I love this quote from Vietnamese/American poet, Ocean Vuong.
We were taking a trip to an eponymously named Chicago Diner. Famed for its vegan and vegetarian cuisine. The church was at an intersection close by and it was such a boost. We had been caught in a huge downpour earlier in the day and perhaps not feeling as gorgeous as we might but this simple quote was a real perker upper. Just by being,we are gorgeous. Have a gorgeous Saturday. More on this tomorrow. We are moving cities and countries today.
Wordle reminded me of the irony of my travel plans. Long haul travel is one of my great undisturbed reading moments. Prior to this North American adventure I had a physical book planned and three on Kindle . My physical book is of the heavy duty variety.
The Kindles are more recreational. Crossing the Atlantic I made a good enough start on it. Then I watched a film, Belfast by Kenneth Branagh, leaving me three hours or so to doze or crack on with history. My fingers however had different plans and took me to the TV section of the entertainment screen. Heading for Chicago my eyes were immediately drawn to a series based in Chicago. Hmmm well, Chicago Meds is about as medically accurate as a childs play set, the actors are super easy on the eye and the storylines delightfully improbable. Livers were transplanted with barely a wash down between donor and recipient. Doctors pondered over how they could possibly have missed Coronary Artery disease on a chest X-ray. Confidential data was shared and improbable blood tests were performed with instant results that cured patients of racism. Three hours was not enough, I was hooked.
What I had hoped for was some location filming of iconic Chicago architecture. Each episode featured the same 10 seconds of the Loop. The overhead railway. I know this because I watched all of the five episodes available, American History got the brush off. I was seduced by attractive actors and something intangible. I laughed, hugely inappropriately, in moments of high drama and was completely hooked half way though episode one. As I write this I am hopping across the border to Canada, there is no in flight entertainment. Belatedly I am returning to American history just as I leave the country. With some intellectual integrity left I have to admit that the first thing I do when I get home is check the TV listings for Chicago Meds, some comedies are less amusing.
We need to talk about Bobbing. Bobbing evolved during the Covid Crisis. The first nugget of a gathering took place on Cawsand Beach 2 years ago. A regular sea swim, maybe once a month, of four friends developed into several times a week swims throughout the year and now involves about 16 people. It is a very rare swim that gets us all in the water but sometimes the number gets to more than 10.
Friday’s swim turned into quite a gala with Hawaiian Leis, cakes, figs, dancing lessons and gathered seaweed.
None of it was planned and I am at a loss to quite explain the serendipity of it. Possibly a natural summer phenomenon of some people returning from holidays and others preparing to take their leave. In two years we have been through quite a bit of ‘ stuff’ together. 16 people thrown together by a pandemic have formed a bond of friendship that supports and celebrates lifes game of snakes and ladders. I read a book a little over two years ago that centred on a group of wild swimmers who found friendship in the chilly waters of a Scottish Loch. At the time I thought it was a charming but fanciful fiction. But here I am writing about such a thing in real life. Who would have predicted such a thing? Our bobbers are lovelier than fiction but maybe a little stranger. Our Whatsapp group messages can be practical with tides and weather updates or crazy with multiple streams of consciousness running parallel with one another or at times crossing wildly into the most obscure, unfiltered conversations.
Todays Whatsapp featured holiday pics. An empty field, a Cornish Cream Tea and a swim in Lake Garda. Bobbers getting about a bit.
Morning rituals are a thing. Mine are caffeinated tea, a blog, Wordle and a dog walk. In no particular order. All should be completed by noon. Sometimes all done by 6 am.
Yesterdays Wordle was enlivened when this smiling face popped up, telling me there was a message for me from a friend and work colleague. We worked together at the dawn of the new century, but now she lives in New Zealand. We worked in a very specialised Critical Cardiac Catheter lab. Older than most of the staff we had a lot in common. I loved Sue for her insistence on hospital corners on the thin mattress on the complex operating area/ x-ray, image intensifier. No matter what madness was going on everything was in its proper place and the sheets had sharp corners. She could also talk and laugh about anything. When our younger colleagues didn’t quite measure up to her standards she would mutter to me. “The trouble is we are predominantly in the minority”
Attending conferences with her was hysterical. She once hurried me up so effectively that we managed to get onto a VIP bus to entirely the wrong, and very luxuriously catered for Conference Social Event, and I had failed to get my knickers on. I may never have laughed so much at a work event. The ‘do’ was for the high flyers of the Cardiac World. Our few colleagues who were there wondered, I am sure, how we had been invited, and to a degree kept a rather snobbish degree of distance from us. No so the really lovely people we shared a table with who knowing full well that we were there in error made us very welcome. All professional chat and one upmanship ceased, not because we couldn’t have joined in but because our inclusion in their group freed us up to talk and laugh about other stuff. A great evening was had and we were promised jobs in Liverpool or Ohio if we ever had the urge.
