Pandemic Ponderings #22

On Apr 8, 2020Apr 8, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Coffee Hunters, Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity5 Comments

Unadulterated Coffee Porn. With the occasional tea.
We know how fortunate we are @theoldmortuary. The trivial nature of these pandemic blogs is just a small moment of inconsequential pondering amidst a sea of serious stuff. Things come and go in the ponderings one of them is tiny obsessions with something we can’t have. In truth of course we can easily have a coffee, or tea, and a piece of cake at home. But it’s not the same. Coffee and Cake is our guilty pleasure, artisanal, independent, skilful, visually beautiful and quirky are the basic requirements.Shallow, pretentiousness, maybe twatty , yes all of those things but supporting local businesses and taking pleasure in something simple is no bad thing.I popped the word coffee into the search bar of my image archive. I had not expected it to serve quite so much…This blog will be longer. than I thought and I’ve only chosen the best pictures.April was always going to be tricksy in our coffee world. Hutong Cafe,just outside Royal William Yard in Plymouth, our most regular coffee house is closed for refurbishment.

https://m.facebook.com/TheHutongCafe/

Similarly another regular spot, Koffehuis at Sutton Harbour was closing for good as the owner was returning to Holland.

That leaves us with Jacka, the countries oldest working bakery on The Barbican.

https://m.facebook.com/JackaBakery/

and the diminutive but bursting with great cake. Cakewhole on Wilton Street in Plymouth.

https://cakewhole.co.uk/

My final piece of Plymouth Coffee Porn comes from Ocean Studios , inside the Royal William Yard.

https://www.oceanstudios.org.uk/

Column Bakehouse who run the cafe at Ocean Studios also have a great cafe at their Bakery, coincidentally another Old Mortuary. At Devonport Guildhall.

https://m.facebook.com/ColumnBakehouse/

Other great coffee places happen in Plymouth, I just don’t have photographic evidence.Good Coffee HQ in Ebrington Street is one.Black Sheep Brew in nearby Tavistock sells the mythical Monmouth Coffee from London’s Borough Market.

https://m.facebook.com/GoodCoffeeHeadquarters/https

://www.blacksheepbrew.uk/https://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/

Let’s be honest Plymouth is also the home of some shocking coffee, not all sold by chains, although they do account for a lot of crimes against the bean.South East Cornwall is not a friend to great coffee. My only happy coffee photo comes from The Canteen at Maker.

Liberty Coffee at Launceston is well worth the trip when world wakes up again.

Coffee Porn @theoldmortuary is off on a little travelogue now. As luck would have it there is a great cup of coffee as we leave the SouthWest.Otter Valley Ice Cream on the A30 does a lot more than Ice Cream.

Lynnwood Coffee in Lechlade features heavily, not only because they do great coffee but our friends love to send us Coffee Porn from there. A lot of Coffee Porn.

Further afield in England we found this gem in Bury-St-Edmunds in Suffolk. Paddy and Scott’s

A regular favourite in London, even though it has become quite a big chain is Gail’s Dulwich Village. Cheese straws by which all others are judged.

Finally a curious place for coffee, a butchers shop in Southampton, famed quite rightly for their breakfasts the coffee was great too.http://www.uptonsbutchers.co.uk/

In no particular order here is a tiny world tour of coffee houses we have loved.

Breakfast in South Korea, we stayed in an Airbnb in an untouristy suburb of Seoul, Yongsun-gu. Uncle Sam’s Pancake was our closest cafe. This next image was my birthday breakfast also in Yongsun-Gu.

Havana in Cuba gave great everything, it is a wonderful country.Coffee here is represented by art. A sculpture made from old and damaged Stove-top Espresso pots.

Toronto in Canada gave us a lot of coffee action. I had a bad knee injury and we were ‘forced’ to rest often in coffee shops.https://www.hotblack-coffee.com/

HotBlackCoffee Queen Street, Toronto.

Kobrick Coffee, amazing vintage coffee house serving great coffee and wonderful Jazz in the Meatpacking District.https://www.kobricks.com/A reward after a blisteringly hot walk on The High-Line, my favourite park in the world.https://www.thehighline.org/Although it’s landscaping did cause the knee injury that forced so much coffee drinking in New York.It is only a tiny tour, bringing up the rear is Hong Kong. Birthplace of both Hannah and our lovely VV.

