Category: Stonehouse

#1349 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment
8 a.m

What’s your definition of romantic?

My mother, who was in most ways a very pragmatic person, had a guilty secret. She loved a romantic novel.

I have inherited her pragmatism but not her taste in books. Romance books are not my thing unless the romance is just one facet of an engaging narrative. Romancing, romantic gestures etc, just feel a little icky and coersive in specifically romantic novels. There is nearly always a power imbalance or jeopardy involved in the interactions between the people involved, there would be no story without such things.

However, as a woman whose glass is habitually half-full there must be a huge dose of my mothers love of romance residing in my soul, because life is sometimes shitty and yet I always try to find something positive in whatever situation.

Noon

The tidal pool was my destination for the morning dog walk and later I swam from the beach beside it.

For both visits it was rather a seaweedy experience.

8 a.m and noon.

But my glass-half-full, romantic head will only ever remember a beautiful morning walk and a delicious lunchtime swim, not the weed that made the pool unusable and stuck on my skin. Romance is seeing beyond irritation, embracing the moment and finding the golden nuggets in every experience. However mad that seems.

Not paying too much attention to the seaweed of life.

Reality of a good day.
Romance of a good day.

Harold S Kushner* emphasized the importance of finding good in every situation, stating, “If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul,”.

*

Soul nurturing, that is pretty romantic in my opinion.

#1311 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse2 Comments

The first Passion Flower of the season.

This blog could go one of two ways or it could just celebrate the first Passion Flower of the season. Passion flower plants were a gift from our builder last May. He gave us three leggy plants to trail over the trellis he had just installed on the top of our wall. They put on a bit of growth last summer and were repotted this Spring. A flower and later in the season edible Passion Fruits is on our wish list.

Not on our wish list was a domestic fatburg. When you buy an old house things like drains are a bit of a dark art. With no warning our kitchen drain failed spectacularly this week. The first sign was when the dishwasher suffered from reflux and bleated pathetically. We did not recognise this as an early symptom of an apocolypse. Dynarod were booked but not for several days. In a very busy week I had planned myself a day of domestica yesterday.

The blocked drain was a bit of a head scratcher. We do not have the modern luxury of an inspection cover or any means of identifying the direction of flow or indeed stasis in our case.

This being an Edwardian house I attempted an Edwardian solution. Boiling water/ Bicarbonate of Soda/ white vinegar. A lava like eruption of gunge bubbled away at the access point of the drain. Probing with a stick revealed standing water to a depth of almost 3 feet, a metre even.

Armed only with a pair of surgical gloves for human examination* and a plunger more serious intervention was required.

  • What I needed was veterinary gauntlets for Cow Gynaecology.

Laying on my belly I plunged my  arm and plunger into the depths and achieved a very good attatchment to something. My plunger resolutely hung on to whatever unseen object I had chanced upon. One hand in the supersoft and slippy water was not enough so another hand had to go in. This is taking moments to write but it was easily two hours of time as I pondered and considered each next move.

After several awkward pulls on my plunger there was a sudden movement and a giant domestic fatburg was delivered at face level. Not a pleasant experience. Dirty water gurgled and then settled, only at a slightly lower water level. I waited a bit, hoping for a miracle but none was forthcoming. So I repeated the plunger experiment. This time things were a little easier. One more two handed pull and a second fatburg was delivered and with that the grungy water disappeared with hollow glugs and the sound of a minor victory.

Dynarod cancelled.

And so back to the Passion Flower, and there is a connection. Firstly the passion flower cheered me up on my many trips back into the house, once to receive a parcel, for a neighbour, that required photo evidence. Not a bit of me was a photo opportunity yesterday.

The colours of the fatburg were very similar to the Passion Flower. Mostly creamy with  evidence of culinary adventures with turmeric, chilli, tomato, beetroot and inexplicably a blueberry colour.

Twin fatburgs and a plunger and a Passion Flower. Quite the Day.

Except in this village in a city, the pavements are littered with quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle. This one is entirely appropriate.

P.s On one of the sites where my blog appears Meta offer an analysis. A case of Metapondering perhaps?

#1293 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment
2025 sea swimmers in the style of 1825 JMW Turner. ©theoldmortuary

How do you balance work and home life?

Since I transitioned from a career in Medical Imaging that could never have been a balanced work/life experience to the life of a work from home artist, a state of equilibrium exists most of the time. Our move to a seaside suburb of a city was a deliberate attempt at making life more balanced.To throw a little spice into the mix I also do admin for a tennis club. Prior to that I did admin for a large group of Artists. That involved far too much driving  and artists can be very slippery fish to manage. The tennis club is just a short walk away and the view of the office is enchanting.

©Liz Vass

As it happens some slippery fish also play tennis but not in quite the same proportions as the art group. Beyond the unpredictable admin of a tennis club my work/ life balance pivots on a fulcrum of domestic admin v creativity. The balance changes on a daily basis.

Halfpenny Bridge Stonehouse. ©theoldmortuary

#1283 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse1 Comment
©The VOT

When I moved to the Plymouth area for the first time from Brighton, in the late eighties, I was not so sure it had been a wise move. The cultural and societal differences between a liberal and multicultural seaside city and a post industrial port were vast and uncomfortable for a long while. I quickly found my tribe by joining an art class.

