Category: Serendipity

#1404 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn Serendipity1 Comment

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

I am not someone who habitually hands out unsolicited advice. I don’t always like to receive advice or instruction that I neither need nor desire, so out of respect to others I limit my offerings to those who ask. That is not to say that unsolicited advice is always a bad thing, but too much, too often is just patronising.

However, the question has been asked and I would say to younger people,try to develop a positive outlook on life. Wear rose tinted spectacles when you can. Try to find the sunspots in a field of gloom.

Constantly negative people are not my tribe, now I am semi-retired I like a life topped up with positive energy. Not everything in life needs to be polarised or adversarial. We do not always have to agree with someone to find some common ground that is relatable

Practice makes perfect. Pink lenses can help you focus on the one good thing, the beautiful thing, a small kindness, an act of love, the inappropriate giggle even in the darkest of places. Pink lenses are a metaphor for finding something good in every day and the more you do it the better you become at it. In my humble opinion, if anyone is interested.

#1400 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn blogging, Serendipity1 Comment
Green Smoothie on a cafe table. Almost an Alien Seascape

It has been a busy week. So busy, I was unaware that theoldmortuary had pondered its way to #1400 blogs in the most recent iteration of blogs.

The Garden Painter started things off in South London.

Pandemic Pondering straddled the London/Cornwall years.

theoldmortuary ponders is Devon based.

The Garden Painter was a blog , exploring my immediate post-graduate of Fine-Art years as  a full time radiographer doing art in our South London back garden in the snippets of time available . The Garden painter blog was even more infrequent than the snippets of time. It has not been archived, or maybe I need to look harder. The blog covered a 10 year journey of exhibiting all over London and learning how arts organisations run.

Pandemic ponderings started on the first day after an Art exhibition I had helped to plan was cancelled due to the Covid outbreak

Pandemic Ponderings #1

#theoldmortuary ponders started on a blogging course on 10 th October 2021. For no particular reason, except that at some point, thank goodness the pandemic was going to run out of steam. So why not just jump to a new title on a random Saturday. Covid had the last laugh, I caught Covid for the third time during that weekend.

#1 theoldmortuary ponders.

In researching these two ‘first’ blogs I realised that at some point in July of this year I got my numbers wrong.

My blog numbers sequence dropped a 100 blogs.  This is irritating but not wholly unusual , I am quite disnumeric. It goes hand in hand with my synesthesia.

I really have to concentrate when numbers are involved. When required I can do maths to a reasonable level because I have had to learn to do so, but in a relaxed place my head is a little frightened of numbers. Blogging is certainly a relaxed place, my punctuation suffers , not as often as my numeracy, but it still suffers.

So there we are, #1400 when I thought I was on #1300.

There were just under 1,000 Pandemic ponderings. Even I can add up 1,400 and a 1,000 . There were not really many The Garden Painters so at a rough guess that is about 2,400 blogs over 16 years. That is a lot of pondering. Thanks for pondering along with me.

#1298 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn art, Serendipity1 Comment

Sometimes life and art collide in the most unexpected places but also in the most timely way. I have a few projects on a gentle simmer. At surface level they are all quite different. At a granular level they have many similarities.

The image above is made from 3 photographs taken in the same location at about 7 am this morning.

A  Sunrise
A rust stain on concrete
Some glass bricks at Tinside Pool

What inspired the header image was a beautiful stained glass window at a Thanksgiving service for the life of a friend.

Stained Glass by John Piper at St Andrews Church

Having this beautiful window to concentrate on was so comforting when words stopped flowing. Grief robs eloquence and quietly waiting for words to stream again was made a little more comfortable by having this previously unseen church window to explore with moist eyes.

Rolling forward to 6:30 this morning and my eyes were dryer, thank goodness, and darting about a 90 year old Lido. One of my simmering projects.

I love, love, love a glass brick and the crazy abstract patterns they create. Today I wanted more. These glass bricks face the south. What I wanted was the limpid sunrise to be seen through a glass brick.

Armed with some digital skills I popped outside to catch the sunrise. In catching the sunrise I found the rust stain on concrete. I stuck them all together and made a stained glass window which pretty much fulfills my mornings wish list.

Thanks to John Piper for the inspiration.

#1296 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn Art for sale, Serendipity1 Comment

I have recently decided not to rely solely on Exhibitions or Galleries to sell my art. Although those two things have not been exclusively where I sell art, they are in lots of ways the main focus of my attention and creative output. Time to dip my toes into a different way of selling prints and original work and creating designs for other people.

