The sun sets on a tumultuous day in British Politics. The slow grind of public disquiet and political shenanigans has removed a duplicitous Prime Minister from his post.
Blogging luck gave me this old blue grinder to illustrate the complexity of the Conservative party doing the deed.
Not before time the man has been shown the hopper.
Spring tides and slightly warmer waters have brought a little zing to coastal sea swimming.
Kim and I had a Sunday night swim and she returned to the beach with the sensation of a stinging nettle encounter on one arm, neither of us had seen any jellyfish but that seemed the most likely cause of her discomfort.
Yesterday I was working in The Box and was having a natter with a colleague. We were talking about our weekends and were surprised to realise that while I was in the water on Sunday she was basking, like a reptile in the sun, on a boat moored not far from where Kim and I were swimming.
We were not even in the Natural History department when she flashed me the picture of the Compass Jelly Fish she had seen on her return to land. The Sunday mystery sensation explained…
Shameless use of wildlife to make my excuses and say that it is a busy week with not to much time for pondering. It is also a week of Spring tides and wrong tide times so there is also not any time for Bobbing. Weeks like this, the one certain thing is dog walking early in the morning and later in the evening. Mornings are calmer because I dont venture onto the beaches.
But evenings, coupled with unusual tides have become quite the giddy experience. Lola calmly digs for gold.
But Hugo wages his one aquatic pursuit ,with great diligence and a lifetime of practice; rescuing all the floating seaweed in the bay.
We spent a lovely hour sat in the setting sun while he busied himself on the most futile and pointless of tasks. Sometimes he persuaded Lola to join in but she lacks any interest in doing something quite so impossible and prefers to just irritate him.
Leaving the beach at a time to suit the human element of the pack was more difficult. Rescuing seaweed is such a satisfying task that Hugo never wants to stop. Once back on his lead he was distinctly skittish and skipped and jumped like a puppy all the way home. Not too shabby for a mature gentleman of nearly 10. Even the evening poo featured many spins and elaborate excited dance steps before the exact landing spot was identified.
Yesterday was all about watching family members doing sporty things. The weather was kind to everyone. Hannah and friends Emily and Becky swam to Drakes Island and back.
Just once a year swimmers are allowed to swim across the deep water channel entrance to Devonport Dockyard between Devils Point and Drakes Island. The swim was sponsored to raise money for the Chestnut Appeal, an organisation that raises money for research into Prostate Cancer. A disease that is close to our hearts and minds as far too many men have lives blighted by this disease. When I say close to our hearts the comment is emotional not anatomical. The prostate gland actually lives just below a mans bladder and surrounds the urethra just after it leaves the bladder. Clearly nowhere near a woman’s actual heart! It is the size of a walnut or chestnut. The prostate is a busy thing making the juice that sperm swim in, but in engineering terms it is badly designed for longevity. My dad described it as having ‘built in obsolescence’ . As men age it swells and becomes thickened, which is benign disease, and makes men wee a lot at night, sadly it is also the site of a very common cancer.
The swim was a little delayed because a big ship needed to pass.
But soon enough the swimmers were off.
And 30 minutes later back again.
Rewarded by coffee provided by their very attentive support team.
My second stint of watching involved the TV, our family had tickets for Wimbledon and while on an outside court had front row seats. Unfortunately the BBC overlayed the exact spot they were sitting with a score checker.
When they were in court 1 they were just tiny dots of pink and blue.
Never in the history of @theoldmortuary has a blog had so many people in it! The dogs were there, at swimming, not Wimbledon, too.
So after a day of watching other people do stuff I felt duty bound to take a little dip in the sea. The crowds were smaller and reaching the island positively not allowed.
A blue letter day, with bells on. Blue was the colour of the day. After 6 months my passport arrived! 6 months of waiting. 6 months of sitting on phone lines listening to shocking music and on the rare occasions I made contact with a human call centre person several months of listening to a variety of lies about the location of my missing passport. Just one month of getting my local MP involved and the passport is snuggly in my possession. How I wish my passport was still a cheery red European one but after 6 months the blue British one will have to do. This unacceptable delay was apparently caused by the loss of my original documents, something that would have been of concern to me had all the documents not been posted back to me four months ago. Quite how a passport could be sanctioned last week with no documents is a mystery that I can’t quite get my head around. Maybe I just sounded really British to the nice young man who phoned me last week from Westminster …
In other blue related events, the scaffolding came down from the front of our house and we can see the new colour scheme. We are very happy with our choices.
The ‘bells on’ comment comes from the evening dog walk. Morris Men and clog dancers were performing at a local pub.
The local streets were alive with the sounds of leg bells. While the dancers twirled and stamped and entertained, the dogs were curious and happy to watch, but jangling legs close up were too much for them in the confines of the pub and we left, no doubt,missing a jolly evening of music making.
It is an unusual day that sees me up at 4am and straight into my swimming costume, but then Summer Solstice is an unusual day. One where as many Bobbers, who are able, swim at Dawn and Dusk, in the rising and setting sun. The morning bob became quite a dog bobbing session.
