But today is all about a plan coming together. 3 months after the new trellis went up on our wall our climbers are getting acquainted.
The evergreen Honeysuckle is in touching distance of the Wisteria and on the other side the evergreen Honeysuckle is already mingling with Rosa Banksia Lutea.
And the wisteria is finding her way along the chain rescued from the sea.
I am not a hugely goal orientated person. Fixed deliberate outcomes are a little too precise. That is not to say that I have no dreams or aspirations but I have learned that often hitting the goal post or losing the ball into the crowd turns out to be the better outcome. But if a goal must be hit with precision I Plan/Prepare/execute while wearing Personal Protective Equipment. PPE in PPE. I jest a bit of course because life does require quite a lot of goals to be hit, but personally I find the near misses more interesting.
Heavy traffic delivered me to this leafy lane earlier this week. My goal or desire was to get to a local park before the rain arrived but there was a traffic jam in my way and dark clouds were gathering. I took an unknown side street and found an uphill footpath in the top picture. The path went between some military land and a college and was completely quiet with no one else about. So quiet that a rustling in the bushes caught my attention. A pair of snails having sexy time on a flower.
A smooth sophisticated snail falls for rougher good looks on a fragrant bower.
Copulating Gastropods not at all the goal of the day but fascinating in their own way.
My accidental detour also gifted me an important message etched onto stone. The significance of the message lost in time.
In early June I got heat stroke while swimming in Greece. I learnt that I can no longer cope with really hot temperatures. So my emergency preparedness plan is not to be so daft again.
Today there was a gorgeous cool wind blowing directly up our street. I decided to banish a rather ghastly adobe orange wall in our back lane and turn it white.
The back lane runs parallel to the street, but inexplicably there was no wind. Despite the wind maps arrows.
My emergency preparedness plan, or my newfound common sense made me stop the job not even half done. The back lane was stupidly hot.
A few glasses of water and a cool shower were all I needed to avert a dizzy disaster. But then came the oversharing. Parcels arrived for our neighbours. I felt the need to explain my cold, showered towel-wrapped appearance at 5 pm to the delivery man. Does he care? Of course not he just wants parcels to be received and to no longer to be his responsibility. The irony is that while painting the wall white I missed my own parcel delivery.
Memo to self . No painting of white walls on hot afternoons when everyone in the street including me is expecting parcels.
No need to explain why I needed a shower.
No over sharing of information.
P.s. I only opened the door because a neighbour had promised me a delivery of some Saskatchewan Berry Jam later this afternoon. Offers like this are rare in Devon. I think he forgot.
Earlier this week we had the hottest day of the summer. One giddy day of wall to wall sunshine and no clouds. Over-excited media broadcasters called it a mini heatwave. It was just one day!
Not that we didn’t get a bit giddy and go for an evening adventure in the camper van and a swim at a different beach to our regular one.
A beach that is only dog friendly after 6pm in the summer. I suppose we imagined that we might be one of the few on the sand at 6. Not so at all, it was packed and it was only the long shadows of later on that chased people away.
Cawsand Bay was buzzing with happy people. Yachts and motor boats moored, some playing music as they prepared supper in their galleys. Even the wasp- like jet ski’s were silently bobbing on the waves just taking in the last heat of a lovely day.
However beautiful this spot is in summer we are far more regular visitors in the winter,when the dogs are welcome all day and we can be comforted by warm clothes and hot drinks. We should do this trip more often on summer evenings.
Where is the fun in an overused word when a rarely used word has been tapping at my brain for more than 37 years.
The term matrescence was created in the 1970s by an anthropologist, Dana Rafael who suggested the name for the period from conception to the child’s early years. She also suggested that matrescence was possibly a life long series of changes for women.
By the late eighties and early nineties there had been enough research for there to be a degree of knowledge around the changes that affected me, but the negatives, post partum depression, forced insomnia and exhaustion were quite rightly the headline issues.
Back to the odd question of the day and why I chose to subvert it .
Yesterday I went for an evening walk in a coastal graveyard, the under research or understanding of matrescence, a word that few people use, became a little clearer to me.
This is the backside of the grave of a woman called Jane who died in a small coastal community 200 years ago. Also listed on her grave were 3 of her dead infants, none of whom survived beyond 1 year old. The most recent infant death occurred 1 month before her own death. Her husband was also buried in the same grave but had lived a more normal lifespan. Just surviving childbirth was enough 200 years ago.
Even 100 years later things were not much improved in poor communities. But 50 years later in the 1970s, motherhood and infancy were not such a risky business and Matrescence got a name and some academic study.
Women and their babies stood a good chance of surviving and thriving, so the less critical to life changes, were being observed, considered and written about. Absolutely a good thing, but in 1970 Dana Rafael suggested that the changes were likely to be lifelong and that at key points puberty, menopause and later life women are likely to have more changes if they also have ongoing matrescence.
These 3 intersections of womanhood have barely been researched.
Around 50 years after Matrescence got a name, Dr Will Courtenay put Patrescence on the academic table. The effect of parenthood on men.
Now men have some skin in the game I wonder where the available research funding will go?
What does history suggest?
Pondering in a coastal graveyard, it makes me think. See link below.
I love the serenity of this image that I painted a couple of times about ten years ago. I rarely find peace with one of my paintings but wherever the two paintings are I hope their owners find serenity in this woman’s peace.
Serenity on a Sunday.
Below is my instagram reel featuring the Grandmothers Click Song
Texture and Context. Wandering around a favourite local tourist attraction, with small people, alters the context of my adult engagement with the place. On this occasion, Heligan Gardens near Mevagissy in Cornwall. Small people linger longer in places that I give less time to. But they also give me less time to gather information because their needs, interests and safety are less predictable than mine. I would love to be able to tell you which rare breed of donkey owns this beautiful fluffy ear. We visited her many times practiced the word donkey and moved on.
Similarly the Bronze Turkey.
We made animal noises in English and Polish. They are not the same.
And stare in wonder at a tiny fairy ring growing in a border.
But a small person version of a favourite place is not all hustle and bustle. I was left for ten minutes in the potting shed and again in the head gardeners office while playing hide and seek. Wonderful silent places where the illusion of stepping back a century or so is tranquil and authentic.
And where my pursuers are glimpsed through dusty old windows.
My fascination with bees is tempered by worrying if small fingers may try to touch a bee bottom. For once, a good enough photograph is the perfect balance of being a competent and trusted nana.
No bottoms touched.
The other thing busy days with small people affects is enough moments to summon up a blog. My apologies for yesterday, maybe I can crack out two today. Maybe not. But there are plenty more pictures to share…
Funny how things pop up in life. I am that someone, if I feel I have the life skills and the time and energy to be the ‘someone’
But being ‘someone’ sometimes bites you on the bum. And when that happens a little time is needed to recalibrate. What better way to recalibrate than with another shot of Lark Ascending.
theoldmortuary.design 