Category: Serendipity

Pandemic Pondering #101

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Gardens and gardening, Serendipity1 Comment

@theoldmortuary had a bit of a Sunday snooze .Having a guest author for PP#100 was a great chance to step back and have a think. As many parts of the world ease out of Lockdown it could have been a good place to stop but the virus is still out there with no sign of a vaccine. The pandemic is not over so neither is the pondering.

Better later than never this little blog is about a sailor from World War 1. The sea being a bit of a theme on the cusp of PP#100
I found a plaque recording his story at the Lost Gardens of Heligan today. Charles Dyer was one of twenty gardeners who had worked at Heligan before WW1 who ultimately lost their lives as a consequence of that conflict.

https://www.heligan.com/

Charles’ story is a little more complicated than many. This plaque tells his story.

In 1918 Charles was hospitalised at Chatham Naval Dockyard. One day he put on his uniform and walked out of the Dockyard never to be seen again. He was listed as a deserter and his family were shamed and deprived of a pension.

2 years later a body was found in a wood close to the dockyard. It was identified as Charles by his wedding ring. He was taken off the deserters list, his family granted a pension and his body was returned to Mevagissy Cemetery and given a Commonwealth War Grave headstone.

I’ve aged some photographs I took today to illustrate this desolate tale.

Pandemic Pondering #96

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Serendipity1 Comment

Pods , Bubbles and Raindrops and a metaphor.

Rain did not stop play this weekend, but it did rain in Cornwall, this weekend. Our schedule had enough flexibility built into it to avoid a drenching. Thank goodness. We formed a government approved Bubble with my daughter and then socially distanced with some other familial bubbles.

If I know anything significant about bubbles it is that they pop in the rain. I would have felt safer if the government had used the word ‘pod’

Podding with someone feels robust and resilient. There is a protective element to the word.

Bubbling with someone seems frivolous and fanciful, flimsy.

A sensible mother would protect her child in a pod, we were only offered a bubble. People go into space in a pod not a bubble.

Without becoming over political this reflects the whole sorry state of Pandemic Precautions in England. Run by a government that chooses the flimsy alternative to the more robust one, every time.

We had a good weekend skitting about in our bubble avoiding rainshowers. Raindrops posed boastfully on flowers everywhere, calling attention to themselves and providing a visual metaphor for the virus that could at any moment pop our ‘ bubble’ of a slowly easing Lockdown.

Other flowers though had shrugged off the rain and were ready to get on with life as normal. A happy state that we humans are not quite at.

Hugo , being a dog flitted wilfully between bubbles and at other times posed in flower beds. Having completely misunderstood which restrictions have been relaxed.

Pandemic Pondering #95

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Father’s Day

@theoldmortuary we don’t have any fathers. Definitely a cause of sadness but within our micro family we have two Father’s, my ex-husband and my son. Today was a socially distanced family gathering to celebrate at a distance those father’s both with us and those no longer with us.

Celebrate takes on a whole new way of being when the only alcohol is in the hand sanitizer and everyone has prepared their own picnic.

Our destination was the Eden Project as previous visits, since the relaxation of lockdown, have been very easy. It is never busy and has plenty of space for a family to social distance.

Our progress is always slow around Eden.

Today, patterns was my photographic project , beyond the family of course.

This first image is a pierced stained glass design and it’s projected image stitched together and then tiled.

The rest are just pierced metal and bright sunlight.

Finally we have the three people,all in the same log, that celebrated Father’s Day with their Dads today.

Pandemic Pondering #94

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

Northern hemisphere Summer Solstice 2020 and in Britain Stonehenge is all closed up and guarded by security.

Gathering in numbers is still illegal, although on our evening walk there were larger gatherings,than permitted, out and about but pretty nasty rain would have dispersed them. So the longest day will still pass without being marked in a communal way.

Trawling the archive seemed the right way to mark a solstice like no other.

For interest sake I researched the days either side of the solstice.

Without too much trouble it was easy to see some themes and maybe a little bit of Midsummer Madness.

1. People

Today @theoldmortuary spent time with our daughter and granddaughter.

In past years we’ve spent time with Brenda our mother-in-law. Who in this picture was captured by a sunbeam. We will also see her again today, who knows if she will bring the sunbeam again.

Breakfast in Southampton with Uncle Mohammed and Aunty Margaret who live in Canada but were passing through.

2. My fascination with street signs.

3. A fascination with stairs.

4. Flowers

5. Aberdeen , Hong Kong

6. Cups

7. Dogs , ending with a sunset on the longest day.

Pandemic Pondering #93

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Travelling into Middle Earth,or less romantically but no less beautifully, Mid- Cornwall.The Coffee hounds were out today. Sniffing out good coffee and a walk at Siblyback Lake.On the way this old truck just had to be photographed.And then past the resting place of a Cornish King.King Doniert is mentioned at more length in Advent#21
https://theoldmortuary.design/2019/12/20/advent21/Our destination was Olive and Co. A coffee shop at Siblyback Lake.
https://www.olivecocafe.com/Already a favourite in Liskeard , this was a trip to their other branch.What a great location and a cute interior.We grabbed hot drinks and set off on the 3.5 mile circular walk around the lake.The walk is a flat easy walk and even on a grey day there were some beautiful sights.

