The bedroom fish have their moments when sharp shafts of sunlight give them life. This morning sharp shafts of sunlight and a very strong wind gave them an ocean to swim in. See video below.
The bobbers were not so lucky with an Ocean to swim in.
Yesterday should have been a birthday ‘bob’ for one of the Oxford Bobbers who was 86 but bad weather forced us indoors for a dry bob.
Laat year her 85th bobbing birthday celebrations caused injury when one bobber, in a rather optimistic moment, attempted the splits on carpet. This year there were no injuries but bobbers gave fascinating demonstrations of slut dropping against a Victorian fireplace. So much the safer option
And many Northern Soul moves with rugs moved and slidey floors .
Original footage of bobbers doing their thing was not recorded but these two videos represent the flavour of bobbing birthdays held on dry land.
Quite enough giddiness for a Saturday morning. Welcome to the weekend.
Facebook timehop gave me this image this morning from exactly 10 years ago. It is an image of a young Hugo finding an empty shelf in a quirky antique/book/giftshop/cafe in Spitalfields, London. The cafe was in the basement.
The cafe was a place I loved to visit after very long shifts in a hospital. Stepping down into the basement shifted the reality of a busy London life.
Spitalfields always felt like home. I had known this corner of London from the age of 18 when I first arrived in London as a student. The area was somewhat more gritty at that time.
But that cafe inadvertantly brought me to blogging as a daily ritual.
Knowing, that in a life of science, I had abandoned my love of inconsequential writing, I often looked at creative writing courses. I never bothered to apply because I was a little intimidated. Creative writing being something other people did.
I had dabbled at blogging but not fully committed, or found my niche, when I saw a blogging course run by The Gentle Author.
There is no doubt in my mind that once again I would have thought that such a course was not for me. But by a gorgeous coincidence he ran his courses at the Spitalfields Townhouse. Finally, fate, kismet or simple serendipity kicked me into action.
And that my friend, is why we are both together today. Me writing inconsequentially and you reading something of no consequence.
From Hugo being cute in a cafe to theoldmortuary pondering.
Beyond blogging, Spitalfields is just the most tingle worthy part of London.
Great Architecture.
Gilbert and George.
Brick Lane.
Bagels
Art Galleries
Diversity
Street Art
I could go on but Google does it better.
I urge you to read the two links I have shared, the location and The Gentle Author are both a good visit
Below is a tiny taste of my Spitalfields fascination.
And, to end, two small stories.
The time my art filled the front window of a gallery.
And the after party.
And to finish on a blogging note. The Smoked Mackerel Moment
I was attending a very International blogging course and the lunchtime offering was a smoked mackerel salad. It turns out that smoked mackerel does not hold huge excitement for International bloggers. I love the stuff and the lovely hostess encouraged me to eat more than would normally be polite.
There is a reason smoked mackerel should be eaten in small portions.
Gluttony can be exceedingly painful. A bellyful of smoked mackerel is not a comfortable belly. Only large quantities of iced water could politely save the afternoon. My creative writing skipped a beat for a couple of hours. A different useful lesson was learned.
Apart from Bloganuary I don’t tend to use prompts from my blog hosts more than once or twice a week, but I have used 6 prompts in 8 days. Of course I have to twist the narrative of the question,slightly, to fit the blogs that are bubbling under the surface, but todays was particularly apt
As long as no one expects to be super excited by my definition of notable.
What notable things happened today?
I have been catching up with Tennis Club admin, and prepping a Social Media campaign to celebrate 100 years of Tennis and gardening by the sea. The angle of June sunlight is becoming just a little awkward for my phone camera so yesterday I charged up my digital camera, ready to use for the next couple of months. Usually I clear the memory card but for some reason 3 pictures from significantly different locations had been left on the card. These form my notables for today.
Tulips and an Ikea bath mat 2018.
