I am drawn to Hares, there is an elegance about a hare that a rabbit simply doesn’t have. The elongated body and oversized ears give them an unmistakable profile on the very rare occasions when they are seen out and about. Hares were a popular subject on Christmas cards that we received this year.
Hares are never a common sight in the UK but I grew up in the flat, rural part of Essex with large arable fields all around my home. Traditionally the best time to see hares is in the Spring, when they are looking for love. The best time near us was late August or early September when the harvest had just been done and hares ran across the fields almost unaware that their hidden paths through crops were now fully exposed.
In all the usual ways but oh so much quicker than ever before.
This Victorian clock is on the Cornish side of a local ferry service. I’ve always thought it was quite an inappropriate theme for passengers who had no choice but to squander time in a queue for a ferry.
As long as I get my time differences right I can ask friends in Australia a question and get a message back immediately. This would have taken more than a hundred days when letters travelled by sea. Probably two weeks using airmail and would once have been very expensive by phone.
Communicating online is fast and as effective as the humans that use it. Since communication is one of our most valuable and essential human skills speeding it up must be a good thing. As long as the communication itself is the very best that we can do.
Communicating by writing was always one of my favourite things to do. Blogging is how I reacquaint myself with slow-form writing. Just stringing some words together every day helps me wake my mind up for the day ahead. I think it makes me a better communicator and I better appreciate all that I love about life. The time spent is not squandered.
I have been very lucky and done some great road trips around the world, but I would argue that the most memorable road trips are the mundane ones that we sometimes do every day of our lives. The repetitive unconscious road trips by public transport, or being driven by someone else. The Public Light Bus Service of Hong Kong are perhaps the scariest I have used regularly. They are ramshackle minibuses that are supposed to be speed regulated, but night journeys are done at high-speed with the over-the-speed limit alarm as the constant accompaniment of the journey. Apart from when the bus speeds to a stop to swiftly drop off passengers and their possessions, before hurtling to the next destination. In complete contrast the Number 3 bus from Crystal Palace to Oxford Street hurtles nowhere. But it follows a fabulous 6 mile route from South London through leafy Dulwich and vibrant Brixton to the historic heart of one of the Worlds most diverse cities.
As luck would have it both these memorable road trips coincide in one photograph. Our grand-daughter driving a Number 3 bus in the Dragon Centre. Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. Sadly we did not catch the Public Light Bus to get there, but we could have.
Walk into the sunset on a cold and sunny day. There were plans for Saturday but then the sun came out after three or more weeks of rain. Plans changed.
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
I’m not sure anyone would describe the road in and out of Stonehouse Peninsular as a freeway. Apart from the boy racers, whose noisy car delight is to speed their high-powered and primped vehicles around the circuit of Georgian houses. Or break off to the coast road to disturb the night-time Doggers of Devils Point car park with their squealing tyres and farting exhausts.
As a Conservation Area, I am fairly certain there will never be a billboard. But were there to be one, it would almost certainly be one of those curiously English ones with a polite passive-aggressive message.
Not a physical gift or an experience gift but a word that eloquently replaces ‘pile”.
Over Christmas my Tsundoko grew. This was not intentional. Not only was I gifted some books creating a pleasing Tsunduko of books chosen for me by others. I had a singular book club book that must be read by next week. Two library books borrowed but now extended. There was a third, unplanned Tsunami of books that arrived just before and just after Christmas. My local library has an App where I can order any book I like and join a waiting list. In total 6 books that I would love to read arrived over the festive season. Something had to be done. A prioritise Tsundunku was made and a returns Tsunduku. Some of the waiting list books have been returned and I will rejoin the waiting list for them. Some of them have been 6 months on a waiting list.😭
I piled my newly curated Tsunduku by the sofa. As luck would have it the pile is high enough to comfortably hold a cup of tea within easy reach of a busily reading woman.
Rather late in the day a friend arrived carrying a carrier bag of delayed birthday and Christmas gifts. She viewed my new pile and the cup of tea and said. “Isn’t there a Japanese word for a pile of books”
And just like that the gift of Tsunduko was given. Possibly the greatest and most useful gift of all time.