The next morning was a little bit of a blur, not helped by the owner of our small hotel crafting a home made water feature in her lobby, despite or perhaps because of her best efforts to make her entrance a haven of tinkling water, she has created a multicoloured, and rather large erect penis, bedecked by flowers from the tropics.
I was thrilled when she messaged me to say she would be at my local beach at 9 pm yesterday, she is in England to visit family, I was very happy. The bobbers had already planned to bob at the same place and time.
Of course we had failed to be quite specific enough! Here is Sue 20 feet below me on a different part of the beach. No hugging for us, just happy shouted greetings and a promise to meet up more accurately next week.
We keep in touch via Facebook and the blog. She, like many of you know almost too much about Bobbers. Once I had located her it seemed only polite to take all the bobbers to my viewing point and introduce them to her at my elevated location.
Desire Paths have always fascinated me. Reading a recent blog from Spitalfields Life, nudged me into writing this blog today.
When I was a student at Barts Hospital my chosen Desire Path took 5 minutes off my journey to Moorgate Station. It was an ancient right of way. For nearly a thousand years medics and butchers have shared adjacent plots in the City of London.
My short cut, or desire path, took me from the hospital boundary through slaughter yards, with bloodied water running into open drains. My desire path was almost certainly created by butchers, through history, making their way to and from one of the City gates. Moor Gate, so named because it led out to marshy ground known as Moor Fields. The to and fro on my little cut way was not just medical folk and butchers trying to make a quick access or escape, but, by passing so close to active slaughter yards the route may only have been tolerable for those with minds and stomachs already hardened to the sight snd smells of blood and gore. Butchers sometimes used the path as walking wounded, a quick way in to seek medical attention when sharp knives and cleavers have cut through living human flesh. A cleaver cutting through a femoral artery is a mucky and life or limb threatening event. Butchers, before the days of Health and Safety, often had bits missing, and the butchers of Smithfield were very regular and grateful customers when Barts had a fully functioning A and E. Anyway, I digress this blog is about a coastal desire path with much less to talk about. When I returned to work at Barts in 2013 I was hugely sad, but not entirely surprised, that I could no longer follow my short cut to Moorgate.
A desire path (often referred to as a desire line in transportation planning), also known as a game trail, social trail, fishermen trail, herd path, cow path, elephant path, goat track, pig trail, use trail and bootleg trail, is an unplanned small trail created as a consequence of mechanical erosion caused by human or animal traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or the most easily navigated route between an origin and destination, and the width and severity of its surface erosion are often indicators of the traffic level it receives.Desire paths typically emerge as convenient shortcuts where more deliberately constructed paths take a longer or more circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent. Once someone has already treaded out a path through the natural vegetation, subsequent traffics tend to follow that visibly existing route (as it is more convenient than carving out a new path by oneself), and the repeated trampling will further erode away both the remaining groundcover and the soil quality that allows easy revegetation.*
The desire path I walk on most days has none of the history of the Barts desire path. It cuts off only seconds of an already brief walk to the beach . It is the area in sunlight in this picture, the actual, brick path runs close to the wall of Stonehouse Tennis Club. But such is pondering that I only realised today that the South West Coastal Path, that both this Desire, and official, brick path lead to, must be made up entirely of historic desire paths that have been linked together. Unexpected enlightenment on a Wednesday
Today I am a rubbish photographer and have managed to cut off the vital words on this plaque. South West Coastal Path are the words I needed but managed not to include in this image.
One of my recent paintings combined with typewriting sums this whole blog up really. Todays in particular but pretty much in general too.
What exactly was in the water last night? A fairly standard bob was called for the late afternoon/early evening. It all started just a little off normal by some random William Shakespeare quotations. A Midsummer Night’s Dream if that is of any interest. The proper swimmers went off to swim and the eponymous bobbers bobbed. But then the proper swimmers got all giddy by one of the buoys and started throwing a high vis safety buoy about. By the time they reached the bobbing zone a mass ‘piggy in the middle’ game had evolved that then sucked up the bobbers. The bobbers tend to swim in the safety of the bay. The combined effect of the number of people involved increasing and the acoustic properties of a cliff surrounded bay,amplified the noise, lowered the inhibitions and multiplied the competitive element of the game. We stayed in, possibly to the dismay of other bay users until our fingers resembled prunes and our salty faces were dried up by the setting sun.
With eyes stinging from too much splashed sea water and a few innocuous injuries the bobbers left the water. Allowing the waters of Tranquility Bay to settle and clear to the level of tranquil that the name suggests.
