Category: Serendipity

Pandemic Pondering #517

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Box, SerendipityLeave a comment
©The Box. A shard from a North Devon Pottery, excavated from a Colonial site in New England

My leisure reading life and my work life are intersecting currently and in truth a little bit late. I spend a lot of time in the Mayflower Exhibition when I am working in the museum.

Both the exhibition and the book have the same constraint. Very little is known about the actual Mayflower Voyage. Difficult for Historians but good for me as the original source material is the same. The curators of the exhibition do a brilliant job of explaining and expanding the known facts and illustrate them well with actual artifacts. The 60 years following the voyage of the Mayflower is the significant part of the narrative for history and probably the least accurately portrayed by the Thanksgiving myth and beyond. As I read the book my mind is illustrated with the items and documents I spend my day with.

©The Box

This makes my reading of the book jog along very nicely. Neither the exhibition nor the book allow sentimental and fictional nostalgia, the darkness and brutality of the settlement and the impact on the indigenous people is all part of the story of European Colonisation. In reality the book is not a comfortable or easy read, but I didnt expect it to be.

© The Box

Here is the book I am currently reading.

The Exhibition is at The Box Plymouth.

Pandemic Pondering #516

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Drawn to the Valley, Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Hot on the heels of yesterdays morning blog is an evening blog of the same day, and two pictures from the exact same position with only a dog walk between them. Between yesterdays blog and this one lies the path of a day taken up by stuff, complicated by maintainance work on a local bridge. A normal 20 minute journey swelled to fill an hour and I missed an appointment. Rebooked for two hours later I filled my time with delivering brochures for an upcoming Open Studios event.

And took a trip to the supermarket. The appointment required me not to drive for two hours after so I was ‘forced’ to enjoy a late lunch in a friends garden and soak up the sun whilst my eyes returned to a normal, not blurry, way of life. Time then to head for home and get all the day jobs done. Before heading out for the evening dog walk which provided the two pictures that top and tail this blog. Since moving, our evening dog walk always takes in the area around the Royal William Yard, especially since the evenings have started to get darker. Royal William Yard is a collection of Military Buildings in Plymouth.

https://www.visitplymouth.co.uk/explore/areas-to-visit/royal-william-yard

Between the two photos we walked up to a meadow and the dogs chased each other inside the old, second world war gun emplacements of Devils Point.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/world-war-two-defences-you-2750611

I’m sure the longer we live here the more the history will soak into our bones but right now every slab of concrete is a complete mystery to us.

Returning to our original position, night was properly upon us.Time to turn our twelve feet for home.

Pandemic Pondering #512

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Home Towns, Serendipity3 Comments

A day of sweet and sour. Three hours in an actual physical bank and the transaction still not completed by the time we left. Not a businesslike bone in the building! The sweetness that started the day came out of boredom as we waited and waited. I had bought some sunflowers and noticed that there were beads of nectar. I also marvelled at the Fibronacci Sequencing of the seed head. The bank was very dull!

Overwhelmed by Fibronacci excitement and curiosity and with plenty of time on my hands I decided to taste the nectar.

Tiny, twinkling beads of sweetness but oh so sticky!

If banks still had piles of money I could have covered my hands with nectar and plunged them into a pile of money and run around the corner and delivered it in person to the bank we were trying to make the transfer to.

Flights of fantasy and Fibronacci wonderment can only get you so far and there are no longer piles of money, obviously waiting for sticky fingered clients, in banks. After three hours we failed to transfer any money from one account to another. Legally or illegally, with or without nectar . Time to head off for afternoon tea in a barn.

Fully charged with sugar and tea there was only a couple of hours of downtime before an evening of questionable entertainment.

©Marianne Bobber

Four bobbers went to an outside performance of Jaws. Screened at our local Lido we were surrounded on three sides by water as we visited Amity Island for the 4th of July. We still jumped and screamed. Tomorrows bob will have an extra texture of frisson.

Pandemic Pondering #510

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Fireworks, Serendipity1 Comment
©Kim Bobber

The Bobbers were out and about around Plymouth Sound last night, watching rather than swimming.

The British National Fireworks Championships are held in Plymouth every August. After a Coronovirus hiatus last year there was some doubt if the event would happen this year after the recent murders in Plymouth. It was decided the competition would go ahead with the two evenings events dedicated to those whose lives were taken. A minutes silence with a torch vigil, ended by heart shaped fireworks took place 15 minutes before the main event.

There were hundreds of small boats out in the Sound twinkling while they waited for the fireworks. Paddle borders too were illuminated.

Then the fireworks started and boats on the water were transformed into silhouettes.

©Debs Bobber

We spent the evening at Tranquility Bay the normal location for Bobbers. Not quite such grandstand images but only five minutes walk from home.

Fireworks over Tranquility Bay

Hearts and conversations are very much at the centre of everything in Plymouth right now. Snatches of the same conversations are heard wherever people gather, as the city tries to comprehend the events of last week. Catching a heart in the sky seemed quite fitting.

Pandemic Pondering#507

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment
©PlymouthHerald

Smeatons Tower on Plymouth Hoe turns purple in remembrance of those who lost their lives on Thursday.

We were planning to go to The Hoe this weekend to see a World Premier of The Hatchling. A massive puppet requiring 14 human puppeteers to move it. From the Director of The Warhorse puppet,Mervyn Millar.

https://www.thehatchling.co.uk/

https://www.thehatchling.co.uk/

For obvious reasons an Uplifting Symbol of Freedom is hardly appropriate in Plymouth right now so the Puppetry/Kite event has been cancelled.

We still took a trip to the Hoe last night with friends/bobbers to take an evening dip.

