Category: Serendipity

Pandemic Pondering #413

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

My ‘ bonus track’ day. My parents both died at the same age that I am now. Yesterday I outlived them both by one day. So from now on every day will be something more than they were able to experience.

My mum had a long terminal illness and spent her last day on this earth ” Taking a turn for the worst” By contrast my dads terminal illness was brief and he spent his last day deliberately enjoying one of his favourite meals with family and friends before snuggling into bed never to wake up again. Obviously I always hoped to reach this milestone day and mark it in some way. I imagined a gathering of my nearest and dearest enjoying communal eating and celebrating my good fortune. As has been the habit of the last 16 months the pandemic has obliterated long term plans and made even short term plans unpredictable. Better perhaps to have no plans and live life as it is rather than as we hoped it might be. So no gathering today.

The eve of my new ‘bonus track era’ was spent charging up my life batteries with a swim in fabulous waves.

And finding new paths on the ancient byways of Cornwall.

My actual Bonus Track Day will be spent very much living life as it is, with domestic admin, dogs, lovely companions and an evening swim with the Bobbers.

Tranquility Bay was in quite a lively mood when we arrived. A quick dip for some and a longer challenging swim for others gave the day a sparkly, fizzing finale.

Pandemic Pondering #412

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Life on a beach and on a ramble. Same beach different weather today set us up for a swim in conditions that were more appropriate for surfing, but we were not going to be stopped two days in a row.

We found a secret path and a hidden river. But mostly we just found big, crashing, exciting waves.

And beautiful spume. The swim was exhilarating.

The morning swim and the bacon bap that followed were the fuel for an afternoon of footpath rambling in Feock.

https://www.feockpc.com/feockparishwalks

Spring Flowers were the main feature of our walk but these stepping stones were the stand out image of the day, caught, as they were in a brief moment of sunshine.

Perambulating and pondering the plants and the pandemic with friends filled a lovely afternoon of delicious earthy smells.

And a surprising, little known, fact. Kissing gates are not for romance.

Kissing Gate near @theoldmortuary

On the footpaths that follow the ancient paths around Feock there are many ‘Kissing’ style gates. Primarily this style of gate enables easy access and egress to a heavily laden human using only one hand while keeping livestock safely enclosed. The word Kissing could simply be a descriptive of the mechanics and structure of the gate where moving the gate allows the movable part to touch, or kiss, either side of the boundary. Almost certainly the name is not historically used for the meeting of lips. More prosaically the name is most likely derived from Kisting, an old word for casket. Kissing gates were originally designed to allow coffins to respectfully be moved across boundaries without the need to place the deceased on the ground. Old kissing gates are found on footpaths near to old grave yards, in all directions, which makes the original purpose a much more plausible one than a chaste place to lock lips.

The funny things we talk about.

Pandemic Pondering #411

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Cornwall, open water swimming, SerendipityLeave a comment

Saturday was not a day for swimming, so great were the winds and the rain that it was not a day for beach huts either. Which is why I managed to get this shot of beach huts uncluttered by the human form.

All started well enough.

But the weather was just not going to permit safe sea swimming so dog walking on the South West Coastal path was our substitute activity. We explored the area around Swanpool in Falmouth and ate picnics in the car while the weather swirled around us. The photography owes a lot to filters and this delightful seaweed which has been ripped from the sea floor by the storm.The seaweed provides the colour which is picked up in some of the shots.

I used the silky water filter and saturation filters to put some colour into a very grey day. I also accidentally created this double exposure which has quite a retro feel.

So off we go into a Sunday Celebration of the Silky Water feature as applied to a raging sea.

The good news is that the sea is less raging today so swimming is back on the Sunday agenda.

Have a restful Sunday.

Pandemic Pondering #409

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Things are warming up on the creative side of @theoldmortuary . This cunning device is squeezing the air out of greetings cards that I packed yesterday , ready for the Spring Exhibition of Drawn to the Valley. Who could have guessed that a fan annual from the seventies would create the perfect size to support a heavy weight to exclude air in the wrapping envelope. In the interest of honesty and with respect to Mr David Essex this annual has not been under my pillow for ever. That would just be very strange.

An old friend sends me gems like this from time to time. I could also have used a David Cassidy Annual from the same era and source but yesterday I chose David Essex to spread the load.

Added to my current domestic admin, of which there is lots, I now have Exhibition Admin, which is much more pleasurable.

#mayinthevalley

The closing date for the exhibition has passed and now myself and the rest of the organising team have the pleasure of sifting through the entries. Some of which are featured on the #mayinthevalley Instagram posts above from the artists_of_the_tamar_valley Instagram page.