We lived in the actual Old Mortuary and the tulips had just had their water changed when a bright shaft of sunlight pierced the window of the room that was originally where the bodies were stored. Once the sunlight hit, the room warmed up at a ridiculous rate. With no refrigeration we always wondered quite how appropriate that was.
Statton Island Ferry Terminal pier support. 2018.
These majestic old pieces of wood were endlessly fascinating and have stuck in my mind far more than the Statue of Liberty which was the point of the ferry journey.
Cornish Pilchards in Bilbao 2018
A huge percentage of the pilchards caught off the Devon and Cornwall coast are exported to Europe, where they are presented in traditional fish baskets and are all the more charming for it.
I have no idea why these three were left on the memory card but when I say that the rest of the day was spent painting white walls white again you can see why I would consider them ‘ notable’
Below Hugo posing for my ‘white-balance’ set up shot yesterday.
Not notable but infinitely more interesting than painting an old rock wall.
Not to be outdone Lola posing for the beige set up shot.
I love fresh air moments. Early summer mornings in a park or by the sea before the day has fully got going.
Time to make tiny inconsequential pleasantries with fellow early morning souls.
What I would question is my passion for fresh air.
Passion seems such a hot, engulving sensation. I feel a little odd attaching the word passion to such a mundane activity as taking a walk in a park.
But walking in fresh air several times a day is something I really enjoy.
Why am I required to be passionate about doing something so simple ? I prefer to hover somewhere below passion and well above hatred for most of my daily activities. I suppose it could be said that I am passionate about moderation. No giddy excesses or plunging desperation involved with moderation.
The moment the last Christmas visitor leaves I am alert to the first signs of Spring. Snowdrops are the first sign but bunches of supermarket daffodils are more reliable and achievable, living as I do in a coastal area of a city.
Although my love for Spring is genuine, there is an element of it also being an escape from dull, wet, winters. This year there was no escaping dull and wet. Spring failed to lift my rain averse mood until quite recently. All will be well now until Christmas with just a minor mood dip in autumn when all the fabulous orange and russet colours are hijacked by the faustian pact made between retailers and fools for the Western Worlds Dance Macabre of Halloween, in all its tacky plastic nastiness. I survive, just about, with my obsessive love of pumpkins.
The anticipation and revelation of Spring is what encourages me through winter once the Christmas Spirit has slipped away.
Spring is the season that opens the door to summer, autumn and early winter. Seasons that encourage giddiness and frivolity.
I suppose I have never quite engaged with winter. I try to seek out the positives but they really are pretty elusive. I know that the arrival of Spring is like opening a dark chamber of dankness and illuminating it with fragile sunbeams. Just like a bear I could happily sleep through it and be woken with a nice cup of tea served on a tray with a biscuit and a small vase of daffodils.
And just like that the summer blew in. Elderflower and raspberry Gin and Tonic is a short-lived perk of early summer. As was an early early morning bob with bobbers.
And cupcakes.
The bobbing was, as usual overseen by B.V.M. ( the elderflowers were also plucked from her borders) Oh for the sake of comedy how I wish it was an Elderberry bush, but sadly it was definitely a tree.
The prolonged Autumn/Winter/Spring wet weather has not been kind to her. She could do with some of my masonry painting skills.
But that would involve trespass and all sorts of shenanigans, so instead I gave her a digital cup of coffee from a local independent coffee shop.
Which despite being excellent coffee failed to bring a smile to her face.
In other masonry painting news my June project of painting 20 feet or 6 metres of a heavily textured boundary wall is completed by the 10th of June.
Just towards the end of the project it became clear that the bright white of the project area made the garage, steps and another walled area look very shoddy. I am not promising myself to get that all done by the end of June but it is possible. My wrists and shoulders need a little recovery though. Working paint into stippled and ridged concrete makes all sorts of muscles ache. Fortunately gin is a very effective muscle relaxant.
My blog already has a tagline which works equally well for me as a human.
Pondering something nearly everyday.
Today’s pondering involves a pair of small Crocs.