The sea was extraordinarily kind to us and we swam to the new platform for some diving and jumping into the sea. It is pretty hard to see in this picture so below is a close up. For a while we had this great expanse of safe sea swimming and the platform to ourselves.

There was a reward for swimming in the evening. Fish and Chips and this beautiful sunset.

Sunsetting over Plymouth

Pandemic Pondering #505

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

This image is the beginning of an art project for an exhibition in October. The blog that went with it can be written another time. Last night there was a serious crime in Plymouth. It involves people, guns and death. Beyond that,as I write this,no facts are known. The story will unravel and reveal itself as today progresses. Containment unraveling and revealing was my planned blog for this photograph. Words, I’m sure, that we will hear very frequently as Plymouth wakes up this morning to the information that is released by the Police Press Conference. Speculation, sadness and sorrow will be a communal act today.

Pandemic Pondering #504

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Concatenation, Serendipity, The Box2 Comments
©Leonor Antunes – The Box, Sequences, Invertions and Permutations

Today was a serendipitous colour concatenation. I spent some time peacefully in the beautiful space that is St Lukes, part of The Box museum. My two periods working in this space had moments with no visitors.

©Leonor Antunes

This particular installation will be leaving the museum soon so I took the chance and took some photos with no people about. I also took some close up photographs of the glass lights.

Imagine my happiness when a friend posted the picture below of Compass Jelly Fish captured briefly in a blue bucket.

© Jess Rippengale. Compass Jellyfish at Portwrinkle

The colours are identical. That’s this blog done. Colour happiness.

Pandemic Pondering #501

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Drawn to the Valley, Drawn To The Valley Artists, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Nicola Beaumont Detail from Sunset over Bodmin

After 4 days of a glorious Summer Exhibition at Tavistock the sun has set on one part of the Drawn to the Valley #greatsummerofart. The next event will be Open Studios, a very different experience. Group exhibitions are a chance for artists to come together and show what a diverse group we are. Open Studios are the chance to visit individual artists or small groups in a variety of spaces. For this last blog of the summer exhibition I chose blue as the theme. Once again featuring details rather than the whole picture. There is actually a practical reason for this, many pictures are framed with glass which causes reflection problems for photographs. By choosing details I can crop reflections off and widen my choice. So off we go on a blue journey. From a blue sky at sunset ( above) the next picture has a blue sky reflected in water. Just to prove not all reflections are bad!

©Clare Law

Exhibitions are also a chance to meet other members, artists mostly work in their own little hobbit holes and just like the whole world we havent got out much recently.

©Geoff Dodds Detail from White Horses at Port Gaverne.

Geoff was an artist I had never met before and we had a little natter. Another coastal blue came from Gilly Spottiswoode someone I meet often, she gives fabulous nattering.

©Gilly Spottiswoode Detail from Breakwater

Gilly’s print leads me to another print, something a little more abstract from Stefania D’Amico.

©Stefania D’Amico Detail from Plantlife.

Abstraction returns me briefly to water with Janet Brady’s Drypoint.

©Janet Brady Detail from Nymphs at Play.

And finally a blue bird with a knowing look brings this blog to a close.

©Beth Munro Detail from Shoebill Stork

Pandemic Pondering #500

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

500 Pandemic Ponderings and the world is still in the grip of something that affects everyone. Currently our planet is still gripped and the Pandemic is far from over.Who knows how this part of our history will end.

@theoldmortuary, just like everyone, is in quite a different place at #500 to where we were at #1. No longer living at the actual Old Mortuary, that was never a plan!

Today though, beyond PP#500, is pretty average. We took a trip out to Tavistock in the rain. The rain gave me all the images for this blog. A rain swollen river + my silky water feature on the phone camera is as good an illustration for time passing as I could muster today.

We went to Tavistock to visit the Drawn to the Valley exhibition again and to visit the Saturday market.

We also had a Bubble Wrap popping and styling date with our grandchild in Hong Kong.

Not something we were planning to do in the street but that is where we were when the call came through. We had planned ahead and just whipped our Bubble Wrap out of a handbag and struck some poses and popped away. Passers by were certainly puzzled! A fine way to spend half an hour on a normal day with an auspicious number.

Pandemic Pondering #499

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn to the Valley, Drawn To The Valley Artists, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Lesley Hoffman Detail from Freddy at Sunrise

Unashamedly another Drawn to the Valley Summer Exhibition blog . This one welcoming Saturday with the gorgeous colours of sunrise by Lesley Hoffman.

The colours of sunrise are all over the exhibition. Colour and texture combine in this lovely piece by Lyn Edwards.

©Lyn Edwards Detail from Seed Heads

Another flower head that grabs attention with the colours of a vibrant, stormy sunrise rather than a peaceful one is this.

©Jayne Ashenbury Detail from Seduction

These are the sort of pulsating colours that absolutely suggest seduction, assignations and fecundity. As this blog shifts from sunrise to symbols of fertility I am struggling to think quite how to link the last two pictures. While pondering that, I realise that all these works are by women. This is entirely accidental. Seed heads and passionate colours take me towards the last two pictures of this blog . Serendipitously hung together at the exhibition, these are the works of two Tessa’s

©Tessajane
©Tessa Sulston

Why did the curators of the exhibition hang these two works close together? For me it would be hard now not to see them together. They both take the dark colours of fecundity and also demonstrate the meaning of the word ” the ability to produce many new ideas” so perfectly they both include bright white that fizzes with potential. Together they have given me an earworm and the chance to share a favourite line of a chorus from a lyric.

” Til morning comes lets Tesselate”

The track ” Lets Tesselate” by alt-J is below

https://g.co/kgs/CLokiB

Rather a blogging rabbit hole today, enhanced by art from Drawn to the Valley. The Exhibition runs for two more days at Butchers Hall, Tavistock.