to find  a wonder woman called Procrasta. To give a name and a face to something I can be awfully good at at times. I had an unused water colour woman from an old project.

Procrasta a Goddess.

I am currently working on a Celtic Witch project so thought I would have a little fun with my image while avoiding the bathmat. My apologies to Saint Expeditus.

I popped Procrasta into a photo editing App and asked for her to be romantic . Saintly even.

Saint Procrasta

And finally I gave her a contemporary switch up in much the same way that I am doing with my Celtic witches.

The Good Witch Procrasta

Today I am not procrastinating . I am in that infernal loop of waiting in for a Washing Machine engineer between 8 a.m and 1pm. 

Hoping that my new Saint, Mr Expiditus has had a word in an engineers ear.

P.S  St Expeditus was not available today, instead he sent St Jude. The engineer was delayed until the afternoon and my washing machine was deemed to be a lost cause.

#1290 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment
1st September 2025

Months are not like weeks. Months do not have a gap of a couple of days for recovery between one ending and another beginning. Hard on the heels of yesterday’s farewell to August, I am obliged to write a welcome to September. With no Monthend days in between.

#1289 theoldmortuary ponders.

For me there is a stark difference, entirely of my own making. In August I forgive myself for laziness because it is August. In September the drum beats a different and more urgent tune. Procrasta the Saint, Good Witch or Goddess of putting things off, lolls about in August encouraging and rewarding languorous behaviour. I believe she lives off warm figs in August.

Procrasta

In September she causes more positive trouble,by finding things of greater interest,but less importance that take up time before the real job can get done.

So with no gap between August and September I must respond to her change in character and get on with one or two things. Because sometimes even writing a blog is actually a procrastination. She is a deviously interesting character and although I only named her today, I fear I have been in her thrall for some time.

So much better to blame a mythical creature than accepting an innate character flaw

Warm Figs

#1268 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, dog walks, Procrastination, StonehouseLeave a comment
Early morning boat

A fifth heatwave looms, so Lola and I set off early to get a decent walk under our belts before things get too warm for her paws. Instinctively she pushes the walk , pressing me to add her favourite sniffy places  as appendices to my planned and intended walk. At a basic level I need her to have had a couple of effective wees and a poo. She knows this. In the pouring rain both are achieved with speed and she turns her head for home with determination.

Days like today she  holds on to her eliminations, rationing them until she has had her desired length of walk and her fill off sniffing other dogs wee messages.

I look at little boats and plan a painting.

Although right now I am supposed to be focussing on figure drawing not solitary row boats. Or indeed clearing out the campervan after a weekend trip. The art of art as procrastination.

#1370 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment

What do you wish you could do more every day?

I like being a busy woman but I am a great procrastinator. I choose to be busy to keep procratinarion at bay.  At least I always thought I was a procrastinator until I looked the word up for this blog.

Absolutely none of the given reasons are the causes of what I consider my procrastination habit.

I delay tasks because experience has taught me that doing a task too early or at an inopportune time often results in a re-do  or a less good result.

Procrastination suited me because it is just one word. Now I am left with a great word salad. Thinking, Planning, inspiration, mulling. Timeliness

I prefer to do things/stuff when all my ducks are in a row.

Many ducks, many rows.

Sometimes all my deliberate delaying tactics are waiting for just a few things. Sponteneity, Serendipity and inspiration.

Picking the word procrastination apart I realise that I necessarily delay or postpone  some tasks because I know that doing something too soon can result in a less good outcome.

I love ticking off lists of things achieved but feel really disappointed in myself if I do something sub- optimally because it was rushed or completed just for the sake of  a tick on a life list.

So what do I wish I could do more every day?

Just a little more thinking and a little less doing.  It is a discipline thing because I have more time than I ever have ever had. But thinking time is undervalued as an achievement.

What will I be doing now I know that I am not a procrastinator but something else entirely that currently has no name. And if it has no name how can I possibly do it?

