Xhosa woman with a pipe and baby.
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
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
If my blog creates one additional smile in the world then I would consider that a ponder well used as far as the world is concerned .
However much I moaned about too much rain in the first half of 2024. I am not immune to the charms of soft summer rain, especially early morning rain.
Without gentle rain traditional Cornish Dry Stone walls would not be quite so fascinating.
I absolutely love the summer rain we’ve been having lately! It’s been so lovely and never once inconvenient.
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.
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.
A beautiful rose is a fabulous thing. I think this one is called Lark Ascending which is a famous poem by George Meredith . I am not particularly familiar with the poem but am much more familiar with a piece of music by Vaughn Williams which was inspired by the poem.
The Lark Ascending https://g.co/kgs/dzr1Jn9
Then in the way of a chain reaction the music inspired the naming of this rose. And the rose inspired me to do a little bit of digital tweaking and some googling.
I love chains of creativity and sometimes I love that a beautiful flower can knock all other thoughts, especially the grumpy ones, from my mind just by being droopily lovely.
I feel I am a late convert to roses and this summer the peachy coloured ones are my special favourites. My grandad was a rose grower in quite a big way . Having lived through two world wars he favoured one called Peace. Primarily yellow and pink, his were more peachy growing in a clay soil. Which maybe is the link. Peace got its name because it had an extraordinary creation story. Just a little research led me to another WordPress Blog page.
https://countrygardenroses.wordpress.com/category/history-of-the-peace-rose/
A lovely little blog journey for a Friday.
Co-incidence is a wonderful thing. The serendipity of life is a major factor in my blog writing.
Until this popped up yesterday I had no idea I had been blogging so long. The early years went through a few transitions and I really only found my niche when I accidentally hit on a prolonged daily blogging regime. Like many things in life Covid-19 caused a three month course related project to become open ended when the end point,the second part of the course failed to happen for two years.
15 years and 1000 editions of the current blog feels like an achievement. Not epic or outstanding, certainly not life changing for anyone beyond myself. I have become much more observant of the minutiae of a moment or tiny details in the bigger picture.
This picture of a snail appeared in the blog in 2017.
Much more recently Snails and I have been pondering companions as I undertook the white wall painting in the yard.
The two snails nicely demonstrate the different textures and directions of life. The last snail posing occurred this week. Not such great focus on the snail.
But this is where blogging, and my love of art and odd photography collide. A Surreal celebration of 15 years or a thousand blogs. Courtesy of my unpredictable photo manipulating app.
Below is the snail of the moment.
A snail just waiting for something to pique her interest. The USP of my blog. Just waiting for something however small to spark a few words
#999 What’s the Fuschia?(Future) Big day tomorrow @theoldmortuary 1000 days of the latest iteration of my daily bloggings. A wise woman would not predict the future, she might just lay in a wooded glade and be grateful for the present
In the recent past there have been many wet days.
But now the sun is out and surface water is not all green and murky.
Time for swimming spots and local beaches . And resting in the shade being grateful for the now.
Yesterday our morning dog walk was in the city centre. The plan to be there early was thwarted by Olympic scheduling. We were obliged to make a slow start to the day to watch a local diver, Tom Daley, take part in his fifth Olympic games. He is only 30. While he toiled in Paris on a 10 metre diving board we made a leisurely start to the day with an extra coffee.
He won silver and all was well. In consequence it was very hot by the time we got to the cities over-heated concrete heart. ( Pride and the weather) The dogs and I clung to the sharp, cool shadows created by tall buildings. Following the shadows took me to the local market. An area of independent small businesses and the most multicultural and diverse area of Devon and Cornwall. Every time I go there I think I should go more often. Yesterday I found a favourite relocated junk/house clearance shop which made me very happy. It was closed Monday and Tuesday which protected me from myself. But the windows are always a joy. The paraphernalia of other peoples lives is so much more interesting than a carefully created Interiors shop. I discovered a new to me artist. Someones collection of framed images dumped in a corner. Of course I googled Gil, in the U.S these prints are collectibles.
There were 4 framed prints of his work in the window. It is hard to imagine a home where these would have been the acceptable focal points of a sitting room in 2024.
Much more contemporary was some nearby graffiti. 3 of 9 multicoloured Lighthouses stencilled on a wall.
In some ways the two sorts of art depict the changing face of Plymouth in the 30 years of Tom Daley’s life.
Cheesy Pin-up imagery in a city where men were men, to rainbow coloured Lighthouses.
Just like the junk shop. Plymouth is a bit more open, closed some days for certain, but more open than it used to be.
When we took over this house and yard, a little under 3 years ago, there were a few projects that needed time, money and thought lavished on them.
The yard was an unloved space with no flower beds and lots of artificial grass. It was utilitarian and rather unloved. Nothing more than a dog toilet and the route to the garage for the previous owners. We immediately moved loads of pots and containers from our old garden to make it feel like home. Most survived. Perhaps the biggest revelation was that the artificial grass covered slightly raised beds and an old concrete patio. We have had to learn a lot with a yard rather than a garden. After the wettest winter on record a wet spring and now a wet summer we have been rather despairing of ever getting the yard how we wanted it. Perhaps most importantly we also had to learn what works in a stone and concrete box. Our natural aesthetic is Jungle and the yard prefers the Mediterranean vibe. For the last few days the sun has been out and suddenly we can see climbers climbing and a dense planting plan become dense.
The weather was even reliable enough to get the yard bean bags out, which was much appreciated.
Which brings me to a yardening hint. Linked to our yards previous life as a dog latrine.
We keep a couple of rhubarb forcers in an ornamental raised bed. Any emergency dog poos go into the rhubarb forcers in toilet paper along with teabags and coffee grounds. No rhubarb.This curious mix of foodstuffs feeds all sorts of creepy crawlies, slugs and snails. There is never a smell and the pots seem to regulate themselves to always being about half full.
We have used this method for all of the eleven years we have had Hugo, in three gardens. A clay soil in London and perfect soil in Cornwall. Each time we moved we lifted the pots to reveal perfect compost that could easily be dug into the ground. We probably stopped using them about two months before the move date. The only time there has been a problem is when a thoughtful visitor bagged up their dogs poo in compostable bags and then popped them in the pots. We discovered the error about three weeks later. That is not a day I care to dwell on, it was August!
So here we have it, a shit end to the first blog of the week.
P.S. I googled to see if a Mediterranean Jungle was a real thing. Sadly not, but just as there is such a thing as an Atlantic Rain Forest there is also a Mediteranean Rain Forest, both left over from when the earth was actually covered in Forests. Both under threat from Human activity.
We could never create a forest, but by accident we have created exactly what we have. A Mediteranean Rain Yard.
theoldmortuary.design 