Category: Serendipity

#1229 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment

My phone is my on-the-go note book. Photographs and screenshots remind me of all sorts of thoughts that need to be followed up. I try to clear up my archive on a regular basis, trying really hard not to delete any gems. I have also been having a radical digital Spring Clean of the images stored on my phone. Only time will tell if I have been too brutal.

Monday started bright and early with a swim with the bobbers.

A new bobber joined us, the first in a long time to commit to regular bobbing after her first dip in Firestone Bay. She is wearing the green hat. Brave to join us when the water is almost at its coldest of the year. Brave to agree to join the  Bobbers WhatsApp group which carries eclectic messages, only 50% of them stick to the topic of cold water swimming.

I took photos for stereotactic image making later in the day.

The exhibition season is nipping at my procrastinating ankles.

My evening was spent making images as above. Walking my dogs and finding the most beautiful Magnolias and watching TV and finding a friend on screen.

The rest of the undocumented day passed off without need for notes or photographs. Happily all dull tasks and domestic admin were achieved with a sense of a list well achieved.

#1227 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hybrid Printmaking, Serendipity1 Comment

How would you rate your confidence level?

I believe my confidence levels are at about the right place. But I would say that wouldn’t I?

Like many people I am a little in awe of hugely confident people but I am wise enough to know that massive confidence in others is built on foundations that are often less than desirable or wealth and status.

I am a lover of moderate confidence x compassion and interest in alternate ways of doing things. With a specific ratio of 35:65

35 being confidence and 65 being all the other elements of thinking, including doubt.

Clearly I sit comfortably on this ratio in my own opinion. It doesn’t mean a 65% lack of confidence. More like 65% opportunity to learn new things, see a different point of view or be flexible.

These images are 35% of my creative output of the last 2 months. The other 65% will never see the light of day but that 65% made these what they are. Less is more in confidence and creativity.

#1226 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Spring2 Comments

I sense that I have hit visceral Spring in the last couple of days. Caught between  Climatological Spring on the 1st of March and Astronomical  Spring on the 20th of March. I am both behind the game and ahead of it at the same time. Actual Spring Cleaning occurred yesterday. I am on the steps of pastel colours and fresh greens that ultimately lead to summer.

Summer and Winter Solstices are the big ticket events but I think I prefer the softer transitions into Spring and autumn.

Visceral Spring is an entirely emotional and personal response. The point when layers of clothes become intolerable and my feet protest at the thought of socks and boots. Visceral Spring is not without discomfort. Toes in sandals are nipped by 1 degree temperatures and cold winds find their way into spaces where thermal underwear is missing but that discomfort is my small celebration that winter really is behind me, and that is a good thing for a winterphobic soul. Even one who has done her very best to find the positive in the dark months.

Time to lay a tribute on the steps towards Spring, Summer and Autumn. Longer days and sunlight.

#1227 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Last night the bobbers went out, out. To  a silent disco under the watchful gaze of twenty ships figureheads.

One more ready to party than most. For once the bobbers did not get their clothes off in a public space but danced the night away until they had no more moves left in any cell of their bodies. For a change there were no frozen boobs or toes.

Just sweaty ears from the headphones and aching knees from lives well lived.

We were there to celebrate  International  Womens Day. But beyond that we were out with our tribe. A group of people who built a tribe of cold water swimmers, who came together initially 2 meters apart, to exercise by swimming in the sea at least once a week during the Covid Pandemic. So much water has washed over our bodies and passed under the metaphorical bridge since the first British Covid lockdown which started 5 years ago today. But Bobbing with Bobbers has been an accidental scaffolding that has supported us all into the post-Covid era with friends to do mad stuff with.

P.s One Bobbers  exercise tracker said she danced for more than 6 miles.

#1224 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Serendipity4 Comments

What is the last thing you learned?

That a pause, even for fifteen years is still a pause. This painting was started and paused 15 years ago when I was doing a painting course. It was painted using only my fingers. A technique I never tried again until this week when I realised what I needed to do to make it exhibition-ready.

The Wheelhouse proportions needed to be altered and the moon tweaked with copper leaf. Having tweaked the moon the ponies required a little tweakment and then with all that bling the shadows needed darkening and on and on it went. All the time using my finger tips!  All well and good until they start to get sore and the top layer of skin is worn away. Really not a technique I ever need to use again. Useful if I ever need to enter the world of crimes created with two fingerprintless fingers, but really not so smart for operating my smartphone with its fingerprint recognition.

Tweaked moon.
Tweaked ponies

#1221 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photography, Serendipity1 Comment

After the fabulous light show of Dazzle which has brightened up my weekend nighttime dog walks .

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16KaWjxHjM/hi

It was marvelous to see this lovely Magnolia in the dark yesterday.

https://theoldmortuary.design/2025/03/03/1220-theoldmortuary-ponders/

It reminded me to reflect, in a very self indulgent way, on the passing of winter and how as an ardent winterphobe I improved my attitude to my least liked season.

