Category: weather

#705 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn walking, weather1 Comment

November blows in on a storm. Yesterday was dog grooming day. A very recent storm had damaged the road that would normally take me to Wembury beach after I dropped them off for a couple of hours of pampering. The weather was already pretty unpredictable so I had packed a raincoat, a large beach towel and a tin containing greetings cards. I was determined that my dog-free hours were going to be well spent. Weather and the tide, not fate was going to be the deciding factor on how I spent my morning. At the point that the beach access road was closed I took off, up steep valley lanes that were covered in slippery, damp fallen leaves. After two hair raising reversing events I found a car park at a place called Wembury Point.

As I arrived the heavens opened which negated any value my raincoat had, the beach towel was already useless as I was now very many metres up from sea level. The tin of greetings cards it would have to be. So here we have it, confession time.

I am dreadful at sending out Christmas cards in a timely fashion. I have made all the excuses in the world and often opt for the donating to charity option. None of that helps my guilt as the cards from more diligent people drop through our letterbox in December. This year I made a plan. I have bought Charity Christmas cards and some note cards. The note cards can be written at any time, no pressure no deadlines and no excuses. Inside I have popped a small Christmas card bearing the words ‘This may be your 1st Christmas card of 2023’

Creating a specific tin with everything that I need has transformed my task. If I know I am going to be hanging around doing nothing more than scrolling through my phone, I grab the tin and write notes to friends and family. Yesterday 12 cards were written and posted in the time it took for a storm to pass.

I even had one of those moments when a forgotten address just floated into my head when I wasn’t actually thinking about it.

With an hour or so left the rain had cleared enough for me to do a clifftop walk. The area where I was walking was formerly a naval establishment called H.M.S Cambridge. Only a small radar station remains and the land around is being gently returned to nature. The groundworkers making the transformation are not human.

Dartmoor ponies have been moved to Wembury point to gently graze the area back to a more natural state. When I set off on my walk they were all hard at it. But on my return a lunchtime rest had prevailed.

Not only ponies, when I returned to the car park two large refuse collecting lorries had parked up for their crews to enjoy a break with beautiful views. This was absolutely in my favour. As they started their engines to leave I decided to follow them down the narrow lanes. No awkward reversing stand-offs with oncoming drivers on slippery lanes. Nobody expected two refuse lorries to reverse and so, as a convoy of three, we returned to civilisation easily with other people backing up.

Two groomed dogs, 12 notes with cards written and a good walk. Time to get on with real life.

#671 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, weather1 Comment

Waiting for Agnes. Storm Agnes is on her way, but early this morning there was a bobber in the water. Taking a dip before the storm disrupts our coastal life.

Just one bobber and a buoy

Just like a storm the subjects for this blog are blowing around in my ponderage. 4 possible subjects all of them small. Struggling to find a common theme and realising that with forbearance and some imagination the link might be the sea.

Tasks for the day

Chores

Dog walks

Make new necklace out of three old broken ones

Sketch a merwoman/bobber taking a strong pose

Dog walks

Chores

Lets not talk about the chores but the first dog walk found a familiar bobber bobbing in Tranquility Bay. Which for now is still tranquil.

I have been holding on to three broken necklaces for some time. I moved them to this house in bits two years ago. Today was the day that I actually reused the best bits from all three. The link to the sea is tenuous but the new necklace is made mostly out of artificial pearls.

My other slightly sea related subject is a new to me accompaniment for toast.

Fishy, salty and lemony it is the perfect wake up for my post-covidly pathetic taste buds. I tried Gentlemen’s Relish but it seems my tastes are more towards the criminal than the gentlemanly.

And so onto the sketch of the day. It seems only appropriate to name her Agnes.

And now to get on with the day…

But first the sketch pretending to be art.