Calm restored in the bay but the whatsapp bobbing group bubbled and fizzed with the evenings events. Praise awarded and punishments for miscreants all with a hint of Midsummer Night’s Dream
“Lord what fools these mortals be”
“Though she be but little, she is fierce”
Proper quotes from Midsummer Nights Dream
Fake Shakespeare reimagined for Bobbing from the film Shakespeare in Love.
Yesterday was a day of Drawn to the Valley , stewarding at the print exhibition during the day and then a quick trip to Tavistock for the Summer Exhibition Private View. It was refreshing to visit an exhibition that I had no responsibility for and no work submitted. Anne and Michael have curated a stunning exhibition at Butchers Hall.
Councillor Caroline Mott, Mayor of West Devon with Anne and Michael.
Visitors to the Private View were treated to a fabulous Mid-Century Modern buffet of vol au vents and intricate delicacies mounted on Ritz biscuits, served to accompany locally produced apple juice. The wines may have come from beyond the valley…
Vol au vents are an exploding confection of Coronation Chicken and flaky pastry. My terrifically arty outfit, a concoction of various blacks was a terrific background for the crumbs that my greed created. Undeterred by my flaky appearance I set about talking, a lot, to artists and friends and enjoying the art. The picture at the top of the blog is by a member Glenis Blakiston, she was a long term member of Drawn to the Valley until her recent death. Her husband, very kindly, submitted some of her pictures to this years Summer Exhibition. Her Encaustic wax image is one of the first things visitors to the exhibition will see this year. The terrific texture in her work gave me the theme for a few pictures from the exhibition. Texture.
I love that the two creations above share the same colour palate but have a significantly different visual heft. Similarly the next two share similar colour and line but could not be more different.
Yesterday I put a #meettheartist post on Instagram. I warned potential new readers that many times the same thing happens day after day on the blog. Unintentionally this is exactly the case today.
Saturday and Sunday were shaped by the Sail GP event taking place on our doorstep.
Day 1
Day 2
The days of the weekend are differentiated by other things that happened. Saturday was mostly art and Sunday was mostly sport. Quite by chance there was a curious connection to the sporty bits of yesterday.
A special race was put on at the Sail GP event. The team GB boat had a temporary crew member, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.
Did we see her? Yes,we must have done from our vantage point near the race HQ and village, but everyone really does look exactly the same in a wetsuit and helmet.
She is on the GB boat as it crossed the finish line in front of us.
Then our evening plans created the curious link. Like many we watched the Womens England Football team bring credibility back to our national sport. When they won we watched Kate’s husband greet the winning footballers with the most glorious of joyful hugs.
And by the most delightful of coincidences I have a piece of art for sale at the Exhibition I am managing, that sums this image up.
Another day stewarding at the Drawn to Print Exhibition. The two artists who were the primary curators and managers of this exhibition are not printers. I managed to dig out some old work from my long ago Fine Art Degree and,by complete luck, the act of applying typewritten text to watercolour pulls the work loosely into the Print family.
What a family we have joined! The Printers of Drawn to the Valley have been an amazing bunch of people to work with. Trusting us with their beautiful prints with our invented hanging system.
But they have also nurtured us. Debs my fellow non-prntmaking curator, managed this fabulous trio of prints. Her first in this medium. Printmakers talked her through the process on the phone.
Debs has been commissioned to create several runs of ‘ Smeatons Thief’
This morning I was excited to dive into the world of Tetrapak printing.
Not my finest artistic hour because I had more excitement than talent, but I did create a half decent Tetrapak image and while printing it effectively eluded me, another lovely printer shared her wisdom for future success.
For now I have just applied some digital magic to make me feel better.
Covid and the effect on everyones lives continues. After 2 years of not visiting the Eden Project in Cornwall we have now been twice in a week. Once for a standard visit, to gather family together.
Although nothing at Eden is ever too ‘standard’
Our second visit was for a, three times, cancelled zip wire ride over the whole of the Eden site.
The experience was worth the wait and started just by the orange arrow.
And ended by the post marked with 1.
Long time readers of this daily blog will know it started out as Pandemic Ponderings. All that time of Pandemic Ponderings and now theoldmortuary ponders we looked on without this household actually getting Covid. Just like everyone we suffered some terrible losses caused by Covid but the experience taught us so much and forced many decisions that we will live with forever. Some of those decisions have brought positive outcomes. Our recent close acquaintance with Covid changed all our plans over the last few weeks, but even those changes, which we thought were disastrous have brought positives. The point of this closing ramble is, I suppose, that this week we were both, in Eden, and able to view it from an unusual perspective. The last few years have seen us all, in Covid, but soon enough we will be able to view it from a different perspective. Some of the changes forced on us may well turn out to be life enhancing.
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