My favourite, yet random, images give me nostalgia and great joy. For this last blog of the year I gave myself fifteen minutes to find favourite photos from my phone archive. Some of them are serendipitous and conform to the December theme of #celebrating serendipity. Many of them have appeared in older blogs and some have never seen the light of day before. Some give me hope when I hit artists/writers block.
Here they are in no particular order.
Beach huts are a huge inspiration to me. I have actually only ever been in one once. I am an admirer not an inhabiter.
I love a sunbeam, this one landed on my mother-in-law when we were having afternoon tea.
Firestone Bay in purple mood. One normal photo and one editing error which I love because I don’t understand it.
The picture below has possibly never seen the light of day before but there is a link to my most significant art moment.
Using mixed media I tried to depict my mother and her friends in the 1960’s when they were busy young women setting up clinics to provide women with Contraceptives and specific women’s health needs.
I depicted their story on a pillow that was exhibited at Tate Modern in London.
It would not be @theoldmortuary blog without Hugo and Lola. Hugo looking every inch the smoking matinee idol with a dog chew and Lola in her dark chocolate puppy phase before she faded to beige.
Another perennial blog subject is coffee and this homage to stove top coffee was found in Cuba.
I love a complicated image and this glass and concrete shot is a favourite.
Words too give me inspiration. The seasonal cuteness of an alley near my workplace in Marylebone.
P.s I just found a link to the history of Grotto Passage.
The one that got away. This house was in a fund raising Lottery recently. We didn’t win it, but we could have made ourselves very comfortable overlooking our favourite riverside town of Fowey.
We had a wedding party in Fowey 7 years ago. Such fun was had with a dressing up box.
It gives us an excuse to visit Fowey every Twixtmas. Not that excuses are needed for a favourite place.
Oh the serendipity of creating a picture grid when I can follow it with one of my favourite windows in all of the world. Crumpled by age it reflects the small world around it in many different angles. A picture grid created by the serendipity of time.
Other windows were also available.
And a hidden glimpse of daylight.
And a cute door with festive embellishments.
We have been visiting Fowey forever, 3 or 4 times a year, and always out of the busy tourist season. Each visit can be bittersweet as businesses that we love close or go on-line. This visit we mourned the loss of Pinky Murphy’s. A fabulous cafe, that was always our first stop on any visit. These pictures were easily taken more than ten years ago.
A truly eclectic former sail loft. A sail loft that holds so many happy friends and family memories, I could burst with happiness at recollecting moments from every visit. Even the one with a monumental hangover. Honestly it really was something I had eaten!
But change happens and yesterday we visited this new business, in a different location, and had a fabulous coffee.
A restaurant that was previously dog averse has changed their canine policy and we had a seafood lunch, with two sleeping dogs at our feet. Perfection, I would say.
Two seagulls were basking in the winter sun while we ate.
We spent a lot of time browsing and buying in some of our favourite shops. I found this gorgeous, but not for sale, arrangement of dried palm leaves in one.
#celebratingserendipity. Some time ago I was given a topic to weave into a blog. I just had to wait for my moment. Here we are in mid-Twixmas and this prompt just landed in my lap
If you started a sports team, what would the colors and mascot be?
If I started a sports team I would adopt the colours of Dulwich Hamlet Football Club, my local team in London.
The beautiful heart of this club changes many of the awkward things that occur around football.
Nobody needs a sausage as a mascot, especially near armistice day. Sports mascots showing a mark of respect with a minute’s silence have become an Instagram and X regular feature around the 11th of November.
So my sports club would have the colours and heart of Dulwich Hamlet.
And my mascot would be the beautiful Bourkes Parakeet.
So much more able to show respect than a giant sausage. And no awkward photographs.
We are in the quiet mid-point of a festive season that for the first time ever features 3 granddaughters. So it is a Christmas like no other. Now children do say the cutest things but this blog is not for that kind of stuff . How do first time Christmas Nana’s and Nona’s cope providing all the familiar family traditions in a way that also accommodates the needs of small people. Compromise, flexibility and infinte knowledge.
Our key success points have been a willingness to pretend to breast feed a tiger who was running out of energy.
Our real world knowledge of anatomy as applied to a Unicorn with a flattened horn.
Our ability to sing Stranger on the Shore a 1961 tune played on a Clarinet by Mr Acker Bilk.
Unusual but essential Super Powers for the festive season.
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