#454 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn weatherLeave a comment

I’m not sure if I often consider temperature as a texture but yesterday my lunchtime walk was filled with unexpected sensations. A high tide had brought up a huge bank of seaweed, which was both crunchy underfoot and softly yielding like a marshmallow. The temperature was hovering at 0 and the sun was starting it’s sharp descent towards the horizon. Both dogs were thrilled. Hugo loves nothing more than scavenging seaweed. Adding his small efforts to a massive pile kept him busy for an hour while Lola and I basked in the sunshine. I was wrapped up very snugly and Lola was as close to me as a barnacle on a boats bottom. Soon enough the ratio of sunshine and temperature made sitting still a bad idea. We had been in a golden triangle,moving took us into the territory of icy blasts whipping fluffy ears back and making me hugely grateful for a felted wool hat

The dogs took the best possible position on returning home.

Just filling in time until the next outdoor adventure.

#310 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn weatherLeave a comment

Four hours early for an appointment! What to do? Returning home in rush hour traffic, of a sort, did not seem particularly exciting. So I figured out four hours of activities to the east of the city. In no particular order of dullness I went to a rarely visited supermarket and bought a new frying pan. Necessary because our old one had sprung a leak. Creating puddles of Rape Seed oil wherever it rested its bottom. Never having had a leak occur in a frying pan we had blamed Rape Seed incontinence on many other factors before noticing a steady drip of oil spluttering into the open flame of the gas hob.

The dogs then got two decent length walks, one on the coast path and one up a valley before they gratefully fell asleep in the car while I read a print edition newspaper and snacked on supermarket pastry. The hours had passed and I handed over some, still tired, hairy hounds to their canine beauticians. Freeing me up for some sea swimming and book reading under lumpen grey skies and no expectation of heat. Typical English Summer recalibrated from the Sunny Summer Sumptuousness of the past month or so. Four hours early for an appointment, no problem. British Summer Time has finally arrived, the rain chased me off the beach. Like any good English person I sat resolutely as the pages of my book darkened with blobs of rain, playing an internal game of brinkmanship, not wanting to be the first person to run to the comfort of a warm dry car. Not wanting,either, to be a drippy wet mess unable to balance on plastic flipflops made slippy by rainfall in a way they never do with saltwater.

Four hours early for an appointment and British Summertime has finally arrived.

#95 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, weatherLeave a comment

Misty nights have so much more charm than misty mornings, currently. There is a cloak of greige over everything this morning. It started to creep in last night making our evening walk softer and more mysterious.

At the book club meeting yesterday a friend said she felt suffocated by the current weather. This morning it is easy to sympathise with that statement. January really is a hard month to love.

There was a break in the greige yesterday. I am ashamed to say I missed it, a fellow ‘bobber’ grabbed this photograph yesterday morning at Trematon.

©Angela Bobber

That really is a beautiful ‘break in the clouds’ I will keep my wyes open for something similar today, but I’m not holding my breath!

Pandemic Pondering #130

On By theoldmortuary.designIn weatherLeave a comment

Pondering on a Sunday is not always relaxing. This picture was taken when the day was very fresh. Ripe you might say , but as I write this the rain splatters regularly on the roof and the day is blowing out grey and grumpy. I never quite know how I feel about summer rain especially on a day that showed such early promise.Today I’m pondering the ineffectual way the English language has for describing the actual lived experience of summer rain. On the whole it has whimsicle or romantic descriptives.Soft, Shower, Precipitation.For a start there is the disappointment that it’s happening at all, no summer activity ever was enhanced by rain and yet there is no negative word for its arrival or its effect on life.Storms, Gales, Tempests, Hurricanes are all words for rainy weather in the three other seasons. But they don’t work in the summer. Squalls sort of fit the summer rain brief but there is no energy in that word to reflect my anymosity to the wet stuff in summer.It’s a limp word that gets no sympathy.” How was the summer fete?”” A complete wash out, there were squally showers”There is no dynamism in that statement.” How was the summer fete?”” A complete wash out, there was a tempest!”So much more impactful but who would ever say that.So there we are a blog without end. A feeling of frustration that no English word quite sums up the annoyance of summer rain.