For Coffee Hounds this is the perfect location. Good coffee, probably great food , as this is their advert.Plus a circular walk with great views.

Pandemic Pondering#92

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity, This is not a sports blog, Words3 Comments

This image of Hugo pretty much sums up my lifelong indifference to one of Britain’s favourite sports, football or soccer. As a blog that very loosely charts social history it seemed wrong not to mention the return of competitive sport to England.

Initially I didn’t give the cancellation of sporting fixtures much thought, but sporting events are, at the very least, background noise in the cultural life of a country. Significant events mark the gentle climb out of winter hibernation because they get media attention. The Six Nations Rugby tournament, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the Grand National are as much a sign of Spring in Britain as a Daffodil. Even if you pay them no attention they exist. Except this year they didn’t because of Covid-19.

I missed the sporting markers of Spring.

I must be one of the least capable people to contemplate writing a blog about sport. Pondering is exactly that sometimes . How does the return of professional football touch, however briefly, my Ponderings..

Words of course.

I do love intelligent conversation about any subject. In some ways it is relaxing to have no opinions on the subject being discussed.

Football my aural pleasure.

Quite a few years ago @theoldmortuary were in a Jamaican cafe, in East Dulwich. One of only two tables occupied.

The table behind us had three men on it talking animatedly but most importantly, intelligently, about football.

Obviously, we eavedropped a lot, our magical Harry Potter stretchy ears weaving invisibly onto the next table.

We remarked , once we had left, how great it was to hear football discussed so wisely. When we left we realised we had been listening to two retired players talking with the owner of the cafe. This was my late introduction to an interest in football talk and the seed of an idea to carry this blog.

Football is much in the news this week . Post lockdown the men’s professional teams have started playing matches in empty stadiums in order to complete their 2020 fixtures.

More importantly a 22 year old professional footballer, Marcus Rashford used social media to eloquently force the British government to perform a U-turn on policy regarding providing meal vouchers for the most vulnerable schoolchildren during the long summer vacation.

Thankfully podcasts have brought us as much intelligent football/sport chatter as we can handle since the ‘ East Dulwich Ear Incident.

Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy accompany our long car journeys.
https://g.co/kgs/XiyDTW

Just this week I’ve caught two football podcasts.

Gary Neville applies Sports psychology to real life on Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner.A fascinating natter over simultaneous take away food about philanthropy and football. During the pandemic Out for Lunch has become, in for a takeaway, on your own with a lap top.

Lame joke me would have preferred it if his brother Phil had actually discussed the same topics.
https://castbox.fm/x/1FqhV

Then out of nowhere our favourite coffee shop launched their own football podcast.
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544048&refid=asa
https://m.facebook.com/TheHutongCafe/

Headphones replace Harry Potter Ears but the effect is just as pleasing.

Daisies growing in the penalty box lines on a disused football pitch.

So here’s the conundrum , we’ve really not missed sport itself in the last three months but it will be good to hear about it again,and for it to mark time through the seasons. For actual pleasure and also importsntly because Eating Podcasts have filled the void left by sport. That is not entirely a good thing.

Meanwhile Lola can also demonstrate sporting indifference every bit as well as Hugo.

This is not a football club bench!

This is not a sports blog.

Pandemic Pondering #90

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

#90 and exactly 3 months since I started Pandemical Pondering. #1 on the 17th of March was inspired by having to cancel an art exhibition I was organising with an art group . I was also showing symptoms of a virus so my lockdown and isolation was a week ahead of the official British Lockdown.
I didn’t really think 3 months ahead or imagine a daily pondering , pondering on for 3 months.I just checked the camera archive for the 17 th of March and I have nothing exciting to share. It must have been an unremarkable day.The unused public toilets near us gained a For Sale board and the shadows were longer.In those 3 months our lives have changed in unimaginable ways that have no direct relationship to Covid-19, but Covid-19 has shaped the way we have been able to respond.
The weather in lockdown has been very kind to us and the delicate blooms in our spring garden . A bit like wild Foxgloves our garden blooms are undamaged by wind or rain. So for PP#90 let’s hear it for Pinky Plants.PP#90 is also a day of celebration. Grocery shopping @theoldmortuary has been quite a formal planned outing during Lockdown. We’ve had a running list that could be flexible to cater for shortages. We’ve not been diligent shoppers if something hasn’t been available on the day we shopped then we’ve done without. For one item three months of doing without ended today . For the first time since lockdown we found grapefruit juice in a supermarket. Giddy Times ahead.Let’s see how the next three months shape up.

Pandemic Ponderings #86

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

My grandparents have been much in my mind during this pandemic and its Lockdown . Early on I wished I could tap into their knowledge and wisdom of living through difficult times . Which in truth as a ‘ boomer’ I have not experienced . One set of grandparents were proper Victorians , unusually for the time they had left child rearing until far later and were in their 30’s when they had my dad. My mum’s parents were also unusual in that they divorced in the 1940’s giving me two separate couples. One lot lived in Glasgow and were loving but a long way away. The others were entrepreneurial and quite, 60’s in their thinking and lifestyle.