All this activity and business is an exact replica of the work we did last year only to have to cancel the exhibition at two weeks notice.

This years exhibition will be unimaginably different . 50 artists who have lived through a pandemic. 50 diverse experiences of love, loss, isolation and change. There is an amazing energy exuding from the works we are unwrapping ( currently in the digital sense )

The Spring Exhibition is always about new beginnings but the Spring Exhibition of 2021 is promising to be an altogether more zingy new beginning than usual. On a more self interested level I still haven’t got the gold leaf on my little pictures or even started the large one. It is a theoretical picture right now.

New beginnings are one thing, just getting started is the current problem!

Pandemic Pondering #408

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I’ve spent the day immersed in Tranquility Bay. Not actually, of course, but it has filled my mind a lot. The next exhibition I am taking part in is called Resurgam.

The work we offer for selection should reflect new beginnings after the last year of Pandemic restrictions and lockdowns. I am planning a series of paintings to reflect the sense of calm that sea swimming has created while the world has been a little crazy.

4 mini pictures are on the go at the moment.

They feature the rocks at Tranquility Bay at High Tide. They are resting overnight to be finished later in the week. The best way to clean painty fingers is to take a dip in the actual Tranquility Bay. The sunset was bright and I was feeling bold so I took the phone into the water to catch some waves.

A touch of increased saturation in the camera settings makes the photography quite painterly. Really cold fingers meant that this camera moment couldn’t last long .

The one above has an abstract sparkly heart. The paintings are also waiting for some sparkle, I’m waiting for some gold leaf to put in Drakes Island.

Pandemic Pondering #406

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Our second Mayday weekend of the Pandemic has passed. In many ways that seems more something to reflect on than Easter weekend. Mayday is associated with joyous events in our corner of the world. @theoldmortuary there is no particular pattern or traditional behaviours. Locally we have a May Fair, a rare event in our locality to wander the main street and bump into people that we know. In comparison to other May Day events it is no great shakes so we are not always faithful to it. The picture above is of a local gentleman who is always there and always dresses up in a meticulous costume to bring a smile to peoples faces.

One Mayday we hired Mr Blue Sky as a belated birthday gift, we all have birthday s around Christmas so belated gifts are not unusual. Mr Blue Sky took us to the Gower Peninsular, for happy, but chilly, camping.

Last May Day the world was reeling from the realised impact of the Pandemic and @theoldmortuary we were reeling from various life changing events that were landing on us to add to the burden of Pandemic angst. Life felt a bit like this safety sign for the quiet lanes nearby, where horse riding and cars share the space.

The sadness and difficulty of this time last year have given us all a push in new and unexpected directions. We have to see the world through the lens of our communal and personal losses and experiences of the last year.

In my experience all things tend to follow Newtons 3rd Law of Physics.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

The things that made last May Day and the surrounding period of life quite shitty have altered the world and each persons perception and lived experience of this May Day, and all days.

A year ago @theoldmortuary would not have considered sea swimming to be a natural part of life and yet this year it couldn’t be more natural than to take a dip in the sea and feel utterly captivated and joyous about it.

We’ve bonded with some lovely people over the last 6 months in chill sea and the socially distanced warm up after.

Also last year or any previous year a trip to Ikea would not have been on our acceptable activities list. But yesterday we made a small list and joined a Disney length queue to get into our local, Exeter, store.

Because of Covid restrictions the store was not packed with people but it was packed with texture and colours and smells. The stand out smell was the carpet department, just delicious!

Sadly no meatball lunch as indoor eating is still not permitted. But looking through our altered lens the trip to Ikea on a Bank Holiday weekend was an absolute pleasure not a chore.

It unexpectedly lit up our life.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Sometimes you just have to look for it.

Pandemic Pondering #405

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Today starts with an early swim. Swimming in cold water feels slightly less daunting than the other event of the day, a trip to Ikea! Needs must though and domestic reorganisation started last year during lockdown is coming to a conclusion. I can’t say Ikea is the final piece of the jigsaw but close to it. This will be our first time in a furniture store for over two years and our first time so far from home for 6 months. What a strange patch of life we’ve lived through. I’m looking forward to the colours and textures of the fabric department. No meatballs today though!

Just to finish up a very brief and somewhat dull blog. One last picture from Totnes. Cherry Ice Cream with a wafer.

Pandemic Pondering #404

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Coffee Hunters, SerendipityLeave a comment

Today we took a trip to Totnes. The last time we took a trip deeper into Devon it was 6 months ago when we also went to Totnes to do Christmas shopping for the Christmas that never was.

