Category: Serendipity

#766 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated after Christmas Day, occurring on the second day of Christmastide (26 December).[1] Though it originated as a holiday to give gifts to people in need, today Boxing Day forms part of Christmas celebrations, with many people choosing to take advantage of Boxing Day sales. It originated in the United Kingdom and is celebrated in several Commonwealth nations. The attached bank holiday or public holiday may take place on 28 December if necessary to ensure it falls on a weekday. Boxing Day is also concurrent with the Christian festival Saint Stephen’s Day.

Our Boxing Day is a day for walking, eating, and relaxing with many of the people that we spent Christmas day with.

The weather was kind and our ferry crossing to Mount Edgecumbe was smooth.

Nature was beginning to show the buds of new beginnings.

After a few hours of rambling we returned home to enjoy the traditional delights of eating left-over food. All the pleasures of the previous day’s food with none of the work. Four of our Christmas guests are beginning their journeys home and those of us that are left, hunker down to play board games and start our Christmas books.

Our evening dog walk has all the twinkle of a December night but the bars and restaurants are no longer thrumming with excited humans. We have the space to ourselves.

Christmas 2023 is slipping away, making space for other celebrations and a New Year.

#764 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

What is the texture of Christmas?

Once grief plays a part in Christmas it is a bittersweet gathering where absences are as much a part of the festivities as are the real world participants. The trick to making those sadnesses more bearable is to see them for what they are, a deep reflection of love that has been lost. Then those memories can sit more comfortably with the messy, overwhelming, joyous, communal event that this Christmas is.

Christmas was celebrated in our home with four families gathering from different parts of the world. Small cousins squeezed together in a hallway when normally thousands of miles separate them.

There will always be thousands of miles between some of our family members but they make their presence felt in different ways.

Merry Christmas.

#763 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Merry Christmas blogreaders. We have celebrated our first Polish Christmas on the 24 th and are, I suppose,well-established seasonal over-eaters one day earlier than is normal. So many calories so little time. The last wrapping is done and the vegetables for the next big meal are prepped and ready to rumble. Pigs need wrapping in blankets. Let’s see where the day takes us.

#762 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

I used to travel the tube often enough that ‘ Poems on the underground’ were a daily treat. Now I am an infrequent ‘tuber’ any underground poem is a treat.

Not every featured poem hooks me in but this one was rather marvelous.

The poems change monthly and I only discovered today that there is a website where you can read the poems that have been chosen for the current month.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/poems-on-the-underground

Poems on the Underground was launched in 1986, following an idea from the American writer Judith Chernaik, to bring poetry to a wider audience.

Discovering this website is a small pre-Christmas gift to myself. Certainly serendipitous. You may be seeing more poetry in these blogs. I am hopelessly lazy about reading and enjoying poetry since I left London.  My daily commute made me complacent that poetry would just drop into my lap more or less daily. I realised today what I have been missing.

#758 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment

Unexpected twinkle. Yesterday I took the car for a thorough wash and brush up. I realise that sometimes celebrating serendipity is perhaps a little improbable but this little diamond heart was laying on the floor of the garage where the hand-wash men work their magic.

Blogging requires me to use a tracking system for my photos so I have a level of proof of my serendipitous finds.

Car cleaning was predicted to take an hour so the dogs and I went for a wander in the backstreets nearby. Somewhat unkindly I looked at this building and thought that there was not much chance of this particular Phoenix rising any time soon.

Only to discover that this Phoenix had led quite a fabulous life in the past.

Not only fabulous but curiously thought provoking . It’s one thing to be a good skater capable of winning competitions but getting the prize home, a live chicken or pig, would seriously impede celebration.

Until yesterday I was unaware Plymouth was an International Mecca for roller skating. My local district, Stonehouse had 3 rinks. 9 in total for the city of Plymouth. Books have been written about it.

Link below to more info.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2008/11/13/plymouth_skating_feature.shtml#:~:text=And%20it%20planted%20the%20seed,the%20time%20to%20write%20it.%22

Rather an interesting hour while my car was getting twinkly.

#757 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Royal William Yard, SerendipityLeave a comment

And so the December  days get shorter and darker but the white cows have gotten a whole lot brighter. These cows are a nod to the original function  of the area of the Royal William Yard where they can be found. Historically cows were delivered here to be slaughtered  and then packed onto Royal Navy Ships. The dogs are thrilled that the cows are unbelievable colours, so much less scary. Before the curious cows cropped up, this blog was going to be about the comforting colours that can be found in an open fire. I could not have predicted cows in shades of pink and orange. I am ignoring the green one. I searched for old photos that made me feel warm, just by looking at them. I hope they make you feel snug. Apart from the green cow of course.

