Category: Storms

#1407 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club, StormsLeave a comment

It has been a tough week at the office. Three large storms have taken one tree down and two huge boughs off others. Storm Chandra the last of 3 arrived yesterday and took down another already damaged bough.

On a positive note this morning, no rain, just wind, a lot of wind and some sunshine.

Tranquility Bay was looking and feeling fairly untranquil.

A day that required a dry robe and wellies.

The dry robe had a bittersweet moment for me in one of its huge pockets . On the day our dog Hugo died we went walking on the beach and I found a rock that looked like a cracked heart.

#1366 theoldmortuary ponders

I had tucked it in my pocket and forgotten about it. Until this morning.

So while I was busying about photographing damaged trees for Tree Surgeon quotes the heart shaped  pebble found its way into my hand. I immediately realised what it was. A comforting sensation rather than completely sad. I might keep it in my pocket.

#1404 theoldmortuary

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Storms1 Comment

Storm Ingrid is punishing us today. We have barely cleared up from the last unnamed storm of earlier this week.

“Storm Ingrid is punishing us today”

This phrase came from a weather report but it made me laugh for an entirely different reason.

I used to work in a children’s hospital in Brighton. It was everything you might imagine such a place to be, the staff were dedicated and lovely as you might expect in such a place.

One of our Medical Secretaries called Ingrid was also a much in demand local dominatrix. She enlivened tea breaks with her stories of  her additional occupation. Sometimes she would  slip out during her lunchbreak, do some dominating and come back. We could sometimes spot if she had been servicing a foot fetishist because she returned to work in a different colour tights. She sold worn tights as part of her lunchtime deal.

For a little while we had an Australian radiologist who had recently retired from providing radiology services to remote areas of Australia. It had been an interesting but at times lonely career. Living and working in Brighton was somewhat of an eye opener for him. Ingrid took him under her wing in all sorts of ways. Sometimes he would go off with her for lunch. He was unaware that we all knew what her sideline was. After ‘lunch’ with Ingrid he would return to work late and flustered. His mood unpredictable for the first part of the afternoon.

” Ingrid has been punishing him’ was our code for leaving him alone reporting in a darkened room.

After a few months he moved back to Australia. His retirement tour of the U.K finished after only one city. We never saw Ingrid again…

#1402 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club, Storms1 Comment

The Game of Storms. Trouble in Paradise. In the past week the tennis club that I help to run has been the location of an entirely different sort of competitive game. Last week Storm Goretti shed a large bough from one of our Ash trees into the gardens of our neighbours.

  This week an unnamed storm dropped one of their Sycamore trees into our walled allotments.

A storm tit for tat that needs to stop. Thankfully neither incident caused any harm to humans.  Humans though,on either side of the wall have worked together to clear the debris.

The smell of recently felled hardwoods has filled the air with woody fragrance which is a small recompense for the sound of shrill chainsaws that has dominated the usual peace of the place.

Not so tranquil days at the club that overlooks Tranquillity Bay.

We are so lucky that no-one was harmed.

Love All

#1390 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Australia, Stonehouse, Storms1 Comment

Storm Goletti.The storm named after an Italian Cockerel was scheduled to strut around our Peninsular from mid-afternoon.

My grandad kept Italian Bantams at his smallholding attached to his pub. They were very opinionated little hens with fancy feet and extravagant plumes of fancy feathers. Tsthe hens very much liked to sit on eggs, not necessarily their own. The pub guard- geese were very much working women who left their over-large eggs in the tender care of  the fussy little bantams. Several bantams sharing the care of one goose egg. The Italian Bantam Cockerel went on guard duty with the geese. He almost certainly thought he was in charge. He just fussed around at their feet, occasionally attempting a more sexual liaison with no chance of success.

Storm Goletti was nothing like a Bantam but everything like an arrogant Cockerel in our neighbourhood. Noisy, all over the place . It knocked down our bins and scattered and picked over our rubbish. We got off lightly.

But I did put the sensation of the storm to good use and painted a stormy version of  my beloved sea pool at Coogee.

Storm over Coogee

I was even giddy enough to use hand made paper. What else could I do when confined to the house after a  government Red Warning for winds and flying debris. But there is nothing quite like painting a storm while in a storm.

#1343 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Storms1 Comment

Here is my first portrait of the storm season. Storm Amy.

Storm Amy gave great calm before the storm vibes. Which is when I started sketching her out. The calm patch lasted so long I inadvertently finished the quick sketch. She looked nothing like a storm*.

When Storm Amy crashed to our shores she was wild and gusty but ultimately much kinder to our coastline and river front than we anticipated.

When she coincided with high tide overnight  there was an hour or two of the sounds of a disaster movie. Gusts and booms, crashing waves and a frightened fox screaming in the back lane.

But Amy had already identified herself in these parts as a benign storm, troubling only dustbins  and foxes.

Digitally I double exposed calm Amy with my reference image of a woman in thoughtful repose.

It gave Amy enough grit to make me comfortable with her.  I needed to create a soundscape of the back lane to add some unexpected crash and bang.

The soundscape of our back lane is a weaved collage of an old watercolour sketch. Assembled before having a touch of fox added at the last minute.

Storm Amy, a little underwhelming in these parts