By coincidence we recieved this traditional May Day gift of Lily of the valley from a friend who lives in France this morning, she and I have worked, danced and laughed together in Totnes and Brighton long before real life and children tamed us.

Totnes is an alternative type of place with a firm sense of the importance of traditional and Pagan festivals. Ordinarily a trip to Totnes on Beltane/Mayday would be a whirling,  psychedelic , Maypole dancing festival of alternative experiences. Only partially out of Lockdown, today was never going to be as vibrant as normal but our visit today was still vivid in a low key way. Just to celebrate Beltane in its Phallic/ Fertility glory I captured an appropriate shadow.

Accidental because the reason for the photograph was this lost earring, preserved, for its owner to find on top of a bollard that has been many different colours in the past.

Other bollards dressed up for the occasion.

Totnes is a rich source of Street Art. Some featuring Tom of Finland . Quite appropriate for a festival kind of day.

And some just near some spiral stairs which is about as close to a Maypole as we got in 2021.

The smells from Street food and Coffee from the many independent cafes can’t be reproduced with words. Neither can the sounds of music in the streets,  layered together , sometimes with a fusion no one would ever plan ( Prog Rock and Church bells) and other times with a mellifluence that was hard to walk away from ( Harp and Violin). Totnes made us smile today.

Beltane wouldn’t be Beltane without the leafy face of the Green Man.

Awaiting the arrival and union with a Goddess.

Accompanied by Mythic men.

And chariot driving , wise women.

The brightest of Beltane wishes to all.

Pandemic Pondering #403

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Baking, Birthdays, SerendipityLeave a comment

May 1st and we have plans to travel a little more than 10 miles!

But first news of the last swim of April. “April is the cruelest month” a line from T.S Eliots’ poem, Wasteland,written after and about a pandemic.”We dared to hope” a line from the poem, exactly matches the optimism of the ‘ bobbers’ as we emerged out of our first winter season of cold water swimming.

April has bitten the bobbers on the bum swimming wise. The weather has improved and the sea water temperatures have started to stabilise, and even rise a little, but we seem to have had some of our most challenging swims recently, most of us succumbing to ‘After drop’ after a swim in April even though we have avoided it throughout the darkest, coldest months.

‘ After drop’ was unknown to Eliot when he published Wasteland in 1922. His poem written after A World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, it could only have been more glum with a portion of ‘ afterdrop’ included in the narrative.

“Afterdrop” is common after swimming in cold water; you get out and feel fine, and then you start to get colder, sometimes growing faint, shivering violently and feeling unwell.

As you can see from the photographs in this blog, the last bob of April 2021 was a much more joyous affair. Using T.S Eliot as our theme it was more ‘Cats’ ( Old Possums Book of Practical Cats) than Wasteland.

As it happened the last day of April was also a bobbers birthday. Tranquility Bay pulled out all the stops to make our first after-swim, bobbing- birthday picnic a big event. The Bobbing Balcony was available for out door snacking. Street art made the location more vivid.

There was cake.

A Chinook fly past.

Exuberant waving to Sailors returning to port.

Happy quotes.

Low energy time keeping, to mark time passing.

And a puppy.

Thanks to Helen for having a birthday and serendipity for providing the entertainment.

Pandemic Pondering # 401

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

Yesterday we did our usual evening swim at high tide. When we were leaving we passed a small non-swimming bay . The rising tide had brought a bouquet of long stemmed flowers to the surface, someones ashes had obviously been scattered earlier in the day. Scattering ashes on the shores of rivers or the sea is significant in some religions and something that many people choose to do religious, or not.

7 years ago I was creating work for a group exhibition in London.

On the way home from work I had seen a group of bikers scattering ashes on the beach of the Thames,a rather muddy location and not too far from Tate modern. Alongside ashes and flowers they had laid old motor cycle sprockets to be gently lapped and then consumed by the incoming tide. In Memoriam worked very nicely with the theme of the upcoming exhibition and with the help of a friend, Pat Calnan, who sourced old sproketts, for me, I was able to recreate the act of remembrance and make a series of paintings.

Choosing to scatter ashes in non traditional places can give family and friends spectacular places to return to as an act of remembrance.

The Bikers resting place. Below Millenium Bridge, London.
Unknown persons resting place yesterday. Firestone Bay, Plymouth

I realise in this smaller picture of sproketts in mud I’ve made them look a little like old headstones in a Victorian cemetery. Accidentally closing a circular creative thought process.