I knew having a year away from exhibiting would be strange after many years of participating in group shows. Stepping back always alters perspectives and if, and when, I decide to go back to such things. I will definitely be  doing things differently.

Doing things differently seems to be my arty philosophy of the week. For no particular reason I have started a watercolour on a massive full sized ( Imperial) sheet of paper. It has a fantasy botanical theme and is being done as research for a different painting. It will take a while…

No doubt both of these projects will take a great amount of real world pondering and those ponders will undoubtedly land here from time to time. Art can be a funny old pastime.

#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…

#1294 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, SerendipityLeave a comment

What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done when no one was watching?

I don’t  believe I have ever done anything remotely brave. Witnessed or not. Were I to contemplate bravery I think I would choose to do it with no one watching in case I failed or misread the situation and bravery was not required. I am also someone who immediately devalues something if I achieve it. So if I was both brave and successful. I would immediately recalibrate the situation  to one that required no courage at all.

5 years ago I would have considered swimming in the sea in England in December as the action of someone who was either brave or daft

After 5 years of doing it I know that cold sea swimming is a pretty daft hobby . Definitely on the lower end of the Brave/ Daft spectrum.

I know my place and am brave enough to say that daft is where I sit most comfortably.

#1292 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, weather1 Comment

What’s something you do completely differently from how you were raised?

It has been welcome to have a fabulous British summer, but also slightly discombobulating. Normally I approach September with great optimism that we will get lovely sunny days in September whilst making all the normal September adjustments to shortening days, darker mornings and more bedding.

As a cold water swimmer I look forward to September being the warmest water temperatures in our small bay but we have had warmish water for two months already.

So I suppose what I am saying is that normally I view September as a compensatory month. Put in place to make up, when needed ,for a typical mixed weather summer. This year no compensation is required.

Late September is when I choose to take my holidays, some guaranteed sunshine before the cooler grip of autumn has me layering up and thinking of stews.

September has always seemed to me to be a month to be especially optimistic. For someone who was raised to be annoptomistic person that is a very comforting month to be in.

What is completely different this year is that I am utterly satiated by good weather vibes. We have lived through the warmest British summer since records began 200 years ago. I don’t need to be especially optimistic about September. Nothing was cancelled in Summer 2026 because the weather was inclement.

September can be whatever it wants to be. Its own changeable self with absolutely no responsibility to make up, in any way, for June, July or August.

For the first time I can actually acknowledge that September is the first month of Autumn.

#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

#1288 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Rain is a bit of a tradition for the August (Summer) Bank Holiday.  This nearly always galvanises us to get outdoor jobs done beforehand, which is why the yard got a lot of attention on Friday before the giddiness of the Full Moony swim.

Saturday did not disappoint, weatherwise. The morning dog walk was a complete wash out, even my brilliant orange raincoat failed to save the day and a complete change of clothes was required. The day was not a washout however. Many of the full Moony Bobbers put their clothes on and swapped shore for moor. Driving to Princetown, home of the infamous Dartmoor Prison. Crossing the bleakly beautiful moorland. The location of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. No howling last night just lovely tunes at the Dartmoor Outdoor Festival.

Curiously for an outdoor festival we were inside the solidly granite  bar of the Plume of Feathers at Princetown, to hear our fellow bobber Helen sing with her friend Steve. Two hours of great music, great chat, always a given when bobbers gather and an unexpected life lesson.

A local Residential Home had brought 5 very senior residents to enjoy the music. One in particular was like a lightbulb all evening. Lit up by music and the atmosphere. It was obvious that in her mind she was twirling on the dancefloor, maybe even that actual dancefloor at the end of the second world war. When Princetown was a much more lively place

During World War II, Princetown served as a remote staging area for Allied troops preparing for the D-Day landings and briefly used its railway line to transport prisoners to Dartmoor Prison. American and Allied forces used the high, isolated Dartmoor landscape around Princetown and Rundlestone Corner for tactical training away from enemy observation. The historic prison facility accommodated troops and preparations leading up to the Normandy invasions.The Princetown Railway saw a temporary resurgence in transporting prisoners to the local prison as road and alternate rail links handled heavy wartime traffic.

Imagine those heady post war months in a remote village swollen with British and American Service personnel, dismantling and disengaging a huge and temporary Military establishment.

Her absolutely obvious pleasure made for a lovely vicarious moment.

Lola on the dancefloor.