It is the Victorian set that comes to mind most , because when I knew them they seemed very serene and comfortable in their lives. Not given to great shows of affection but steady and always there. Their generation had seen, and they had suffered personally from, two world wars, the Spanish Flu pandemic 1 and second wave, and the ‘Depression’. They used words not often heard today and quite by chance, or serendipitously for this blog, two of them popped into my head during the heavy rain of earlier this week.

The first one was inspired by this photo, of a geranium petal stuck on the front door.

It is a striking and serendipitous image, but my first thought was. ” You must be maudlin if you need to photograph that”

I have no idea when I last thought or said the word ‘ maudlin’ . I even had to look it up to check I wasn’t being inaccurate in its use.

In truth I was probably being a little harsh with myself, I’m not sure I was being highly sentimental over a petal but who knows, I think my sentimental threshold has been recalibrated down during Lockdown.

The second word is pretty politically incorrect but I’m sure it can be shared on a blog with limited readership and only its own integrity on the line.

I was at Waitrose during a brief sunshiny moment. Considering whether to join the rather long queue.

Queues at supermarkets are great places for people watching. Waitrose perhaps win a prize for the most eclectic version of PPE that I’ve seen Ski goggles and ludicrous face masks worn by people with Marigold washing up gloves on. Middle class trolley wars about social distancing with people who probably spell the expletive they were using with a pH value because they are better educated/richer/posher than those of us that just use the Essential Waitrose ‘F’ version. Theirs also rhymes with Quark.

While I was considering the Waitrose queue over the nearby Lidl queue, there was a massive cloud burst. Trolleys and eccentric PPE wearers scattered in all directions. Expletives with a variety of spellings punctuating the very moist air.

At this point my head dredged up the word ‘ bedlam’ . Clearly the Victorian grandparent file of strange words had been left open after maudlin popped out.

© Wikipedia

I’d always known the origin of this word and had expected that the Bethlem Royal Hospital was a part of history . It was a huge surprise to me when I stumbled upon it when taking a trip to our local Waitrose when living in South London.

There’s a nice little blogging circle to end with.

I’d be willing to bet Waitrose Beckenham has eccentric queues too.

Pandemic Pondering#85

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

South East Cornwall received a month’s worth of rain today. The day’s activities were not planned by a clock but by a weather forecasting App.Most of January, February and March of 2020 were the same and then with Lockdown for the pandemic the weather changed to something resembling the Mediterranean. Some days we’ve had to plan dog walks to avoid the heat. Today was a shock to the system. Puddles where previously we experienced dust bowls.The change in weather gave Lola a massive sense of her own destiny. Authoritarian signs were not going to stop her.She was straight out of the nature reserve and straight into the churchyard.Finding a brown dog in a churchyard is a tricksy thing, it took a while,but I forgave her when I found this grave. It forms the boundary of the graveyard and I walk past the back of it every day. So much information …This gentleman drowned in the Hamoaze on April 10th 1834. Aged63He wasn’t found until 6th May, unsurprisingly his remains were interred the very next day.So much information and completely plays to my nosey, or do I mean interested side. A quick glance to the grave next door added another possible layer to this already sad story.Another gentleman with the same name is also listed as drowned on December 29 th 1803. Aged 54.There has to be a story here, probably very sad and entirely suited to a grey day.I’ve noticed during my weather watching during the pandemic that I am extraordinarily thrilled to know whether my gibbous is waxing or waning.

Pandemic Pondering #83

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

A quarter of @theoldmortuary have returned to work today. The sort of work where full PPE is required. The other human quarter needs to sort out the art studio. Making it both effective as a studio and usable as a gathering space outside the house now we can gather with a few more people in our garden. I also needed to dig out a blackboard for us to use as a kitchen note board as we navigate cooking a new style diet. Low carb/ no dairy.

It’s all a bit confusing so notes and shopping lists will help.

We did the usual morning dog walk, pre pandemic style. Me the dogs and headphones with Jay Rayner staying in for lunch on his Podcast Out For Lunch.

George Ezra, Ed Balls and Edgar Wright were great company on my walk and on the Studio tidy up.

https://www.somethinelse.com/projects/out-to-lunch-with-jay-rayner/

Regular walks can be a little bit mesmeric. There is a link with yesterday’s blog, Pandemic Pondering# 82 and Advent#15. In Advent #15 I shared the walk with a dear friend whose funeral I mention in Pandemic Pondering #82.

For this reason I thought I would share some of the sights of the walk, some days it’s good to reflect a little. Although too much reflecting and not enough concentrating gave me the first Horse Fly bite of the season.

Looking west from Churchtown Farm Nature Reserve to the River Lynher
Kissing Gate
Up and Over Style
Dog bottoms, my usual view.
Hugo and Lola
Seed heads in a building site.
Rusty elbow and fern on a barn.
Pink roses falling off a wall
Teasel
Poppies coming to the end of their days
Geraniums believing they are in the Mediterranean

Back to the tidy up….