Last night the bobbers celebrated their first Full Moonie. A naked swim at high-tide under a full moon, from a favourite, more secluded bay between two very busy bays.
I had to shift the moon a bit, in the picture above, to line it up with the bobbers but it was magnificent.
And just like that one women’s bucket list tick for her 60th birthday becomes a regular monthly habit for the intrepid bobbers.
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?
There is nothing sophisticated about the lyrics of this 1970’s rock ballad.
Hold your head up.
By Argent an English Rock Band.
And if it’s bad
Don’t let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don’t let them see you cry, you can make it
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let it change a thing that you’re doing
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up,oh
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let it change a thing that you’re doing
Hold your head up, woman
The tune is a hugely masculine feeling composition of the era, the testosterone bounces out of every note, but it was a supportive battle cry for the emerging Womens Liberation Movement.
I have found it immensely useful to just have in my head during tricksy moments. But it would never be my Karaoke tune of choice I just don’t have enough testosterone to carry it off.
Normally by this time of year I am a little art exhibition weary. But at the beginning of this year I decided to pause my art group membership and not exhibit for a whole year. Giving me a year to faff about doing what comes to mind rather than creating art to fit an exhibition brief or title.
I miss the buzz of exhibiting, and the sales but I have also enjoyed the freedom.
My yesterday’s art output was this doodle on some black paper and it was a very deliberate doodle. I needed it to superimpose it over a digital image I created last year that lacked pzazz or any real personality.
By adding a doodle the whole thing is a little more vivid and useful.
Useful because I need to call the bobbers to an evening swim later in the week. We are planning a swim under the full moon.
To be honest I am still making a few sales of art without the pressure of exhibiting . The other plan for this year was to do a stock take and maybe take a stall at an art fair. Selling from a stall means I get to meet the people who are buying my pictures.
Two July pictures from past years have had different fates .
Fig. 1 went off to a new home from an exhibition in Tavistock. I have no idea where it is now.
This portrait was promised to the biker who posed for me in a cafe. We made a loose arrangement to meet in the same cafe but the cafe closed within weeks. I have not seen him since.
Once an image is finished they have a life of their own.
Just looking at them now I can see little improvements I could make. For their own sake they are better off away from me and not tinkered with in perpetuity. Just like children really.
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?
8 summery bobbers met yesterday for our regular weekly swim. About half of the number of registered bobbers who turn out at Firestone Bay in all weathers to swim, chat and eat cake.
If there was anything positive to come out of the Covid era this group of acquired aquatic friends is my favourite thing.
There is nothing good about my swimming. I am not fast, strong or stylish. But during the Covid years I learnt that being in the sea, bobbing about was something that I loved doing.
Before the Covid era I was not someone who made promises to myself. I was fortunate, a boomer, a post-war child born into an optimistic era. Too young to understand the threats of the Cold war. Covid was the first time I felt threatened in a way that was beyond the control of myself, society or the world. I promised myself I would keep swimming with the bobbers and keep writing a daily blog.
Faced with a Global Pandemic those were the only two intentions I had to battle an invisible enemy. Written down that looks quite pathetic. Also as promises go they are hardly earth shattering.
But history will probably call us the Covid Generation. The big stuff will be researched and discussed at conferences and academic institutions. But the little stuff is what we all had to do to get through.I do little stuff.
5 years ago we were just emerging from Covid restrictions. We attended a wedding. The blog I wrote on that day is below.
My promises to myself may well be a bit inconsequential but so far I have stuck with them and that is good enough for now.
Reflecting on this I realise there were two pivotal moments that made both blogging and swimming both possible and promisable.
In early Covid I was recalled back to work in London. At the time I was living in Cornwall. Even in normal times that would be a near impossible commute. Had that happened there would be no sea swimming.
In early 2020 I had been accepted to train as a theatre critic, barely had the email landed when Covid arrived stamping its big gnarly foot on training or aspiration of any sort. Had the Theatre Critic thing happened there would be no blogging.
My tiny promises were created by a massive global crisis.
What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of?
On reflection and with the clarity of distance one of the funniest misunderstandings was one of my last work place appraisals. It was also one of those excruciating appraisals where I was told why I had missed out on a recent promotion.
I had missed out because I was over 50, had not been given a list of the interview questions by the lead interviewer ( the favoured and ultimately successful candidate got that ) and did not partake of some of the party activities my younger colleagues enjoyed.
I had mellowed enough from my initial furious mindset to enjoy the utter tripe that was coming from my line managers mouth. Then he served me a golden ticket of a comment.
“I think” he said,
“You use kindness to manipulate people”
Now at that point my thought bubble was an expletive filled explosion of great unkindness to him and his successful candidate.
After that I have no recollection of how we passed the time appraising me for the next year of my career.
I remained fairly incandescent for some time. We never crossed intellects at an appraisal again. Curiously for reasons not unassociated with that meeting I chose to resign and move on without his weasel ways impacting me or my career.
I still don’t believe that kindness is a tool for manipulation. I just feel it is a better default than unkindness. But is kindness a bit of a super-power? If people believe it has the power to manipulate in a good way then perhaps it is. It is certainly way more useful than unkindness.
I find my recollection of that appraisal just hugely amusing.
The other gem that my appraiser chucked out, that day ,was that he wanted to rekindle our previously good relationship.