A few years ago a small pair of Turquoise crocs were kept by our kitchen door. A daily reminder of a small person, a grandchild, who had moved thousands of miles away at 18 months old.
These orange crocs belong to another grandchild who lives 10 miles away. We only realised this week that we were stepping into unknown territory. A grandchild that we will interact with much more often, who is forming her own opinions.
The crocs are not just symbolic. We don’t let her into the yard without shoes on. Although I regularly pop out with bare feet. This did not impress her last week. So now we both have a pair of crocs by the back door and I am the one who needs to remember to put shoes on too.
To navigate this new small creature with her own mind I have a book that will, I hope, give me insight into 21st Century thinking.
I love that my own ideas on raising children are ‘ So last Century’
I am looking forward to reading and learning current thinking for the under fives, but I am very aware that a small person certainly thought I was being naughty or transgressive for going into the yard barefoot. I may need to get her her own book.
A proper ponder on a Saturday. How on earth to link up two different subjects into a blog that makes sense.
Nobody ever tells prospective parents that becoming a parent strips off a few layers of skin that will never grow back. This loss of metaphorical dermis makes your eyes well up more easily, and sadness comes a little more readily because suddenly being a parent/grandparent/care-giver makes risk and loss more relatable.
This ponder doesn’t come from nowhere. In 1987 on the 6th of June my local towns of Shoreham-by- Sea and Worthing were full, as they always were around this date, of Canadian D-Day Veterans. Revisiting their training areas for the planned assault on Juno Beach in 1944.
But in 1987 I had a 7 month old baby. As if from nowhere my empathy for the Canadians heroism and loss filled me with sorrow and melancholy. Their smooth balding heads under their regimetal berets were an acute reminder of the vulnerable head of my small son.
That feeling has never left me and I am much more sensitive to these things than I ever was before. But Thursday, watching the Commemoration of 80 years since D-Day seemed like a double layer of loss. There are those who never left those beaches 80 years ago. And those who survived to tell the tales, filling hotels and bars in Sussex with lively chatter, while they were in their fifties and sixties. Proudly wearing their regimental blazers and berets remembering their lost comrades but also revelling in being alive and being able to visit their old haunts with their fellow survivors. Most of those vibrant men are themselves now deceased. The links in this blog are a useful read and explain better than I can why Sussex was so special to them.
I will always struggle when I see a bald head, a blazer and a beret. Being a parent has indelibly changed me. The two are linked, tenuously, I agree but linked never the less.
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
I am a devourer of books, which is why I anonymised my book pile for this blog. My list of books that have had an impact would be bigger than 3. But in my reading life, 3 is the magic number. I tend to have 3 books on the go at any one time.Sometimes 4.
1. My current fiction book of choice.
2. A non-fiction book . History, Biography or some other subject.
3. A digital book or audio book stored on my smartphone.
(4) My Bookclub book if it doesn’t sit comfortably in 1,2 or 3.
Currently Book Club books are the books most likely to have an impact on me. 1,2 and 3 are self-selected and what I would choose to read, but a book club book often knocks me off my reading orbit. The most enriching thing about a book club book is my book club. Once a month I get to talk in depth or in a flippant way about the book we have all read.
There is something rather marvellous about being able to talk about a book that has been read by a group of people at the same time and then being able to talk about the book, regardless of whether I enjoyed it, with other people.
The book was written in 2011 and nicely sums up my point about reading a book at the same time with a group of people.
If we had read this in 2011 the conversations that swirled around our different interpretations of this book would have been significantly different to the conversations that were had this week in June 2024.
The impact that any book has is dependent on when and where it has been read. That makes the word ‘impact’ a much more fluid concept.
Aren’t books wonderful?
An audiobook has had me crying into my white paint pot this week while I have been labouring on my white walls.
The idea of colour blocking outside came from an Interior Design Book.
How could anyone expect me to choose just 3 books?
Huge thanks to my fellow bookworms for opening the doors and windows of books, that I would never have crossed the threshold of without your company and some hand holding
theoldmortuary.design 