Category: Serendipity

#1378 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity1 Comment

Inexplicably a pile of books revealed themselves in a clothes cupboard this morning. Revealing books I have hunted high and low for in recent years, not just in this house.They have been missing in action for a very long time. Despite being a woman with several book piles this pile is significant because it holds some books that I would never have given away. I have offered to loan them only to be foiled because they were not where I expected them to be. One of them I wanted to talk about at my book club last week. We had been reading a rather patchy novel about women’s experience in India.

I knew I had owned something better.

Found in the pile only a week too late.

The pile is really inconsistent I cannot begin to understand how they have gathered in a cupboard meant for clothes.

1299 pages a book lost for almost 30 years, I had only read to page 209

London by Edward Rutherfurd has been lost forever. I had always planned to buy another copy and just haven’t got round to it. Put down some time in 1997 when I was a very busy woman. When I opened it at the turned down corner I had exactly remembered how far I had got. No need to read those 209 pages again with just 1090 more pages to read. But as a holiday read it is going to have to be a Kindle.

The other five, all mourned because they were lost.

One last one, more fragile and precious than the others.

The very first book I read, that told me how to draw buildings. An odd choice for a small child but I suspect I was an odd child in a house that was not really child friendly. I also read their encyclopaedias avidly!

Published in 1946 , it belonged to my uncle who lived abroad, I found it at my grandparents house during their once weekly child care. I practiced perspective often, just doodling really. Filling in time usefully and being good was considered a very good thing.

Quite how these books gathered together in a cupboard I have no idea. I am very glad to have them back and sitting comfortably in a bookcase , where they belong

#1375 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

Lets not talk about how I manage my screen time. Lets talk about the person who nodded off to sleep. Possibly reading one of my duller blogs and let their forehead nod or their finger twitch whilst reading a blog this week . 1,028 times! One blog a lot and a lot of blogs just once. Whatever were you thinking. U.S.A I am looking at you…

I am a pondering blogger with a small loyal band of regular readers. 50 Views is giddy. 30 exceptional. 20 about normal.

A few weeks ago someone fell asleep at the screen and I got 200 views on one day. My x axis had to grow, which is all well and good until life returns to normal and my 20-30 readers suddenly look like tiny blips wandering along the y axis. Readership returned to normal and my x axis shrunk accordingly. If returning to normal from 200 was a problem. It was nothing compared to this week’s landslide slippage.

So how do I manage my screen time?

Well I could write more blogs to keep up with my trending rise.

Or perhaps, more sensibly I could get out and about and find some normal low level ponders out in the real world. Once the giddiness wears off of course.

#1371 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

A recycle, repurpose, reuse and re-home Festival/Holiday weekend, held once a year in the Autumn.

Whole communities could offer their surplus stuff for free or for a charitable donation. Just a pile of stuff on a table outside the front of their homes or at an agreed community space. A whole weekend so everyone gets the chance to both donate and treasure hunt. One person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure hunt.

I am a big second hand shopper. It is the most sustainable way to live, giving stuff that has already had a life some extra years of use. The illustrations for this blog are my latest acquisition. A Gentleman’s Working Kimono Jacket.

The lining

It pairs very nicely with a pair of winter Corduroy trousers that also had a life before me.

Bring on the festival of re-use.

#1363 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment
Sunrise on my light fitting.

The sun rises on my light fitting. Our clocks have gone forward today. Sunrise was at 6:57 GMT, the day will be one of digital accuracy and analogue inaccuracy until we reset various clocks and timers. An hour either way is of no great consequence  to us. For one day the dogs are a little discombobulated about meal times, but as they mostly take their cues from us they will soon be back in sync. So today we are all living our best life in 25 hours instead of 24 and sunrise and sunset have shifted by an hour.

Sunset on Hugo’s face.

#1362 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment
©Kim Bobber

Just 3 bobbers , braved a bouncy sea yesterday. 15 degrees in the water and 10 degrees out, made for an enjoyable swim but a very chilly chattering session afterwards. I was unintentionally glam having showered and washed my hair just before the bob.

Glam or not it is not every day that we get to swim with a submarine.

Some people travel thousands of miles to swim with dolphins. Swimming with submarines has less of a cache,  but in 2025 we have had both experiences in our little bay.

NRP Tridente

The Portuguese submarine was much easier to catch on camera. No need for arrows to point out the dark shape in this photograph.

#1361 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment
Summer trousers hemmed.