Reviewing things I realise that actually there are only three things I really dislike. January, constant rain, and short daylight hours. None of these things avoidable.

In December I am lifted by the run up to Christmas, festive lights and goodwill.

And I love February for its brevity and skippy nature as the days grow a little longer and Spring flowers spike the sodden soil.

Leaving me just with January to endure. ‘ Find the positives ‘ was the advice from Newspaper magazines each Saturday. I am always an optimist but January sucks my optimism. But I gave positivity  a go and decided to try and create interesting images out of the shockingly dull photographs I was taking. What light there is in January is overlayed with a perpetual mist and large quantities of rain. I tried everything in my medical imaging repertoire of image manipulation, everything in my arty photograph toolbox, some painting skills and used image manipulation software from really old systems to current ones.

There is almost no predictability about which bad pictures will turn out to be visual gems with my tweakments but learning to use all the tools and ideas in my head has been  fascinating. There have been some epic failures.

I even went back to the nineties and bought myself a home printer. Goodness me they have improved.

January and indeed winter 25/26 I am ready for you.

Here is the Magnolia on a gorgeous shade of ‘ greige’, surely my most used word of the winter months.

And finally the image I was aiming for.

Other worldly Magnolia.

#1217 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterday was the most predictable of days. Chores, errands and dog grooming.

A publicity poster for the National Trust ( A Charity in the U.K that protects beautiful places and spaces) did not reflect my lived experience of a late February Thursday with chores to do.

I knew exactly where I would find myself and the list was not thrilling. But the sun came out, a gap appeared in my to-do list and,the somewhat dull, life admin was achieved early. Thanks in no small part to the parking deities who were endlessly kind yesterday.

After the dog grooming I returned to Wembury beach car park, where the poster was and took my pristinely clean dogs for a walk on the beach. A treat rarely available to them due to beach restrictions for most of the year.

Where will I find myself? Back in the same place.

And in finding myself in exactly the same place as I had been two hours earlier I had two delightful moments of serendipity. A hug from a friend and fellow club administrator who was cliff path walking. And an encounter with an off-duty witch. She was astride her witches broomstick by the sink in the public toilets.  Not a word of explanation as to why she had a broomstick between her legs but being English we made pleasantries about the weather and the tragedy of a closed cafe. She said cake was her downfall and affected the brooms performance. So in some ways she was grateful.

In an alternate realm perhaps.

#1216 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

A little extra blog with a prompt.

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

Not for a whole day . Just a morning or afternoon or evening would be enough.

I would love to experience actually being the conundrum of humanity that is an Alpha male.  Potus or Putin perhaps if I were aiming for infamy or more humbly, any regular Joe who just sees women as inherently inferior. I could wear the invisible Stag Horns of a person who actively seeks out confrontation and domination in the tiny details of life as well as the more significant ones. Actually, any horn would probably do.

Just a portion of a day would be enough to start with, to give me some level of understanding. It would also give me plenty of time to make my apologies and relax my jaw from all that jutting both real and metaphorical.

Meanwhile the Alpha male I have briefly inhabited could perhaps enrol on a Lambda ( Lovely) man course and we would both have been enlightened.

#1213 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity3 Comments

Far too late in February I have realised that I usually enroll on a creative course of some sort. Three years ago it was a mindful watercolour course with Tansy Horgan which really shook up my way of working with colour.

https://tansyhargan.bigcartel.com/category/in-person-courses

At the time I was working at an art gallery showing an amazing exhibition called Songlines featuring the work of Indigenous   First Nation artists from Australia.

https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/songlines-touring

©theoldmortuary

This was an abstract image inspired by my last day stewarding at the exhibition, created to express what I had learnt and felt about the experience of being submerged in the art of a significantly different culture.

I realised this morning that both learning mindful colour mixing with Tansy Horgan and being drenched in the colours and mark making of  Indiginous Australians has informed my recent hobby of digitally altering  deliberately dull and uninteresting photographs

So much so that I have not painted since Christmas.

I have had a painting project bubbling in my head for some time.

It’s too late now to register for a course in what is left of February. Time to get my bubbling project down on paper and resolve to be better organised next Winter.

©theoldmortuary

For now the Songlines painting combined with the rainy palm tree in my back yard.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18jx1HKCKe/

#1212 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

A WordPress blog suggestion I am happy to respond to.

Having lived for more than 130 six month periods I know with some certainty that what I imagine my biggest challenge may well be eclipsed by a bigger but unexpected one. I would also not bore you all with my greatest challenge on an open public blog if I could identify one, which I can’t.

But it is one of life’s great mysteries that what we perceive as challenges often turn out not to be remotely challenging and yet seemingly mundane or benign moments can suddenly be challenging.

Sun setting through a skeleton leaf.