Two dogs bobbing and one surfboarding.
The dawn was soft and the water fairly warm, for the time of year.
The evening bob was another lovely experience. Bubbles in both senses of the world were free flowing.
The water appeared to be a little cooler but the prosecco bubbles perked us up a bit. And so, at the opposite end of the day, I was ready for bed straight after my swim.
This is the second year we have marked the Solstice with double dipping sessions, a lovely way to mark time passing and the fellowship of swimming year round.
I am still trying to capture squares of colour in Stonehouse as first mentioned in blog #239. The early morning light gives me completely different colour combinations to sunset and I’ve decided to limit myself to early morning squares of colour for this first painting.
The dogs are complicit in these morning sojourns to gather watercolour inspiration. Yesterday I rewarded myself with a coffee and croissant down by one of the harbours. The dogs need for croissant was apparently just as important as mine. Their faces trap more crumbs than mine which is saying something, croissant crumbs have the tenacity of Super Glue sometimes.
On our little colour square hunt we found the door to the Edes Vinegar/Pickled Onion workshop open and got a fabulous stolen interior shot of the vinegar barrels.
I think local people would, quite likely, want to bop me on the nose if I tried to do a series of images of just inside their front doors. But this one is a gem.
Normal life got in the way of too much painting yesterday. So just the one square completed.
We do have quite an abstract little square going on at our own front door.
Hugo and Lola were not the only dogs, yesterday, to participate in proper human activities. The bobbers were out in force to support Helen Bobber, who was knocking peoples socks off at the Who’d Have Thought It , Open Mic session. Here are Stan and Ralph, Bobberdogs, eager to get to the pub and listen to soulful sounds.
Hugo and Lola stayed at home, four dogs at an Open Mic is at least two too many to be comfortable. Especially as Helen is now fully recovered from Covid and after some months can easily hit her high notes.
She is also an abstract square all of her own making.
Finally, yesterday I was ready to ditch any form of wetsuit and just swim. Unencumbered by a lengthy dressing and undressing process. Summer has arrived in my swimming life. The day had been a collection of small domestic positives, admin and chores achieved and dog walks in the sun. One of my walks located some old friends, the white cows who normally sit on the green are having a rest and possibly a spruce up in one of the local secret gardens.
A small tin has also arrived. A reward to myself for selling a few pictures recently. The topics of the exhibitions I am entering later in the year need a more earthy feel than recent works, so I bought some earthy colour watercolours hand made from natural minerals in Pennsylvania just to start off my thinking process.
One of my evening swimming companions took a fabulous panoramic shot of Firestone Bay. The colours in my little tin would also work quite well if I attempted a sketch here one evening.
With reference to yesterdays blog. The plan was to be wearing Coastal Granny attire for another day. Remarkably the pale colours of coastal chic had remained clean and bright, almost certainly because there were no coastal small persons around and because I had remained, unusually, far away from paint. Just some gentle sewing was attempted. On balance I may aim for Coastal Nana, a less influential style in terms of fashion 2022, but more achievable. On balance is absolutely the two key words of this blog. In the picture above I am wearing lycra because plans change. We did not spend Sunday with me wafting around in pale colours and Hannah flying down a zip wire. We registered for an aerial class at short notice. Then we worried a bit about quite what we had signed up for.
We went to the beautiful Market Hall in Devonport and put our trust in gorgeous orange fabric.
And 3 aerial instructors from Off The Wall Aerial.
https://www.offthewallaerial.co.uk/she-who-dares
It was a blast, an anxious blast at times, but most certainly the blastiest Sunday morning in a very long while.
We were gently introduced to our silken slings and warmed up in such a way that trepidation was replaced with temptation to actively try everything that was suggested. However unthinkable moments earlier.
Some of the exercises were fascinating and the urge to just hang, supported only by fabric was impossible to ignore.
Towards the end we threw ourselves backwards, confident that we would be caught by the cocoon of orange fabric.
Trust in the instructors and their ability with knots was instant , a morning well spent and never to be forgotten.
Time passes and sometimes that feels inexplicably sad. Top Gun, the movie was released in 1986 just as I was about to embark on my childrearing years. The release of Top Gun Maverick, this year, when I no longer have the same familial responsibilities is a marker of some sort. The freedom of Youth relinquished willingly and excitedly to form a family and then the evolution of old age and freedom because that family no longer needs you to be that responsible. Me and Maverick have had the same career trajectory too. He is still ‘just’ a Captain because he was always better at the job he loved than promotion. I never progressed much either, because I also enjoyed the job, but also because in 1986 having a child was not the best career move for a woman. Me and Maverick just bobbing along at the same level for 36 years. What a strange parallel!
Beyond that strange gap of 36 years Top Gun Maverick is a rare thing. A Sequel that is possibly better than the original. It was a bit of a weepy for me. Maybe my brain realised I was witnessing more than just a film, before I did.
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