Plymouth artists liked to drink in out of the way places. One such place was the Victualing Office Tavern, a grubby pub in one of the roughest parts of Plymouth. We went there to enjoy live jazz , rock and folk. Just as the quote says, we were a very broad gathering of people from all works of life. People creating art in council flats and some in homes that were mentioned in the Doomsday Book. There is a theory that artists are the first sign of gentrification….

Now I live in the exact same area  as my 1980’s art excursions, after a ten year return to London. The VOT has gone up in the world, as has the area. Queen Victoria should have swapped the word dangerous for interesting.

Visionary rather than vituperative  is a better way forward even for a Queen

Just a blog to use one of my favourite words that rarely gets an outing.

Queen Victoria was a Vituperative Old Trout.

The VOT best bar in Devon!

#1229 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse1 Comment

Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?

For the last two days, a busy bee. Yesterday with fun stuff and creativity. Time spent with a two year old is never dull.

Drakes Island from Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club

Drakes Island, in the rain from West Hoe.

This morning’s busy bee stuff is far less interesting. Trips to two industrial estates and the dullest of shopping lists done in my least favourite supermarket. The afternoon will not have to work too hard to liven things up. I will let you know how it goes.

And then nust like that the day perked up.  My wallet, missing for a week turned up. Misplaced and overlooked not, as secretly feared, lost forever.

#1225 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Spring, StonehouseLeave a comment
Drakes Island, Firestone Bay. © theoldmortuary

We said farewell to some neighbours yesterday. The weather was kind for their last day of having a home near Firestone Bay. They are headed for Yorkshire. A place with a very different sort of beauty.

Meanwhile we have discovered that we have some foxy neighbours who have taken to visiting our yard at nighttime. Leaving a pungent calling card of foxy odour.

Foxy neighbours and their fragrances are not unknown to us. The picture below was a regular occurrence in our London garden .

Some neighbours are more welcome than others.

#1223 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and Lola, Stonehouse4 Comments
Sunset on the favourite Beach.

Not my favourite beach and not Lola’s but definitely Hugo’s. A dog who was born in Bedford and raised in London is obsessed with collecting seaweed. He learnt this habit on the pebbles of Whitstable and the Thames Estuary.Perfected his art on the expansive beaches of Cornwall and currently operates on the city beaches near our home.

Wonder and Joy

This beach would win no prizes for human pleasures beyond exquisite sunsets over the Cornish bank of the Tamar. But for Hugo at mid-tide, it is a pleasure-dome of seaweed research and reconnaissance and, ultimately, rescue and retrieval. He is at his happiest when he can create a pile of seaweed. Obviously, he works along the water’s edge and creates his pile a little distance from the tide’s reach. All well and good on a lowering tide, the distance walked just gets greater, but on an incoming tide,he just rescues the same ten or so strands of seaweed as his pile is gently washed back into the sea as the tide  laps at the foundations and then destroys the evidence of his endeavours. On a good weather day he would choose to be there for hours. The only thing stopping him is me. I am not always his best friend.

#1117 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment
Storm Bert messing with festive lights.

Storm Bert, is not living up to his rather jovial name. His 24 hours of big seas, gusting winds, heavy rain and some structural damage have been more dispiriting than disruptive.

Dick Van Dyke as Bert in Mary Poppins 1964 © Disney

The Bert Gold Standard,  including his cockney accent which never bothered the British says the actor.

“I still get kidded about it. But it didn’t seem to harm anybody’s enjoyment of the movie. But I do get kidded about it. The people who don’t kid me are the British. They never mentioned it — and they’re the ones who should be making fun of me and don’t.”

Anyway Dismal Bert, has inspired a painting/drawing I will crack on with him later next week.

I feel the urge to drench this blog with colour, we filled our day with it by going to a local craft festival and nattering with vivid, colourful artists.

The Studio walls were painted with an Oat colour.

And I carried on with my Autumn challenge, set by a friend when I was disparaging about another artist. I still stand by my comments, the challenge has become curiously enjoyable.

Not the bigger picture.

And finally Bert doing his worst yesterday at Tranquility Bay. Not so tranquil.

#1021 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Scrag End of Summer, Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment

And so the first truly greige day of the Scrag End of Summer has arrived. By coincidence this colour chart popped up on Facebook yesterday. The first time I have seen the word greige on a colour chart.

I quite like Scrag End of Summer as it softly blends into Autumn.

Autumn leaf on greige.

Not that I am declaring summer over, just being realistic about the arrival of greige while hoping for a heatwave.

This leaf was photographed on just such a day in September, last year. I was just returning from an impromptu swim and this leaf floated down onto a paving slab that had feint orange markings. Serendipity at its arty best.

Accepting greige hoping for better.

Welcome to the Scrag End.

#970 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Colour, Serendipity, Stonehouse1 Comment

It took more than the usual one morning coffee to power me through a day after a night of staying up all night to watch democracy unfold. But at 9 in the morning I had not expected to fuel my day with a sugar rush provided by a free sample of soft scoop Ice Cream.

Pure white Ice Cream to calm a mind that had been watching the differing colours of political parties skid across the T.V screen  all night. I found all the AV special effects fairly baffling as the night wore on. But the, normally serious political journalists seemed to enjoy playing with computer generated building blocks. I’ve recreated my Ice Cream in the style of my overnight T.V politics experience. Baffling , I think you will agree.

In a last mention of the election some surprising news. Overnight Hugo and I had to swap sides.

Sofa slouching and varifocal glasses do not, a comfortable overnighter make. To avoid a nasty crick in my neck we swapped sides on the sofa every hour or so.

He was not always happy to swap.