Hong Kong also gave us two lovely coffee quotes. From the stools at Coffee Academics.

My last picture comes from Hoi An, I’ve used it before in blogs but it represents, for me, the current situation and a hope that nattering in coffee shops will become normal again.This pillow rests on a bench in a tea house , that also serves great coffee, where noise and conversation is discouraged always.

Reaching Out Tea House, Hoi An

Pandemic Ponderings #11

On Mar 25, 2020Mar 25, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

This week started with bright shafts of sunshine. That special Spring sunshine that manages to illuminate dust and cobwebs even in the homes of dedicated cleaners. Obviously this week started with more serious restrictions regarding Covid-19 . Stay with me on this these two things are connected. Spring cleaning catches me just like any human, for a brief time dusting and tidying seem almost a pleasure. On top of this in these bizarre circumstances I feel the need to get rid of anything around the house that reminds me of what I’m going to be missing in this uncertain time. So artwork and ‘stuff’ associated with the Exhibition I was involved with next week needs to be put away. As did our grandparent kit of yesterday’s blog . The washing line has been strung up in the trees ready to blow fresh Atlantic and country fragrances into clean clothes and all the domestic linens that will fill the rest of my week of cleaning madness

After all these chores were achieved me and the dogs went out for our one permitted exercise walk.

The sun was beautiful and keeping our distance was easy for the few humans about. The dogs of course went about their usual social greetings.Not that you would know this from these photographs.

Pandemic Ponderings #6

On Mar 20, 2020Mar 20, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), SerendipityLeave a comment

Life really does have a way of taking you in unusual directions in these rapidly changing times. Earache or not I had to go out today, observing social distance and cleanliness at all stages.

For some time now doughnuts have loomed large in my imagination, not just any doughnut, nothing fancy, a fresh ring doughnut or indeed a perfectly simple jam doughnut.

It has been a back burner kind of fantasy, perhaps a little enhanced or made more presient by the current restrictions on life. It was those very restrictions that enabled doughnuts to feature @theoldmortuary today. Parking in our local High Street (We are in Cornwall so it’s called Fore Street) is normally impossible but less people around gave me the Golden Ticket of parking spaces. Right outside Rowe’s Cornish Bakery.

Not somewhere I usually go for no other reason than the parking is tricksy.

Their doughnuts were perfect and the staff had been fully trained in no touch techniques and tonging. It was impressive.
https://www.rowesbakers.co.uk/

But it didn’t stop at Doughnuts…

Long ago in a large NHS hospital on- call and long shifts were sometimes fuelled by a Gregg’s Bacon Tasty, truly the comfort food of Health Professionals who know a lot about diet and Cardiac health.

It’s been 12yrs since I was close to a bacon tasty. Rowe’s call it a ‘Bacon Bite’ for complete accuracy. London Hospitals of my aquaintance did not offer such things. More worldy offerings certainly, equally bad for the general health but not Bacon Tasties.

The picture tells the story. The very best thing for a virus that induces earache is a Bacon Tasty. Served by someone well versed in the art of tonging.

Followed by the perfect doughnut. Also delightfully tonged.

I won’t bore you with the lovely fresh vegetables I sourced today, or the fish or other healthy comestibles.

What’s the point, this is Bakery Porn. You were warned that I had no idea where this restricted lifestyle would take us.

By complete coincidence a gift of bakery was also delivered to @theoldmortuary.

A man, unknown to us but connected made us a loaf to help out with the earache.

We are feeling plumptious and unrepentant.

More rain Quickie #19

On Mar 15, 2020Mar 15, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

It’s another grey day in Cornwall, the bright spot of the morning was raindrops on a newly emerged tulip. Happy Sunday xx

Libraries and bookshops, journeys to somewhere else.

On Mar 13, 2020Mar 13, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

All my reading life I’ve loved libraries, as I got older bookshops took over because library opening hours are not always convenient for working people. We always visit libraries whenever we travel to cities. Birmingham and Seoul stand out as two of the best. Yesterday I was in our local library doing some admin for a book group. Not planning to get anything for myself I had a quick wander around in case something irresistible caught my eye. Two books leapt out at me, not because they would take me on new journeys but because they reminded me of journeys already taken.

