Once a month a craft and food market sets up on the route of our morning dog walk. In good weather on a large grassy square and in bad weather in disused buildings. Either location gives the market a buzzy lively feel. Yesterday was market day and we set off on our usual dog walk with the added quest for Fig and Fennel Sourdough. Both were achieved alongside a bit of nattering to neighbours and fellow dog walkers. Our afternoon dog walk took in a quick visit to the JMW Turner exhibition that I am involved in.
Also quite a buzzy feel and plenty of people to chat to, just no hunt for an obscure flavour of sourdough.
A good Sunday,I think. Even if my mind is popping with all the images and nattering.
I woke up this morning with a busy head. The sort of busy head that requires a list to be written for the rest of the month. The list is almost more important than the blog. But the blog is my calming moment.
Morning Mist
But not so this morning. Jetpack my blog hosts have upgraded my phone App overnight and nothing is where it should be. This development will take a little getting used to! This blog will be brief because that list really does need attending to.
Misty Morning
I also woke up wondering if this was a ‘bad’ photography day. Which I think it was. Aurally the day was fabulous. Mournful fog horns and distant church bells. The 21st Century was wiped from view. I wanted to create digital images that were truthful to the location but that still made the mist the story.
Stonehouse Tidal Pool in the mistRoyal William Yard in the mist.
Brief and to the point this morning. I’m sure I will get the hang of this brave, new Jetpack world, but today is a day of lists and ticking things off.
Why mist? The Exhibition I am entering in the summer is about exploring the Tamar Valley with the Artist, Turner in mind. He and mist are forever entwined in my humble opinion. Mist and the Tamar Valley are also fairly frequent companions
But work for that exhibition doesn’t even make today’s list.
14th of February has been saturated with the colour red and messages of love for centuries. Specifically romantic love. I have always felt a bit uncomfortable with the whole day, specifically anonymous cards which always seemed a bit stalkerish. But recent years have seen the day gently eased from the grip of heteronormative love/lust to a day celebrating Love in many forms.
John Betjeman, a British poet, invented the word Topophilia. The love of place.
I am a Topophile. There are lists in my head of places that I love , places where I have a sense of connection and wonderment about.
The two pictures in this blog are either end of a short lane near where I live. They have visual beauty and the mystery of history coupled with an unpredictability because their appearance is always shaped by tides, weather and human activity.
During my morning dog walk I popped into an exhibition at Royal William Yard (RWY). It is Shark Month at Ocean Studios. There are loads of lovely Sharky images, but on a bright morning this one was the only one not glazed and not suffering from loads of reflections. The website of the artist is below.
In the cafe there was also a really cute collection of bits and pieces left at low tide near to RWY.
I particularly liked these little bits with text on.
As I regularly poke about at low tide I was quite jealous, I never find anything with words on.
But then on my walk home I had a moment!
The tide had delivered me a cracked and grubby plectrum. With words on it.
A freebie advertising gears for Mountain bikes.
Here’s the moral dilemma of the day. Do I donate to the communal exhibition of tidal finds? Or does a grubby plectrum start my own collection of mudlarking treasures with text on.?
And so the December days get shorter and darker but the white cows have gotten a whole lot brighter. These cows are a nod to the original function of the area of the Royal William Yard where they can be found. Historically cows were delivered here to be slaughtered and then packed onto Royal Navy Ships. The dogs are thrilled that the cows are unbelievable colours, so much less scary. Before the curious cows cropped up, this blog was going to be about the comforting colours that can be found in an open fire. I could not have predicted cows in shades of pink and orange. I am ignoring the green one. I searched for old photos that made me feel warm, just by looking at them. I hope they make you feel snug. Apart from the green cow of course.
This pink and orange was at a festival in Hong Kong.
This shot was a pocket image when I was wearing orange linen.
These are feathers I found at Borough Market and the one below is an abstract painting of Plymouth Barbican in the festive season.
And the red monks below were walking in a park in Seoul.
The vivid wall below was at Tate Modern a few years ago.
As winter approaches and the effective daylight hours become shorter. I find myself with essential and less interesting tasks squeezed closer to creative and pleasurable activities. In my mind I have started to call essential tasks the ‘crux’ of the day.
The trouble is that the crux is often not as rewarding as the creative and pleasurable tasks. Sometimes a crux gets bounced to the next day . I can be so easily distracted. For instance the photo above where I am hiding behind a piece of fabric sculpture. No need to do that. I was in the building for a completely different reason but was sidetracked by an interesting exhibition.
Other sidetracks of the day were a naturally occurring heart on the floor in the loo.
