For some reason I just accepted the name without ever looking up its meaning . To be honest I thought it was rather a clunky name for something quite so pretty. Moving on to yesterday evening when our dog walk took us to the furthest part of Devils Point and the Royal William Yard. There was a beautiful sunless sunset and this historic gas lamp had been fitted with a bulb that glowed with a warm light.
Only moments earlier at the top of the staircase I had seen delicious clouds basking in the light of the departed sun.
In a perfect world I would have been on this spot five minutes earlier. Those clouds deserved a visible light source. I stuck the two images and came up with this one.
I was never going to pretend it was genuine but felt it needed a name. Only to discover the French word for twighlight.
So , I am doubly educated . I no longer think my rose has a clunky name and I am quite delighted to realise that I planted it , by accident, so that when it has grown the sun will set behind it. Both crepusculing together.
My answer was correct on the 4th attempt. The word slipped easily out of my brain and I shared my result with my Wordle Whatsapp group.
The word slipped out of my brain almost at the same moment I realised I had no idea what it meant and that I had certainly never used it in a sentence.
I have looked it up now and realised why I have never used it. The word has two uses, musical and psychiatry.
My head has always been full of random thoughts and ideas. Not archived or catalogued in any useful way.
My storage system for knowledge has two distinctive visualised locations. A smart office block where all the necessary and acquired knowledge for life, work and survival is stored. Calmly efficient, beautiful streamlined architecture where busy archivists work happily and effectively. Pulling out information as and when I need it.
The other location where all the fun and interesting, life enhancing stuff is stored is a warm and welcoming Town House with 4 floors. There are always comfy chairs , interesting rugs and warm fires near the haphazard shelves and overspilling store boxes. The archival system is managed by happy individuals who wear a lot of velvet and softly worn linen. Always smiling they serve tea and snacks while I patiently wait for an answer that I know is somewhere in their domain. Mostly they are as efficient as the streamlined, smart office block.
Sometimes however I am turned away from the cosy repository with the promise of an answer arriving later in the day. And so it does. Arriving gently, as if delivered by a silent hot air balloon or by a tiny feather caught in a summer breeze.
Puzzled by my inability to remember, I set off on another task only to be gently disturbed by the arrival of the random fact or piece of knowledge I required 3 hours earlier.
Below is the Wordle word of the day . Do not read on if my spoiler would spoil your day.
I now know exactly why Fugue was in the Townhouse and not the Office Block.
J.S Bach Toccata and Fugue.
I met this piece of music when I was under 6 and knew its name. Which I thought was exactly that, a name.
Like Tom and Jerry, or Laurel and Hardy.
In 60 years I had never given it a thought or a refile.
I absolutely understand both uses of the word.
But what is to happen to poor old Fugue, resting comfortably in a warm and cluttered townhouse of random knowledge for 60 years.
Is he, Fugue was always male, about to be rehoused in an office block of known and retrievable facts. Has he taken his last featherlight balloon trip into my thought processes. I suspect so.
Will Fugue the character be in a psychiatric fugue of his own.
I will allow him a free pass to either dwelling, I know where I would rather be.
The thing I ought to have done today is to keep a better eye on my timekeeping. Primarily because poor timekeeping made me miss my hair appointment yesterday, and talking too much landed me in the most horrendous rainstorm. So today I ought to have kept my chatting a little more under control but today there were no appointments just domestic admin and cooking. Things that ought to be squeezed into the spaces in between lovely wide-ranging conversations. And squeezed in they were, which makes the ‘ought to’ somewhat irrelevant. But there are days like yesterday when I ought to have kept an eye on the time. Missing a hair appointment is really very thoughtless. What is even worse is that an hour or so later I was telling a friend I had lost track of time and missed an appointment. She looked at me in horror and said.
“Oh my goodness , I shouldn’t be here either. I ought to be at a community thing”
When I was younger I certainly thought ‘ought’ and indeed ‘should’ were words of diligence rather than desire,but now I feel more kindly towards it. Ought is a word used out of respect. I can be flimsy about my own time keeping but not when it affects other people.
I also really like the idea of an Oughtobiography. An epic tale of all the things I ought to have done. There may be more blogs on this topic…
Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.
Headlines always fascinate me. I know that they are written to grab attention and are largely forgotten once readers take a deep dive into the nitty gritty of the story.
What is a week’s worth of honey?
And to whom is it a weeks worth.
The answers are endless.
What does a week’s worth of Honey look like to you?
A jar lasts me about 6 months so my answer would be, about a teaspoon.
That would never satisfy two bears. But it might easily be a full weeks production for a busy bee.
