Category: Serendipity

#1105 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn autumn, Beach Life, Colour, Serendipity2 Comments

Some of you may notice that 3 blogs have appeared in just over 24 hours. This is because Autumn proper finally arrived in the West Country and with only one planned task of the day we couldn’t give up on a cold crisp day with blue skies, bright sunshine and sharp shadows. We were out for all of the 10 daylight hours that November gave us yesterday.

Our early morning quest was to visit a farm cafe, that we always manage to miss,on our travels into the area known as South Hams. We like to have a small portfolio of places we have visited to take friends to. As I write this I realise we have never even taken our friend whose name is Hams to the South Hams.

Ironic really as his partner’s surname is Curnow the old word for Cornwall and he gets to visit Cornwall every time they visit us. Note to self to resolve this ommision.

Our target cafe of the day was Heron Valley. The orchard and fields overlook Heron Valley. As if to signal the beginning of a perfect visit a Heron rose into the air just in front of us and flew into the trees on the horizon to the right of this picture. Honestly!

Also perfect was the day bed provided for weary travellers. I was a traveller but hardly weary at 10 am. But needs must, for a photo opportunity.

Breakfast was fab. The dogs got chopped up sausage and a roaring fire to gaze at.

The cafe also has a small showroom for homewares made from recycled plastic water bottles. Autumn colours were everywhere.

And sharply defined shapes in the outdoor eating area.

https://www.heronvalley.co.uk/

https://www.weavergreen.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAudG5BhAREiwAWMlSjFVfXaYrHRA6X8h96CCll8TNBNFj6dpbrHX54PwMI9uF7zq8h6ZxlRoCStwQAvD_BwE

It was at breakfast we decided to extend our day and visit a garden centre.

This week I have taken delivery of two rambling roses. The yard has proved it can grow roses well, it has nurtured an old rose that has been there forever and a cutting that was gifted to me. I bought three rose plants from the London 2012 Olympic sell off . They failed to thrive in our back garden I don’t know if it was me or the clay that killed them off. They were the roses that provided the medal winners bouquets and may just have been exhausted plants. Whatever the reason I have become timid about buying new rose plants until this year.

Going to a garden centre did not alleviate my timidity. Too much information. We retreated to the cafe and I resolved to take advice from the growing advice provided with my two new climbers.

Autumn colour was everywhere. Some of it on my plate.

Some great colour combinations just in the texture of gardening sundries.

Two cafe stops in the first 5 hours of daylight suggest that the next 5 should perhaps be spent doing some exercise. Slapton Sands was our choice of location, just beautiful sea and sand with no tempting cafes. I think the words bracing and beautiful best sum up our beach walk.

There was another plan for our afternoon, more painting of walls at home. By staying out until sunset we quite naturally cancelled this plan.

And to finish, a pretty public washroom. I love a pretty loo.

#1104 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Hardly had the ink dried on :-https://theoldmortuary.design/2024/11/12/1103-theoldmortuary-ponders/

Where I bemoaned the anticyclonic gloom. Moments later the anticyclonic gloom lifted, revealing the most perfect autumn day. Bright blue sky, sunshine and a temperature 5 degrees cooler than yesterday. We filled all the daylight hours with gadding about in the South Hams.

An unplanned trip to an unusual War Memorial at Slapton Sands.

The history of this unique memorial is below.

https://www.submerged.co.uk/slapton/

The weather was fabulous. Hugo had his first off-the-lead run in 2 weeks and was giddy with dogged excitement.

And we watched the sea and the sky mimic each other

While a brave man took to the waves on his kite surfer.

The end of a perfect day out. Tomorrow’s blog will bring the colour of our morning.

#1102 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Plymouth Sound, SerendipityLeave a comment

11.11.24 Armistice Day.

After all the music, marching and speeches of Remembrance Sunday. We took a quiet morning walk at the Plymouth War Memorials. No crowds and some lovely family flowers just quietly laid among all the vivid redness of the more iconic Poppies.

One statue returned to being the favourite perching place of seaward looking seagulls.

Lets see what the shape of the world will be like in a year’s time. We may well remember but we don’t learn. It’s all a bit shit really.

#1100 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

In the mid seventies I occasionally took a trip from sleepy North East Essex to Dewsbury in West Yorkshire to experience Northern Soul in the North. A friend’s dad, who was from Dewsbury,  would drive us up after his work and our school on a Friday ( 3 hours drive) drop us off at a club, go and visit his mum and then drive us back some hours later in time for our Saturday jobs. It all felt other worldly and exciting. We were extremely fortunate that 70’s Disco was very available to us locally and 60 miles away in London. Northern Soul in the North felt edgy and niche to us.