And the marks left where metal planters have been moved.
How is a woman supposed to remember what her crux for being in the building is when life is so diverting?
On a positive note being quite so sidetracked yesterday did remind me that I had two early morning meetings today, and that sometimes a crux must be taken seriously. Two ticks for crux achievement by midday is a Thursday morning well spent.
A coincidence that this title should be the prompt for a blog today. I have many favourite moments, one of them happened just then when I reinstated the ‘U’ back into favourite, where it surely belongs to give the word its true flavour.
Favourite moments usually come thick and fast most days. The first mug of caffeinated tea, swiftly followed by the first caffeinated coffee start the favourite-moment ball rolling every morning.
Getting preconsidered tasks done ticks the box.
As does wrangling unplanned tasks into an already busy day
The writing or publishing of a blog, that zings, is favourite too. Insider fact. A blog that zings for me does not always zing for the stats. The curious world of algorithms at play, I assume.
The little sketch above was a favourite moment. Christmas stocks up my painting supplies,sometimes, with new things. Christmas 2022 brought alcohol inks, rubber shaper brushes and Yupo paper. I felt the urge to give them a go yesterday and sketched the gate that I walk through most days for our dog walks. The combination of three new things was a little trepidatious but went well for a first. A series of happy accidents and some angst created a recognisable image. It even looks safe enough to walk under.
Our early evening also featured a favourite thing. Bobbers together in Firestone Bay celebrating a significant birthday.
I am not entirely sure how @theoldmortuary will mark Advent+ 2022, but as I write this I am below this year’s window dressing. Up somewhat temporarily because today is cold but extraordinarily bright so I have no idea how this looks from outside. Outside looked like this at 8am.
Personally I am on the countdown to the shortest day on the 21st of December. I am not one for short days. I like to maximise my outdoor time in December and January just to prove to myself how utterly useless I would be any further North in the Northern Hemisphere. Last night I delayed my afternoon walk a bit to catch some luxury yachts that were moored up nearby,to facilitate visits by prospective purchasers. An interesting sales drive specific to those who have a Christmas wish list considerably different to mine. But ever the neon-loving human that I am, a walk involving twinkle and glitz,is a walk enhanced. Lola was having no part in me photographing extreme luxury and reduced several million pounds worth of spending,to an abstract light-show by robust ear scratching as I pressed the shutter.
The dogs interest on a walk is always more olfactory than visual. They appear to not notice the short days as long as their regular haunts are visited several times a week. Perhaps I should be more dog about these dark months.
But since my sense of smell has once more deserted me I am spared the lamp post sniffing rituals of my canine friends, which possibly only leaves snuggling on the sofa which is the only other preferred or acceptable winter activity for our dogs. Perhaps ‘Be More Dog’ is not really a great idea for health and productivity.
These illuminated winter trees warm up my late afternoon dog walk. I try to get the second dog walk of the day done before the sun starts to dip below the horizon. There just seems to be something wrong about having two or even three walks of the day done in darkness. Again yesterday I missed the dimpsy twilight and hit full on dark just by delaying our departure a tiny bit. These trees, recently illuminated, perked our walk up marvelously.
The dogs have the unique experience of having a wee while illuminated. Something that they are completely indifferent to. Were the same thing to happen to me I might also struggle to see the beauty of the moment.
Trees are not the only thing to have taken on some festivity. The tunnel that leads directly to the sea is a bright arc of colour.
Wonderful as this all is I really need to get out earlier if I want to catch the last hour or so of daylight for the next couple of months. Maybe I should set an afternoon alarm!
Back to the usual morning dog walk. In the hours we have been back from the weekend sojourn to Wimbledon, dog walks have been slow paced affairs. We have only lived in our current location for a couple of months. The dogs obviously dont feel that their cachet of news filled wee stops is quite extensive enough to keep in the canine loop while away for three days. Yesterdays home return walks were very sniffy, news gathering, affairs with many replies needing to be sprinkled en route. This morning there was canine disdain when their usual early morning routine was disrupted by a closed footpath. I managed some lovely photos but they are unmoved by such things .
The footpath will be closed for two weeks. This will upset the dogs but it is also the footpath that leads to our regular ‘ bobbing’ beach , our regular haunt for the whole of the pandemic!
While the dogs are sniffingly detained on information gathering I am sometimes left standing around a bit. This morning I noticed two lifting rings on an old manhole cover.
One of them had been quite crumpled. It is really hard to imagine what could possibly have caused such harm, but I am very glad not to have been standing in the same place when the damage occured.
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