The absolute silence in this reflective image of Sutton Harbour last night, does not in any way reflect the aural reality. The harbour had the rich sounds of the harbour through history. Tuesday evening dog walks around the harbour have the bell ringers of St Andrews Church as a regular and welcome soundscape. Seemingly performing perfectly, Tuesdays are their practice nights.
Coupled with the nearly still water in the harbour the acoustics were perfect last night. It was also the last day of the school summer term so families were filling the cafes, and their exhausted teachers were finding their way to the bars. The pavements filled with strange adult crocodiles of walkers. Large groups of colleagues making their way to their selected bar informally but formally, two by two. The only thing missing from the human crocodile were the luminous pink-tabarded attendants at either end.*
Live music spilt out from the bars across the harbour, and dancing girls made their, uncertain, way to a Salsa Bar. High heels and cobbles are tricksy at the best of time without the added uncertainty of a pre-class drink in the evening sunlight.
As seagulls circled, greedy for chips, the only thing missing from this moment , which could have been heard any time in the last 500 years, were the Fishermen and Sailors in any significant number. Fish are landed in Plymouth but the huge fish market is just a holding space for the fish auctions that are held on-line. I’m not sure what handsome young sailors en-masse do on Tuesday nights but they were not easily visible. Represented only by middle- class, older men, in two’s and fours. Pink trousered with those non-uniform, uniform caps they all wear to silently call one another from across a world crowded out by non-sailors.
The harbour hubbub and the people watching was just serendipitous concatenation at its unpredictable best last night.
A Golden Moment, I might say.
* I only realised the significance of the teacher element of last nights bar activity when I heard the crisp steps of a man walking from one bar to another. Who walks from one bar to another with recognisably crisp steps?
A man, or woman, who regularly crosses purposefully from one classroom to another. A warning sound of impending trouble that we all learn to recognise from age 5.
*Of course such a lovely evening was rich pickings on which to ponder.
A painting ponder was to sketch Sir Francis Drake and his wife Mary Newman in the contemporary attire of Summer 2025. She will be wearing a spotted flared dress for a night on the cobbles and he will be wearing the older casual sailor outfit with one significant difference. Those pink sailor trousers will be cropped to show off his shapely calves and feet in deck shoes with no socks.
Something that will require a lot more pondering is how to replace the phallic symbol of the hilt of his sword. I suspect an uncapped bottle of beer will have to do. Over-sized of course. No cold weather posing for Frank.
Sir Francis Drake on Plymouth Hoe ( a Spanish seagull has taken revenge on this day)
Morning mist and sticky heat. The Tidal Pool at Devils Point.
The sea mist was genuinely as dense as this first thing this morning, the borrowed light simply a reflection of the early morning sun, obscured, by mist, behind me. But the heat of the morning was uncomfortably sticky under the naturally occurring parasol. I have pondered a bit about the mystical, mythological stories linked to this area. Mostly because of my what3words discovery of yesterday.
My most regular spot for getting into the sea has this as it’s what3words location.
Allows.Wizard.Rival
I am quite charmed to think that there is a benign Sea Wizard allowing me to dump my troubles(rivals) into the sea each time I dip.
For no particular reason I checked the what3words location where I was standing to take this mornings pool picture.
Lush. Wonderfully. String. Not particularly relevant at first glance, but the drone shot clearly shows the wonderfully lush lawns of a local tennis club, and then for me there is a string. I am lucky enough to often work inside that club and also be there for entirely enjoyable reasons.
I love the simple pleasure of finding a what3words location that resonates personally
I pinched this poster from a Glastonbury Festival web page. Something about it caught my eye, but for the life of me I can’t quite identify what it is.
My best guess is the stylised butterfly and the designs similarity to a Brasso tin.
Brasso was my paternal grandparents idea of a good time for their only grandchild.
“What shall we do with her while she is here?”
“Lets get the Brasso out and then after that we can play Scrabble”
Hours passed, spoons were shined. Scrabble was played with no consideration given to the differences in our ages or vocabularies. Beyond that I read books that I had brought with me or lost myself in the concise encyclopaedias on their bookshelves. They had a television, I never experienced it being turned on. At the end of their period of caring I was either collected by my dad or sent home to walk home via the roads or via the fields of two conjoined farms that were between their home and mine.
I was taught to achieve this journey, safely by my grandfather who would accompany me to start with and then gradually once he was confident that I knew where I was going he did less and less of the journey with me. Ultimately just waving me off either at the front gate or the style at the top of their property which led to the meadows and pastures of the countryside that circled the small market town where we all lived.
Their ‘no frills’ grandparenting style taught me the power of one.
