Category: Serendipity

Pandemic Pondering #372

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterday was bright in our corner of Cornwall/ England. So bright in fact that we largely forgot that there had been some easement in Covid restrictions. We could have met another household in our garden or theirs or any other outdoor space but instead just pottered about in the garden making it ready for Spring. The only loosening of behaviours was on a Zoom meeting where the Bookclub arranged an outdoor real life book club meet up next month. Yesterday we discussed literary connections to foolishness as we are close to April 1st . It was good to see so many readers on screen to discuss nonsense. The day finished with a swim in the sunshine, the water temperature had dropped a bit and the currents were not kind but sunshine on your face makes it easier to cope with these things. The daffodils at the top and bottom of this blog have popped their fancy heads up in the old part of the cemetery near @theoldmortuary. They look like fancy hats ready for a very dressed up occasion.

There is also a fine crop of wild garlic, some of which I will harvest later today if the sun stays out. Yesterday I harvested an image from the Victorian part of the graveyard. An eternal message that has been made abstract by Lichen and illuminated by sunshine.

Pandemic Pondering #370

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Sunshine and a spiky tulip to start the day. A bullet was bitten today. New glasses needed to be chosen. I’ve struggled on with two less than perfect pairs for the whole of the pandemic . Both coated with anti- glare coatings that are slowly wearing or being rubbed off. One pair worse than the other are now unusable and the pair that are in a better state, coating-wise, do not like to be on the same face as a mask and fly off my face at every mask wearing opportunity. The reward for choosing new frames, always arduous when you have poor eyesight, was a trip to a bakery and coffee shop.

https://therisebakery.co.uk/

We took the rather splendid cronuts to Down Thomas and nibbled them while looking at the Plymouth Breakwater from a different angle to our usual viewpoint. There is sometimes an organised swim from the Breakwater back to the Plymouth shore. Link below.

https://racecheck.com/races/plymouth-breakwater-swim/

With Cronut in hand and overlooking the distance and geography of the course it is easy to see why viewing the race from whichever angle is infinitely preferable to doing it.

Have a good Sunday!

In Britain the Clocks have gone forward an hour.

The evenings will be lighter.

Another sign that Spring has arrived.

Pandemic Pondering #368

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music, Nature, Photographs, Serendipity2 Comments

This is the last photograph I took in March 2020 before the first Covid-19 lockdown in Britain. It was mid afternoon at Cotehele and I was recovering from a nasty virus. My last virus as it happens, a welcome benefit of adhering to Covid restrictions is that @theoldmortuary we’ve been virus free for a year now despite doing public facing/touching jobs.

In colour this picture is nothing much. Reeds on a managed flood plain on a typically greige day in the Tamar Valley. What the colour picture would never have shown was the amazing sound that was produced as the wind blew through the reeds. I took the picture just to remind me of that sound. True Whispering Grasses.

Really the original picture was nothing much, just a diary note to remind me of a lovely serendipitous sound on a walk that was being done more out of a sense of necessity and desperation than for pleasure.

I tinkered about with the image altering the contrast and then converted it into black and white.

Ta Da!!

A dull photo has turned into a sound. Not perhaps the gentle sound of whispering grasses, although I can hear them when I look at this with an imagined low volume. If I switch it up to medium volume I hear the interference on a television in the eighties or nineties when the signal was lost. Up a notch again and it is the feedback on a performers mic ( when ever have I felt nostalgic about that piercing scream ) it could also be, currently, two people having different Zoom meetings with their laptops too close together. My final auditory assault from one picture is this.

Imagine sketching it in chalk on an old school blackboard.

I’m fairly certain that last suggestion was not kind. The link below is a gentle salve to give you a good earworm for Friday. The mellifluous Sandy Denny.

Whispering Grass

Pandemic Pondering #366

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

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 #363

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The blog about a non-blog. Tech failure today coupled with increasingly early sunrises conspired for there not to be a blog ready on the table at 8:00 this morning.

A small amount of alcohol was taken during a Zoom birthday party last night. Which added to a large amount of exercise during the day to give a very good, very effective nights sleep. Alarms were set for an early wake up and blog composition before our early walk, but the device with the photographs had not been plugged in over night.

Can you believe I got to #363 before suffering daily blog failure!

Hugo is disgusted

He cannot believe his puppymummy failed to charge up her device before writing a blog and going out for a sunrise walk. This is Hugo looking dissapointedly at me.

These are the deserted bays he was forced to suffer whilst a blog lay unwritten and uncared for on a Sunday morning.

Thank goodness for the baked goods featured at the top of this blog. Fueled by half a Cinnamon Bun, this non blog is finally, five hours late ready to brighten up Sunday.

Normal service will resume tomorrow!