#1349 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ProcrastinationLeave a comment
The view from Mount Wise

Time to say farewell to February. Normally one of my favourite months because of its brevity and the first signs of Spring. This year February has been a wash out and if the first signs of Spring are out and about it has been hard to spot them in the driving rain.

The sun appeared a few times this week, enough to show me that some home chores needed to be done. Not quite enough for yard chores.

I don’t know if the water finally got to me or a cleared up kitchen,but after years of procrastination an Air fryer appeared in our kitchen courtesy of some sort of instant decision fairy.

I believe there is only a tissue thin barrier between procrastination and sponteneity

I think she was hiding under these gorgeous little daffodils on the slopes of Mount Wise.

Maybe she was just the Wise Fairy of Mount Wise. Whoever she was the next few weeks will be filled with air fried experimentation. Because the weather is not set to improve greatly once March arrives and a wise fairy would know that.

I am particularly excited to make Scotch eggs. Normally made with a deep fat fryer. I have never owned a deep fat fryer. My mother set our newly built house on fire with a deep fat fryer. Barely had the ink on the house purchase contract dried, when the sparkling state of the art kitchen was just a blackened shell. My mum blamed unfamiliarity, my dad blamed the Cordon Bleu cookery course she was attending. Me and the cat kept out of the way. Probably both accusations were partially correct.

Cordon Bleu cookery was a little bit fancy for mid-week and the cooker knobs were unfamiliar.

Now I have lived fairly contentedly for more than fifty years never deep frying anything. The idea that air-frying is a safer alternative seems just the thing to take my mind off a murky March. If it does not spark enough joy to pull me through more bad weather the wise Fairy of Mount Wise is going to have to think of something else.

#1303 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Procrastination, Scrag End of SummerLeave a comment

My feet, and the rest of me woke up at a normalish time 6:00 and needed a light on.  Wind and rain outside, but not quite visible.  Sunrise was at 6:24 today.  Another sure sign that the ‘scrag end of summer’ is fully established in these parts. At this time of day I am accustomed to considering an early dog walk to avoid the heat of the day. Today the consideration is rain avoidance. Hurricane Erin is the cause of our disturbed weather, she is heading to our shores in a less powerful but still disruptive way.

Among my many youthful plans, being a weather forecaster was one potential career path, as was Agony Aunt. Both could easily be revived as interests in semi-retirement.I also wanted to be a window-dresser at Selfridges on Oxford Street, maybe less transferable to the dabbling level of interest that I currently operate on for the other two. One can casually offer advice to others and comment on the weather. Not always at the same time of course.But rearranging a shops window display is not something that can be dabbled at without both causing alarm and probably setting off  an actual alarm.

It must have been at this time of year, a year ago that I considered getting a little App operated weather station for our yard. Maybe I should do something about that.

Semi-retirement is like that, so much to do, so little time to do it with all that other dabbling and procrastination going on… Not to mention the weather, because here it comes.

©Kernow Weather Team

And this my friends is what procrastination looks like on the dog walk.

#1270 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity2 Comments

A big but belated event is occuring today. Very late into the project to create art that is inspired by the JMW Turner 250 celebrations, a book, How to Paint like Turner, will arrive.

Coupled with the discovery that my pastel store has only deliciously soft colours  lurking in its dusty drawers. Apart from the new, vibrant, kids on the block, who are not actually as fabulous as their much older colleagues. I want to paint flowers.

Is there any jeopardy to this book arriving? Of course there is! I am the woman who always wanted to study anything but the thing I should be studying.  So creatively there is now an annoying little worm in my head that is telling me to paint flowers. Mr JMW Turner did not paint flowers.

This worm is an old associate. When I should have been reading this many years ago.

He told me to leave my books and go to the Tate and study the works of Mr JMW Turner. Which I did.

Now I actually need to study Mr JMW Turner the worm calls my mind elsewhere. This morning I am thrilled to look at this physics book as if it is an old friend. The words, essential at the time, beguiling me because they are part forgotten or so embedded in me that I no longer notice them.

Of course the worm is actually procrastination. Something I am particularly adept at, and curiously good at concentrating on. Happy Sunday.