I can’t say that beyond that I have achieved the promise of the poster. I have only ever made little things happen and any movements I have started have not changed the world significantly. But also I don’t think I have done too much harm. Which is a good thing, but hardly the sort of statement that sits well on a poster.
I would say spirituality is one of the great intangibles. It presents in so many ways. I have no idea where I sit on the spirituality spectrum. Nowhere near the elite end, but probably more spiritual than a broad bean.
Proof of how intangible spirituality is I looked up the broad bean only to discover that it is quite the Spiritual Legume.
Broad beans, also known as fava beans, have a complex symbolic history, particularly in relation to death and the afterlife. While not universally considered spiritual, they have been associated with funerary rituals and the belief that they contain the souls of the deceased in some cultures. However, other traditions view them as symbols of resurrection, good luck, or even royalty.
Here’s a more detailed look:
Symbolism related to death and the underworld:
Ancient Greeks and Romans:Believed broad beans were linked to the underworld due to their long roots and the black spots on their flowers, which were seen as a connection between the world of the living and the dead.
Funerary rituals:Broad beans were sometimes spread over tombs to provide peace to the deceased.
Fave dei morti:In some traditions, like those in Italy, small cakes shaped like broad beans (but not actually made of them) are eaten on All Souls’ Day, symbolizing “beans of the dead”.
Soul wind:Some believed that eating broad beans released the soul wind through the body.
Symbolism related to resurrection and reincarnation:
Growth:The bean’s upward growth from the earth can be seen as a symbol of resurrection and spiritual awakening.
Rebirth:Some traditions view beans as symbols of reincarnation, where the seed contains a dormant soul waiting to be reborn.
Other symbolic meanings:
Good luck:In some traditions, like 17th and 18th century Britain, broad beans were associated with good luck, sometimes found in cakes like the Twelfth Night cake.
Royalty:In traditions like the Portuguese king cake, a bean inside the cake signifies the person who gets to provide the next cake.
Magic:Broad beans are also mentioned in folklore as having magical properties, such as warding off ghosts or even being connected to witches.
*See below
Research is a fabulous thing. I have just learned that Fava beans are Broad Beans. I had no idea, but I also discovered that spirituality-wise I am exactly a broad bean.
Broad beans are not considered universally spiritual.
Sometimes I suffer from ‘Soul Wind’
Will I ever be able to say the Lord’s Prayer without thinking? ” Our Fava”.
I have been enlightened.
*See below
*The Buddha with the fractured skull lives in our yard and has lived in my last three gardens.
She was a regular,uninjured, deity until a freak mini tornado in South London picked her up and tossed her against a garage wall. Her left Temporal bone was caved in. An earthly rather than spiritual injury.
Instantly she was turned from a peaceful piece of garden adornment into a unique planter. Her scars and missing bits of skull are covered by plants as she lays serenely in our yard.
Obviously I am an addicted ponderer. It is the beating heart of this blog and for me is both creative and endlessly fascinating.
Mulling on the other hand is a much less lightweight, pleasurable task. Mulling however is every bit as essential for me.
The two thinking techniques are closely related. I have always been a ponderer, I started young, in Reference Libraries. As I edged into adulthood, worries and problems could not always be pondered into a solution. Sometimes more serious and better targeted thinking is required. Mulling moved into my life.
Recently, away from this blog I have had to do a lot of mulling on the behalf of an organisation that I help to manage.
My Mulling team, confidentiality guaranteed.
All organisations, whatever their title are essentially about people. My recent mullings have taken me to places I never imagined I would need to explore. Despite the importance of mulling it uses much the same mental muscles as pondering. And for me the creative, familiar places where I choose to ponder have proved to be equally suitable for mulling.
1.Dull domestic tasks.
2.Dog walks
3. Yardening in the yard.
Staring at the laundry whilst thinking.
Just one stark difference between pondering and mulling.
Oh the loveliness of concatination, and having friends in High Places. This shot from a TV shows my friend Jenny, standing on the outside walkway of the lighthouse on Plymouth Hoe. A T.V crew getting a much better view of the goings on at the Hoe yesterday than I did. She watched the T.V in case she was on, and she snapped this pic.
She and I were chattering because I was suspicious that I had also caught her up a lighthouse in one of my meddled photographs. ( A sentence I never expected to write)
It is lovely when serendipity and concatination come together.
Then on my way home nature got all serendipitous. Look at this beautiful pansy making the most of a difficult location. Now just as I went to the Hoe and saw nothing yesterday,my pansy growing is not the most successful, slugs believe I am their artisan food producer. But leave a pansy out of my direct control and they manage very nicely just growing away in a drain.
theoldmortuary.design 