Pandemic Pondering #362

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Devon, SerendipityLeave a comment

Another swimming blog! Unapologetically , not just because I can use Friday mornings pictures . But because we decided as a group that the coldest of the winter is behind us. There is no science behind this and we could just be feeling skittish because Spring is about to be sprung. Woolly hats were discarded this morning. Less layers of Thermal underwear packed, for the socially distanced swimming after-party. We are imagining altered horizons! All this on an early morning diet of Horlicks, Hot Chocolate, tea and coffee with a side order of caterpillars.

Not a Crazy South American mind expanding hallucinogenic gathering. Just sensible body warming steps to avoid ‘ after drop’ ( Sudden coarse shivering , a reaction that isn’t pleasant and can occur after cold water immersion) . The Caterpillars were an added bonus not a regular habit.

But for now, post- caterpillars, this is the reality in March 2021.

Have a great Saturday .

Pandemic Pondering #358

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Last Mothers Day pondering of 2021. We had a Mothers Day afternoon Tea in a box today which bought the event to an end in a lovely way.

The actual day started for us with a really early outdoor breakfast, bacon butties and coffee and delivering some bumches of daffodils to friends. We were joined by George the cockerpoo from Nazareth House.

He encouraged giddiness in the dog world.

Luckily he arrived after the bacon butties were finished.

After a breakfast as tasty as this we needed to get some exercise in. 15,000 steps later we also rewarded ourselves with an eclair each, a nod to both our Mothers who had a weakness for choux pastry.

This is what the rest of our very small family got up to.

Gin and music
Walking in London
Long Ducker

The smallest person in the family went for an enigmatic stroll.

During our stroll of 15,000 steps we met some other friends. We nattered and shared news and dog cuddles, we also learnt the technique of Split Squats. Life changing!

When we got home a message popped up on our Whatsapp.

A message as unexpected as this was a lovely embelishment to the day, it made our eyes water as much as the split squats!

Pandemic Pondering #357

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Post Mothers Day Meandering.

Just like 2020, 2021 was an unusual Mothers Day. In honesty we don’t really have ‘usual’ Mothers Days even in non-pandemic years. Some of us in our blended family hold firm to gathering together while others hold firm to not participating. Then there is the third category of those who have no choice in the matter, those who have passed into another realm and are forced to join us through our anecdotes and memories or possibly just our private thoughts.

The third category are almost the most interesting participants.

They loom, making us a little sad, not all of them are actual Mothers,some are aunts or cousins, some are unborn or uncreated children, some are unrelated and others,dare I say it are men.

‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is an African proverb that recognises that Mothering/ Nurturing is a complex old business achieved by an ensemble of characters involved with a childs growth and development.

Happy Mothers Day, Nurturers, whoever you are. We wouldn’t be who we are without you, all of you.

Pandemic Pondering #356

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, Serendipity1 Comment

When you leave home in sunshine for a swim and by the time you arrive your car looks like this you know its going to be an interesting afternoon.

The hail did stop but the skies were pretty menacing for our swim.

As this blog is published it will be the second Mothers Day in Britain that has gone unmarked by  gatherings because of Pandemic Restrictions. @theoldmortuary will be at the centre of busyness tomorrow. Situated as we are close to two large graveyards. The only mothers who can be safely or legally visited currently are dead ones and only then if their last resting place is local. Last year was markedly busier in the cemetery than usual and I’m sure Mothers Day 2021 will be much the same.

We are really missing family contact. Our nearest and dearest are hundreds or thousands of miles away. Not that we are unique in this matter but it is irksome. Better to be irked than dead of course or grieving for a recent loss.

Two sea swims in 24 hours when it is chilly is exhausting. Our Sunday regime will involve an early rise to avoid people, especially those who are breaking Covid restrictions to meet their mothers! Being irked also brings a side order of  grumpiness with rule breakers!  Gazing at the sea with coffee in hand and not immersing ourselves in it is the plan. Almost certainly , especially if the weather is good we will regret not getting in. Skinny dipping will be considered and rejected immediately, not seriously but wishfully. Dogs will be walked and another morning in Lockdown will be ticked off.

Pandemic Pondering #354

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Its been a funny old week. Too much domestic admin has tied me to the house and the weather has been too contrary for us to plan any coastal swims.

As soon had we cancelled this afternoons ‘bob’ the sun came out in a blaze of glory.

What you cant see in this photo is a very chilly wind blowing up the river.

The local RNLI have been suggesting all week that sea swimming should be a wisely considered option considering weather and tides on a daily basis.

We also follow a local swimming group for advice on safety.

Link above is to a video taken at our swimming beach at the time we were planning to swim.

Im glad we made the call not to swim today.

The dogs benefitted from a very sunny walk . There is always tomorrow for a swim.