50 years later I mentioned this to a friend from Yorkshire, who had not experienced Northern Soul, even though it was on her doorstep. Her family probably were aware of the reputation of some of these clubs . Also she was 9 when I was 15  We ‘Essex Girls’ were blissfully unaware, it was just fab music, great dancing and men with exotic accents. Definition of an Essex Girl below. We did not conform to the stereotype in Yorkshire or at home.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_girl

Since then the four of us ( 1 Essex, 1 Hong Kong, 1 Oxford and 1 Yorkshire) living in the far South West have all become a little hooked on watching Northern Soul Dancing on Youtube.

Then inexplicably we found a Northern Soul Club night in Plymouth.

There are a couple of links below to show how Northern Soul should be done and what it is.  And that perhaps is the best place to stop this blog. It is harder than you think and older knees, not so forgiving.But there were older knees than ours  there, giving it their best effort.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_soul

#1098 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Words1 Comment

What was your favorite subject in school?

English was my favourite subject by a long way. I went to a very normal State school with an excellent English department. The staff there encouraged my natural love of creativity and communication using language.

In this week of a puzzling, to many, decision by nearly 51% of the American electorate to give Donald Trump a second crack at being U.S President, I was sent a copy of a letter by an old school friend. He is equally obsessed by English. Below is his letter to The Age, an Australian Newspaper.

To: letters@theage.com.au

In the Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit, (1843), one of the characters asks,: “f I was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?” His companion replies,” Paint it like an eagle, I  suppose.”

“No that wouldn’t do for me. I should want to draw it like a bat for its short-sightedness,, like a bantam for its bragging, like an ostrich  for its putting its head in the mud. And like a phoenix for its power  of springing anew from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up into the sky.”

While the American electorate were acting like bats and ostriches, Donald Trump somehow managed to transform himself from a bantam into a phoenix. Except as everyone but the American people know, the phoenix isn’t real it’s a myth. Meanwhile the American Eagle’s future is more uncertain than ever.

David Pullen

Martin Chuzzlewitt, fictional character created by Charles Dickens could have made  this observation yesterday. From abroad it feels like a cousin ( The U.S) has entered into a relationship that outsiders can see is not healthy.

#1097 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity2 Comments

I had read an enormous amount of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle before I was twenty.My book club has directed me, this month, to read the first novel to feature Sherlock Holmes. I am loving it, particularly because the life I have lived beyond twenty has exposed me to many of  Conan Doyles real life locations. Where his fictitious detective operated.  I used to regularly catch my bus home from work opposite 221B Baker Street and a different bus home took me on the Brixton Road. The first crime scene where Homes and Watson work together. When I was training at Barts Hospital I was familiar with the laboratories where Holmes and Watson first met in A Study in Scarlet. Wimpole and Harley Street were neighbouring streets to my workplace in Westmoreland Street. Holmes and Watson are frequently in these streets.

So I find myself in a strange place reading a book where, once upon a time, I was free to build my own imaginary locations as a twenty year old with little life experience. Re-reading it I have none of that freedom but with that understood I find the reading of the novel even richer in detail than I did before. Places I love are brought back to life, 150 years before I ever knew them.

In another curious coincidence I currently live very very close to the location of Arthur Conan Doyles G.P practice in Durnford Street in 1882. I know where the actual Baskervilles are buried. They were Conan Doyles patients, he used their name. Who knows if they even had a hound. My house was being built while he worked here. Funny to think that our quirky old lady was just a building site or ‘ New Build Home’ when Conan Doyle was wandering these streets.

Without a Book Club I doubt I would have re-entered the world of Sherlock Holmes, I am finding the experience rather interesting.

#1096 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Colour, Serendipity2 Comments

Winter Green.

When we decided to replan and redecorate the room I use as a studio we knew exactly the colour we wanted for the chimney breast. The green of our local harbours in the winter.

Colour chart investigating led us to Hesper.

The name intrigued me and a little googling took me not to the sea but to a Mexican Palm Tree.

Now I am wondering if I could grow a Blue Hesper Palm in the yard. More googling, perhaps not.

But for now we have a Hesper chimney breast.

Colours are fascinating.

#1090 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

Spending time doing unexpected tasks can be enjoyable.

  This morning I did not expect to be making knitted bunting. But an experiment at 8am  worked out rather well. I picked out autumnal colours from some donated knitted triangles that had been given to a tennis club I help to run. At 11am myself and a friend were sat overlooking the sea,sewing bunting that could be used in the clubhouse during the late autumn. By midday we had had great quality nattering and had produced 3 strings of colourful bunting. Neither of us had planned to do this but the fruits of our unexpected task looks rather lovely in situ.

#1089 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What does it mean to be a kid at heart?

I have always struggled with the statement above. How can anyone pass through puberty and genuinely remain a kid at heart. Once we are adults everything is viewed or expressed through the experience of metamorphosing from child to adult in the years of adolescence. Wishing or pretending to be ‘a kid at heart’ is just magical thinking, presumably just cherry picking the wonderful things about being a child. I realise this comes over as a little grumpy so here is a chocolate croissant heart to lighten the mood.