Alan Johnson’s In My Life will be the second Alan Johnson book I’ve read. The first one The Long and Winding Road was the third book of his memoirs. I have yet to read the first two parts. The Long and Winding Road was significant to me because during the period it covered we were neighbours, not close, but some of his roads were my roads and when his days of secure chauffeur driven cars were over we shared our regular commute into Victoria or London Bridge. Obviously like proper London commuters we never made eye contact.

Alan Johnson is not the only recognisable face seen on the platforms of Gipsy Hill Station.

One stands out as the ‘ most’ famous. Fanny, the Gipsy Hill Cat. Famous throughout London for her duty of care to the commuters of South London. She has her own station waiting room.

and is nearly always on hand for cuddles or ticket checking.

Spiri Tsintziras book Afternoons in Itheka is the second book that grabbed me and is the second based in Itheka that I have read.The first was North of Ithaka by Eleni Gage, a book that fueled a trip to Itheka last summer.

The trip to Ithaka was serendipitous and wonderful. It is such a peaceful island.

We had a huge rustic supper in a general store and occasional cafe.

Some of the artwork was surprising.

The food was everything you would expect of Greek hospitality. Comforting, delicious and never ending.

Reading is my favourite pastime, it gives me time and location travel. Sometimes backwards like these two books but often projecting me forward to adventures as yet unknown.

Random(eyes)

On Mar 11, 2020Mar 12, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

For reasons that are unknown to me my smartphone selected a group of photos of eyes this afternoon. I assume I had inadvertantly selected a voice control search when discussing someone with shifty eyes. I suppose it could have been worse.

Not one of the following eye pictures, apart from perhaps the first, is remotely shifty.

I’m going to share them in the order they appeared and try to remember the location and event they represent.

Above is me on a New Years Eve looking shifty.

The next is Hugo and Hannah with almost perfectly matched profiles.

A dragon at Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

Graffiti near Waterloo Bridge London.

Lola in February 2016.

Che Guevara, graffiti just outside Havana.

Three cows at the Royal Cornwall Show 2012.

A judge at The Royal Cornwall Show 2012.

Two more cows , as above.

Two @theoldmortuary paintings.

And finally a barely-there eye from the Lambeth Country Fair at Brockwell Park.

Now none of these seem to me to be remotely shifty but since I had inadvertantly confused my phone I thought I would look up ‘ Shifty eyes’

https://www.collinsdictionary.com

shifty-eyed in British English (ˌʃɪftɪˈaɪd) adjective. informal. having the appearance of being dishonest, esp as signified by a lack of eye contact. He seemed evasive, shifty-eyed and vague.

Apart from words it seems the internet is not too clear on exactly what a shifty eye looks like. Beyond cartoons shifty eye seems to be intangible so maybe my phone can be forgiven for giving me pretty normal eyes. However I never did ask it to search for eyes of any sort so that action still remains a mystery.

It’s not every day one of these drops into your hands.

On Mar 6, 2020Mar 6, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

I could have had a glove stretcher, a warming plate, a penny lick. What I actually got was the cheeky Coca de Mer.

Yesterday I was at an event hosted by The Box, the soon to be open contemporary cultural space in Plymouth.
https://www.theboxplymouth.com/

I was handed a mystery object to talk about.

The Coco De Mer , a giant seed pod from the Seychelles was not unknown to me, there is one growing a tree at the Eden Project and there is a shop of the same name just North of Covent Garden
https://www.edenproject.com/
https://www.coco-de-mer.com/

The seed is known for its erotic appearance, something that has hastened the trees demise in its native Seychelles.

It’s name means Coconut of the Sea, a name given erroneously because floating seeds were found in the seas of the Indian Ocean and were believed to come from underwater palm trees. In fact they had dropped into the sea and sunk because of their immense weight , only floating to the surface when the decay process made gasses and gave them bouyancy.