This pink and orange was at a festival in Hong Kong.

This shot was a pocket image when I was wearing orange linen.

These are feathers I found at Borough Market and the one below is an abstract painting of Plymouth Barbican in the festive season.

And the red monks below were walking in a park in Seoul.

The vivid wall below was at Tate Modern a few years ago.

And finally Tulips .

Below, the cows in less gaudy times.

#756 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Busy waters @theoldmortuary HQ. The first of our Christmas family have arrived. Who knows when I will snatch blogging moments for the next couple of weeks. Contact will be maintained but when I can slip into the blogspace is going to be more serendipitous than usual.

I love this image of an iconic British phone box. Familiar as a symbol but represented in a neglected and dilapidated space. The half hour or so when I research and write the blog are a daily piece of quietude. Inside the blogspace is a meditative and peaceful zone. The inside of these old phone boxes were a similar sanctuary where we would communicate with unseen people just as I am now. Even in busy waters.

#755 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity3 Comments
A beady-eyed owl

Quinces have been an unusual favourite fruit for some time, probably since I was about 5 and aware that my grandparents were often to be found,in the autumn, cooking the very fragrant fruit in a load of different ways. The tree of a neighbour always provided a glut of the lumpy apple shaped fruit. How thrilled was I when my beady eyes alighted on the word Quince on a trip to the local coffee shop.

Then, as if by magic, a newspaper recipe also included Quince.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/dec/17/nigel-slater-recipes-for-goose-fat-chicken-and-quince-custart-tarts

I’ve tried growing a Quince tree in both London and Cornwall. An epic failure on both counts. But recent success at making my own Quince Jelly makes me think I should try again in my backyard in Devon. Maybe it will be the third time lucky.

#754 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Photographs, Serendipity1 Comment

I love a mirror selfie. The one above was entirely accidental. I was photographing a card design on my workbench and accidentally flipped to the actual selfie mode and photographed myself in the mirror ball that hangs in the window of my studio. I am the pixelated orange blob in the centre of the mirrorball.

In Venice recently, my feet put in an appearance on an Arnaldo Pomodoro , Sphere Within a Sphere, sculpture. The rest of me is lost in a dark crevice.

And in Dublin I embellished the same sculptors work a year ago

Back in Venice I doubled myself onto an unnamed sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

Yesterday I had to remove myself from my own painting to include it in the blog. Here is the original, a highly glossy resin piece.

I dressed the part to visit a Yayoi Kusama installation in Hong Kong

But most times the reflection is unavoidable. Here I am hanging with Mick, as you do.

Helmut Newton

The serendipity of this blog is that it is two years since the last blog course I attended. The final piece of advice given by my chosen mentor was to put more of myself in the blogs. He absolutely did not mean visually. He wanted to hear my voice in my writing. Any sort of self exposure feels a bit awkward, written or visual but I have tried to take his advice and after two years I am finding the whole thing a bit easier. She says, pulling a quizzical face.

#753 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history, Serendipity, Words1 Comment

How can I share the joy of a plunge in cold, clean, seawater or indeed the joy of plunging generally.

In life I am a plunger. I love the word. It begins with an upbeat feeling and then ends with a soft J-like sound that feels like a cuddle.

I don’t plunge without regard to safety or without a good bit of research. Plunging is an immersive experience.

If plunge was a Danish word I could see it being trendy in the way hygge has.

To plunge is to do something whole heartedly.

This morning I plunged into the sea. It was breathtaking and wonderful.

A long time ago I painted a plunge. The moment a hand cleaves into water.

In the header photograph I took an image of the inside of a plastic water bottle. The small amount of warm colours merging into crisp blues is another way of trying to depict the act or experience of the moment of peak plunge.

At this point serendipity hits. Last night we quickly left a Christmas music event to head to the Barbican in Plymouth for a different event. The Christmas lights were a fabulous likeness to my water bottle image.

As you can see from these two images the Barbican was full of people intent on ‘ making a night of it’ in the run up to Christmas.

No big deal you might think but here is a plunge into history. Southside Street and the even older New Street which runs parallel and slightly higher; both lead to Sutton Harbour and existed in some form from about 700AD. When Anglo-Saxon mariners settled here trading goods and fish. Greatly developed in the Medieval periods, the pubs, alehouses and brothels would have seen festive drinkers and pleasure seekers making merry at this time of year. For pagan festivals initially, and then for the conveniently timed Christian Festival of Christmas from about the 10th century. Any excuse to banish the glumness of extra long dank and dark nights in a Northern Hemisphere winter.

This contemporary image of groups of people moving from pub/bar/alehouse seeking pleasure in late December is so timeless it slightly unnerves me . Oh to be a time traveller in this area, with appropriate vaccinations. Plunging through history…