Yesterday was a day of planned procrastination. Storm Benjamin was forecast and I needed small jobs on my schedule that could be done anytime so that I could do dry dog walks when there was not a deluge falling from the sky. As a plan it worked two long dog walks with just a jumper and no coat. Summer trousers hemmed, and the sewing machine put away. Two procrastinations dealt with in one go.

Storm Benjamin had taken himself slightly off course and had arrived, at his worst, about 8 hours earlier than anticipated.

He seemed not to have ruffled up the sea too much but there was still enough rainfall to make the day unpleasant and enough sun to make a rainbow.

If the end of a rainbow ever truly existed then this one would have delivered his crock of gold more or less into the tidal pool.

Tidal pool being cleaned.

Excellent planning by our local council as they had cleaned the pool the day before. All that fictional gold delivered into a nice clean receptacle. Too bad I was on the other side of the peninsular I might have been able to pocket a mythical golden doubloon at the end of the rainbow. Except, of course, that had I been there the rainbow would have been somewhere else entirely.

A day of dull procrastinations ticked off. There were numerous others, far too dull to waste words on Excellent walks and mythical gold delivered into a clean concrete  swimming pool. A low bar was both set and achieved for the day.

#1359 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments
Autumn confetti.

Autumn confetti has no obvious connection to obsequious, but how could I possibly illustrate obsequious.

Obsequiousness makes my flesh creep. Yes, the act of being subjected to obsequious behaviour is uncomfortable but for me it is the physicality of the word. The minute it springs to mind something cold squeals down my spine like a bad chalk move on a blackboard or a dentist drill.

I had always thought the word was onomatopoeic  because of the involuntary physical shoulder hunching I feel when I hear it or even think about it.

I am absolutely fine with obsolete.

Obs-o-leet , not a shudder in sight . But the last three syllables of  Obs – ee-kwi-us have me wishing to climb 12 feet up a vertical glass wall.

How fabulous is it to be a person of no consequences and not suffer obsequience on a daily basis.

My small word rant is over. Back to Autumnal Confetti. No reason for either really.

theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?

Successful means a positive outcome no matter how large or small the original effort Sometimes success occurs, unplanned and with no effort from the midst of abject failure. No one person represents success without failure and no one person represents failure without some success. We are all a mixture of both.

#1353 theoldmortuary ponders.

#1353 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity1 Comment

I am having a bit of a creative experimentation phase using watercolour, weaving and collage. The colours of the sea around us are constantly changing and I photograph and paint them often, mostly as never to be seen ideas on paper.

This image started life as a storm picture, the colours featured are the sea, old military concrete, rust and vivid seaweed all tossed about in the sea . Then I chopped A3 paper down to A4 and used the cut off pre-painted paper to weave into the A4  and made a weaved image to collage onto the A4. Sheet.  There is a curious pleasure in destroying an image to create a new and unexpected one. I like the sense of unity that my mark making on the original sheet brings to the new weaved image. I like that there are now 3 or 4 layers all telling the same story but in a very different way.

My original was just swirling wave forms but the woven piece almost tells a more accurate account. This is not an area of gentle sandy beaches and murmuring flisvos.

Waves don’t often hit our shores gently and  there is more concrete than sand. This area has been a port for more than 1,000 years. Waves slap hard against cliffs and man-made structures which are built to be resilient. The collision of water and hard surfaces is the soundtrack of a walk by the sea. The sharp angles and abrupt colour changes of the woven areas are a good reflection of the sound and sensations of being at one with the sea in an area that is not completely natural and unspoilt. A little arty, digital tinkering makes me want to try this again.

But for now it is just a fabulous design for a stained glass window.

#1352 theoldmortuary.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

What makes a good neighbor?

Most of my current neighbours are unknown to me. They live across a small service lane at the back of the house.  I have no neighbours opposite the front of the house. Neighbours to the sides are known just enough to exchange brief pleasantries and take in one another’s parcels. I suggest that this is an ideal situation. My neighbours cats are quite another matter , choosing the planters in my yard as elevated toilet zones. I am almost certainly smiling and polite to their owners, not knowing which house sends their feline occupants my way for their daily ablutions.

Adversity shows up the power of  really good neighbours. We were burgled in London some years ago. Sympathy and support from 6 of our neighbours created a friendship that went way beyond the immediate aftermath. The parties that roamed between our 6 dwellings were legendary and had aftermaths of an entirely different nature. The ribbons of those friendships flutter and circle the world now. Markers of a time and a place.

I would choose paragraph two neighbours over paragraph one. But have no need of another burglary to create an alchemy of exquisite neighbourliness. Good neighbours are whatever serendipity provides. I wouldn’t want a bad one, all other sorts are a bonus.