The Box specimen is blackened and has a glossy finish with a hole drilled into it. It was very tactile, not particularly heavy. It has obvious visual female charms but the surprise was how calming it was resting on my lap. The curves just nicely fill your hands and the smooth surface of the Plymouth specimen encourages fingers to make journeys around its form.

The tree is endangered because it’s seeds are the way they are and surrounded by erotic folklore. They are protected by law in the Seychelles, but can be sold in a more controlled way to tourists and institutions. Historically gathered examples are sold for massive prices.

Since meeting the Plymouth Coco de Mer, yesterday, I’ve read a bit more about it on another blog site, a good read if you are interested.
https://seychild.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/coco-de-mer-symbol-of-seychelles-mystery-of-the-garden-of-eden-explained/amp/

This is why Instagram matters to Artists and Makers

On Mar 5, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, Social MediaLeave a comment

Yesterday was an interesting day. A coffee meet up with a friend serendipitously introduced me to an artist and jeweller . Then an unexpected printing hiccough gave me some water colour scraps to create a new image.For interest I though I would use the Instagram Grids of the three people I met to illustrate this blog.

Coffee was with tessajanedesigns at Ocean Studios. We were just having a social catch up after teaching a Social Media workshop earlier in the week.http://www.tessajane.co.uk/

Mark Wiggin saw us nattering and came to join us.

https://www.markwigginart.com/

Then we popped upstairs to see Val Muddyman. Her current work recreates the tiny details of the beauty of a beach really close to her workshop at Devils Point.

https://www.valmuddyman.co.uk/shop-1

Hugo loved her workshop.

For completeness here is my Instagram grid.

I met all these people in just one hour, the images I found of their work on Instagram is such a simple illustration of why Instagram is a great piece of Social Media for Artists and Makers.

The image above is a future palimpsest but for now it’s a collage.

Leap Year

On Feb 29, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What to do with the extra day in 2020.

Obviously after just one Barré lesson we are fizzing to leap around on Leap Day, but this young man does it so much better .

February always needs more red.

Leap Year attracts flimsiness and fun, see my efforts above, or read Guardian flimsiness.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/29/leap-year-day-how-you-could-and-should-celebrate-29-february

But it exists to keep us all ticking along nicely in time. Introduced by Julius Caesar over 2000 years ago.

Leap day recalibrates and corrects time keeping because every year is actually 365 days and 6 hours long (one complete earth orbit of the sun) so once every four years those extra 6 hours are gathered together to make an extra day.

29 pictures in red to fill your extra day.

Gipsy Hill Brewery at The Lord High Admiral , Plymouth

Dodging the spray, Niagara Falls, Canada

In the Pink, the morning commute and other stories.

On Feb 24, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

theoldmortuary team has spent the weekend fixing fences ravaged by Storms Ciara, Dennis and Eileen. As garden party guests go these three are banned. In consequence we are a little jaded and completely over February weather. As inspiring, luck would have it, the Artists of the Tamar Valley Instagram prompt for today was #mondaymotivation. It seems Pink is a thing for me on Monday mornings. A simple search for Monday’s in my picture library bought up this 12 year old painting.

Battersea Power station was always my motivation on my journey into central London to produce radiographic images. Neatly demonstrated in pink by this piece of lightbox art in Hong Kong.

Making x-ray images used to involve dark rooms. One Monday I produced this image to demonstrate dark room illumination. It was a freak image but very pink.

For a while I produced the social media for an exhibition at Tate Modern, this also appeared in the Monday file.

Not all art images are hugely positive, the next image is a piece of commissioned work that was personalised with the addition of Slovakian poetry. Niche,for certain but the commissioning person ultimately refused to buy it.

A fabulous, pink, Monday image is the wildflowers in early spring that cling to the walls of Trematon Castle. Also sometimes a commuting journey.

Flowers fill the Monday Photo File. These Tulips were captured last February, caught in a sharp ray of sunshine.

2020 take note. Sunshine is permitted in February.

Less in-your-face pink is this February roses. I’m not sure I want to think about the air miles.

Finally to shine a little more pink light into the February gloom. Lightbulbs.

Hoping these pinks have perked up a February Monday, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Pink is so much better as a #mondaymotivation than black fences and quick drying cement.

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