” How do we polish a turd” he asked.
” By being kind ” I might have said and really wished I had. Of course that comment came to me moments after the appraisal finished. I wasn’t on any stairs, but I might as well have been.
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
As a lifelong image maker the outdated technology I miss the most is the magic and alchemy of a photographic or radiographic darkroom. The basic skills of wet processing and later automated processing, that are enhanced by the knowledge and experience of knowing how to manipulate negative and positive images to create the best possible outcome.
So many mental filing cabinets of know how have been stored in my brain gathering dust since the dawn of digital imaging. Until a February in Penzance when I had a lightbulb moment and decided to start using some of my old analogue knowledge alongside the digital knowledge of contemporary image making.
I am a time-hopping digital immigrant. Using skills taught to me by people called Sheila and Ron in the 70’s ,an era when a dark room technician could turn a disaster into an acceptable picture by clever thinking and the use of tricks and accuracy to make an image better.
This is the first successfully manipulated image created by overlaying three separate digital photographs to create one picture.
The feet below are my most recent meddled image.
The others are just some of the picture journey. The acceptable part of the journey. Not the many many images that have ended up in the digital bin
She Sells Selsey Seashells is the latest acquisition for the little known but hugely influential Fridge Gallery. As the curator I gave it a bit of a tidy up yesterday. I am an appalling curator of the Fridge Gallery. I have given it very little thought.
She Sells Selsey Seashells from Novium Museum Chichester, where there is a David McKee exhibition.
The Novium Home Page – The Novium Museum https://share.google/CtzQuzz1S1pVpQeol
David McKee was a local chap , growing up in Tavistock and attending Arts University Plymouth.
I am a little old to have enjoyed his books as a child but my mum used to make Elmeresque Elephants as gifts for friends’ children out of the scraps of gorgeous fabrics she had from her hobby of making theatrical and dance costumes.
I was not the recipient of an Elmer because I had moved on to Trolls at that point, but my trolls were exceedingly well dressed. My favourite troll ever was a Viking.
This plain blue tabard was recreated many times in gorgeous fabrics. The same patchwork skills she used for her Elmer creations. Although I always thought my troll was a femail Viking . Would Drag Queen Vikings have been a thing in the 60’s and early 70’s?
I had completely forgotten this detail of my 8 year old self until now. Which is why I should pay more attention to the Fridge Gallery!
Oh how I love that cute little troll face. Now to hunt for that exact troll …
Thursday night shenanigans at a tennis club.
The Marquee needed to be up and many hands and many bystanders made light work.
First event in the Marquee was the July committee meeting.
Who could possibly have guessed that we had put the table on an ant nest.
The ants took a very dim view of being forced to attend a committee meeting. Smiles turned to squeals as the ants voted with their feet . Finding all the nooks and crannies of light summer clothing . The quickest committee meeting ever.
Wednesday is hump day. I have the hump, or the grumps with a side order of entitlement. This week has not been kind. What I needed was an early morning walk with Lola and a swim at high tide from any one of the three beaches near my home. Tough weeks require some head clearance and swimming is my place to do that. That is my entitlement in a nutshell.
All three beaches had large black dogs off their leads with no direct supervision from their swimming owners. Not to my taste or Lola’s. Both Lola and Hugo were attacked by the same large black dog on two different occasions. Lola has a long but not specific memory. She takes a very dim view of all large black dogs, on her behalf I exercise caution around large black dogs off leads. To find one on each of the swimming areas was dispiriting to say the least.
I settled into the arches above the middle swimming spot and tried to enjoy a three day old Pain au Chocolat from Lidl. While they are delightful fresh from the Lidl oven they are like old boots 3 days later. The hump/grumps were not resolved.
Even worse the two women using the middle swim spot took forever to get in the water and their dog was all over the place. There is only a narrow entry way to the sea.
So I took my humpy grumpy self off to Tranquilty bay where the large, free- running dog had disappeared. I had a fabulous swim and Lola basked in the sun on my towel. Afterwards, as I walked past the middle swim zone the two women and their dog were just climbing the steps to leave. Without a backward glance Lola and I were down the steps and swim/ basking #2 happened.
Can you believe this? The last beach, as I walked past was completely empty. #3 swim/ bask occured.
The hump/grumps are not completely rinsed out of my system and nothing can rejuvenate a three day old Lidl Pain au Chocolat.
But with patience the black dogs will leave the area both metaphorically and in real life. I just have to give these things some time.
The black dogs were real. It is only as I wrote this that I realised that sadness can also be described as ‘ the black dog’
Firestone Bay was popping this weekend. Early dog walks to avoid the heat. High tide swims to mitigate the heat. Evening dog walks to avoid the heat again. + A piece of outstanding good luck.
On one of our walks we found this mirror in a yard give away. It was very hot to carry such a heavy thing home so we hid it in a bobbing friends garden and drove around to collect it in the cool of the early morning. It is going to live on a wall in our yard.
For now it is propped at ground level but it will be mounted so that it reflects the Olive Tree.
The Olive tree is also planted in a pot that a neighbour gave away. Serendipitous finds.
Alongside the heat of the day a feisty wind sprung up this afternoon . My afternoon swim or dip was spent in a large rockpool. I only ever bother with it in the winter months usually . But today with the heat and waves pouring on it was like a salty jacuzzi.
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