It is not every day that The Guardian writes a holiday review for Hugo and Lola
But as I sit enjoying an early morning coffee on the Grand Canal of Venice . A watery motorway of much beauty. I can read a proper writer’s opinion of a place that was home for many years. And the location of so many Pandemic Ponderings, the forerunner of theoldmortuary ponders. So as I set off for another day of wandering aimlessly please enjoy the landscape that is currently exhausting the dogs.
We arrived in Venice by train this evening the sun was just about to set.
We decided to quickly walk to our hotel and then set out for an evening of Flânerie, a Venetian tradition of aimlessly walking about.
We were aimless because the trattoria that was recommended to us was closed, so our first night plan had flittered away.
Being a flâneur is a serious business in Venice, there are bridges to be found and a million things to look at. After 3 or 4 hours of flaneuring our feet were exhausted and our bellies were still empty. Time to retrace our steps to an Osterie that attracted us because of what it didn’t sell.
It was also opposite a gorgeous green door.
And as it turned out, they sold some pretty amazing seafood.
The Finest of Food for Feeding Footsore Flâneurs.
Do you trust your instincts?
I do trust my instincts to hunt for interesting images, but for accurate travelling I trust the App Citymapper far more. Our last few days in Rome and the daily 20,000 step count has got us to exactly where we have needed to be, thanks to Citymapper. Once we have delivered ourselves to the right location it is time to trust instinct to fine tune the hunt for the unusual. Rome was extraordinarily full of texture, history and Faith.
There is an awful lot of bling involved in Catholicism, not my thing at all. But I found a simple iron cross, some Sgraffito and some votive candles in a tiny back street. I layered the three together to get a much more humble image of the textures of Christianity than is normal for Rome.
Texture was definitely the defining experience of walking around Rome. Everything is beautiful and fascinating but the small unplanned details stopped us in our tracks.
Every excursion challenged our feet and minds. Pavements were poorly maintained but older cobbled areas maintained their integrity.
Gorgeous buildings were connected by slightly tatty walls but with so much more interest than a perfectly plastered finish
But history also found its way through perfect plastering.
And old doors told other stories.
New doors too get a bit of a tweak.
Even beige can be interesting in a new city.
What is your favorite place to go in your city?
In my city or any other I always like to regularly inhabit coffee shops. Particularly independent or very very small chain coffee shops. As I write this I am heading towards Italy, some would argue that I am heading to the worlds leading coffee nation. I am sure that soon enough I will have some good coffee stories to share.
What book are you reading right now?
A little extra ponder for the weekend. I am currently reading Mothers Boy by Patrick Gale.
Normally I might not answer this prompt but this particular book, author and subject are almost the foundation of my love of reading . The Mother’s Boy at the centre of this novel is the poet Charles Causley who wrote a poem called Timothy Winters.
At the heart of the poem is a disadvantaged boy living in post-war Britain. Someone whose opportunities the Welfare State was designed to improve. It was probably the first working class poem I had ever been exposed to.
I have stuck with Causley ever since. Then I moved near to Launceston where he lived and became familiar with the geography of his home town. This beautiful portrait of him was done by an artist I know.
I have read many factual books about Charles Causley but this fictional version, based on facts, of his life is so enjoyable. By an author who never puts a foot wrong, in my opinion. I am having a good weekend in my bookish moments
November is one of my favourite months. It feels like a pause or a moment of restfulness before the hurly burly of the festive season. The quality of light when the sun appears, makes normal things more luminous.
November is also my favourite month because my birthday appears in the middle of it. This week I discovered that the authors of two blogs that I follow also have their birthdays in the same week. And we are all virtually the same age. I consider these two women to be blog friends, mentors and inspiration. Their blogs can be found on the links below.
Real world friends with similar birthdays would probably gather on a comfy sofa and natter away amongst plump cushions.
Cushions in a Coffee Shop in St Agnes
We would talk about our friends, families, pets and life in general.
I would certainly moan about the two viruses that have dampened the spirit of November 2023 for me. Dampened but not damaged. Although by keeping away from people because I was a walking virus pool I have been a lot less social in my real world this November.
Old piece of timber washed up on a beach.
Friends, be they virtual or actual are one of the magic ingredients of life. They are invaluable wherever and however they manifest themselves. They help us make sense of the world.
Happy Birthdays November friends.
(All photographs taken using November light.)
An early morning trip to a bleak industrial estate on the edge of a damp and bleak Dartmoor had me running into my archives to find some quick colour sketches done on Dartmoor on brighter days. The top one was a crumpled crown from an amateur dramatic store on the far north west boundary of Dartmoor. My subject for today may also seem somewhat bleak so bright illustrations will lighten the mood. Rather sadly I have three friends who are experiencing the deep grief of the recent loss of a loved person. I found this interesting piece of prose that really reflects the grieving experience and life beyond it.
A real nugget of wisdom for bleak times. I have found three bleak paintings which represent Dartmoor as it is today and perhaps reflect something of the prose.
And then finally a little uplift of colour and the knowledge that colour does eventually flood back into a grieving heart. Pumpkins in the sun.
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
If something is successfully skipped from a routine, often enough, I would suggest that it is no longer in the routine. I routinely read the daily prompts from Jetpack, via my WordPress Blog platform. But I skip them more often than I respond. I don’t try to skip them. They are mostly of no interest and eminently skippable. Unless like this one I can give it a few moments of ponder. Before I pondered or blogged on a daily basis I already took random photographs The two I am sneaking into this blog were taken 5 years ago in Seoul. They have appeared in blogs before but they are actually 5 years old today, so an anniversary outing and a random ponder with nowhere to go is a useful combination.
Yesterday was a day of contrasts. One minute congratulating ourselves on getting out in good weather and the next minute being drenched by sudden heavy downpours. Nothing in this picture suggests that our blissful evening walk was about to be interrupted by another drenching. But by the time we had walked the five minutes home we were sodden.
Our day was about tasks in different parts of the city. An early morning appointment at Mount Batten had all the promise of a bright sunrise but we had failed to notice that the wind was rather brisk. The planned dog walk after Mount Batten jobs were done was a very blustery affair. Despite having to drive for half an hour we were fairly close to home if we had had a speed boat.
The arrow more or less points to our usual swimming area. Viewed from a pier on a very cold and windy day the idea of swimming there seemed like utter madness, but we knew that friends of ours would be in the water as we looked across and that we had already been in at that exact spot two days ago. The mind plays funny tricks when we are wrapped up in warm coats and fully dressed. Swimming in November seems unimaginable. But when a swim is planned and we are already slightly chilly nothing seems more normal. And at 4pm intrepid bobbers were dipping just below the arrow. Things could not have looked more different.
What are your favorite websites?
32 years ago this was not even a question. The first website went up in 1991.
In 1991 a favourite website looked like this.
In 1991 we would all have been quite used to questions about our favourite music, food or books and any other of millions of experiences. For most of us these questions cause a fair amount of thinking/pondering. Favourite things need placement, timing and circumstance. You could ask me to create a list of my ten favourite things today and I could probably come up with an interesting list. Tomorrow that list might have some different answers. Next year my list may be significantly different. I am fairly certain a favourite website will never feature in my lists. However reliant I am on the World Wide Web I can’t see a time when I would ever bother to have, or even think about having a favourite website. The real world is so much more worthy of being favourited.
theoldmortuary.design 