A funny thing happened between Lockdown I and Lockdown II. @theoldmortuary took to the water.
As spring turned to summer and swimming pools stayed resolutely closed we took to the sea for swimming and bobbing about while talking as soon as it was permitted in mid May.The habit stuck and by November we were part of a ‘thing’ a massive increase of people wild swimming. Not only that but by persisting with it we were able to do it in skin, until mid November.
This weekend wetsuits were purchased, and that is the result of the funny thing that happened between Lockdown I and II. Why did we not just stop swimming in the sea in September just like any normal year?
We’ve cut down on the post swim reward. Black coffee without the embellishments of doughnuts, Eccles cakes or cinnamon buns. Wet suits are not as forgiving as bathing suits. 2020 is notorious enough without being the year two wetsuits were purchased. Whatever next!
I’m doing a bit of time managing Drawn to the Valley art groups Instagram page. In these ever changing pandemic times it is a quick way, combined with Facebook and Twitter to communicate with both the artist members and people who like to buy original art. November in any year can be a little slow artwise before December explodes into Christmas Fairs and Markets. 2020 takes slow November to a whole new level of slow. This morning I came up with a # inspired by an early morning walk in typically November West Country greyness.
#lightupnovember2020
@theoldmortuary November life was certainly brightened up today by two things. Firstly the most gorgeous Orchid arrived clutched by a lovely friend. Definitely something that cuts through Cornish grey #lightupnovember2020
The other thing that twinkled into @theoldmortuary was a tutu . Just a little one for a little person but it certainly fits the brief for #lightupnovember2020
#lightupnovember2020 spreading a little bright in the grey.
Last week I found a naturally occuring heart at Seaton Beach.
I found this heart and beach detritus at the high tide mark. Today I found another heart, perhaps naturally occuring hearts can be a little sub theme within Ponderings.
Todays was created by the sandbag that was holding down the temporary traffic lights @theoldmortuary . The obvious positive is that both the traffic light and the sandbag have been moved.
Hunting naturally occuring hearts, a little project during Lockdown2.
The Window Fish were swimming on the rug and we were in for good day.
Anxiety about the US Election was controlled by some cupboard tidying.
For the same reason I helped a friend hang new curtains, overlooking happy red cows ruminating in the sunshine.
Hugo and Lola sniffed the tracks of squirrels that had earlier snacked on pumpkin seeds.
Which was when we discovered an Autumn tragedy. During the summer a Cock had escaped from the mythical land of Trematonia . ( Trematon Castle reimagined as a style of Interior Design.)
He has spent the summer strutting in Outer Trematonia, lots of Cock a Doodling, no canoodling and generally living a charmed life in convivial surroundings.
The evidence suggests that he will not have to endure another Lockdown. Perhaps he will appear tomorrow , partially plucked but with the swagger of someone who has survived a mauling. At the moment though, it looks most likely that he was beaten. Thankfully something similar happened in the U.S.
Living @theoldmortuary currently is a little like living in a wisdom tooth while the tooth next door is being filled. Unanounced a week ago a team from a gas company dug up the road next to the house. The front of the house is both an informal depot and the location of temporary traffic lights.
The configuration of barriers, mounds of tarmac and holes in the ground changes daily. This morning the set up feels like a metaphor for the soon to be imposed Lockdown and just like the Lockdown we have no idea how long these road works will go on or how disruptive they will be.
Today was another day of domestic admin and rain avoidance. Looking into the roadworks during a spell of dry weather didn’t make things any clearer.
Time to accept that the road ahead is full of pitfalls and barriers,while we wait to find a way through.
This is the face of a dog who believes her humans are not performing due diligence to her needs.
In truth her humans were tied up with life admin and paperwork. It’s amazing that really well filed information only three years old is more difficult to find than 100 year old documents @theoldmortuary . 100 year old documents are enormous time wasters, as are old family photographs and any number of the things we found today. The job expanded to fill the time available.
In other news we are preparing for lockdown and rather than panic buying we are panic socialising . Touching base with a few people before we are banned.
Either activity is not as popular as a good long walk with either dog.
Beach day after Storm Aidan. Last night was very stormy @theoldmortuary. It was a blustery walk at Seaton Beach this lunchtime.
As it happens it was good that we got out for a blow through on the beach, soon after we got home there was the promise of an evening briefing from the Prime Minister. This really can mean only one thing. A further Lockdown in Britain.
There was a little stone heart caught up in a pile of tidal detritus as we got onto the beach. Maybe a metaphor for the next few weeks. Some days beach days are also about the people who are not there with us.
This weekend was also the second birthday of our darling VV. This was her first birthday in Crystal Palace Park
This year she is living in more exotic places with different sartorial needs. Beach walks are not the same without her. These little feet are in Hong Kong now.
Meanwhile after the walk it is Saturday evening and time for Strictly Come Dancing. Even the Guinea Pig, Ginny and Hugo are ready.
Here we go headlong into another Lockdown, thank goodness this weekend was about a bit of mingling.
There is a significance to the number of this blog. Come inside and I will explain.
In 100 blogs time I will have been pondering the pandemic for roughly a year. I say roughly because some days there was more than one blog and sometimes a subject took a few days to complete so the same number was used until I was done.
At the time of Pandemic Pondering #1, I had no idea of what was ahead of me, or indeed the rest of the world. #1 was ahead of the government imposed Lockdown in Britain because I was displaying symptoms of a virus and decided to self isolate. I had been unwell for much of March but believed it just to be a regular virus gifted by a toddler. As we have learned more about Covid 19 I do wonder if @theoldmortuary had actually grabbed ourselves an early version.
At the time I was practicing daily blogging, ready for a course with The Gentle Author.
Here I am just over 2/3 of the way through a year still waiting to attend the course and the Pandemic still giving me plenty to ponder about.
Some days write themselves and others need a little more effort to extrude. Dog walks are a great source of blogging material, beyond that the subjects or topics usually just reveal themselves during normal daily life, sometimes we seek things out because they might make a good blog. Meanwhile normal daily life goes on @theoldmortuary, 90% of it too humdrum for blogging.
I was always the sort of child that dreamed about keeping a daily diary. I never achieved it because I had always bored myself within a week. The same thing happened at various times in my life both with diaries and scrapbooks. I started blogging nearly three years ago because I wanted to regain my story telling skills; a career in the NHS prizes factual writing over whimsy. I also like to take photographs, sometimes they are quite random but most can be made useful in some way. In truth, blogging actually started when someone made a cutting and thoughtless remark to me about both writing and photography. Seething, I began blogging and the title could easily have been ‘ F**k You’
It has become a daily habit or ritual, blogging forces me to find something interesting in every day. Some days it has enabled me to concentrate on the positive when sadness and dismay were the actual truth of our lived experience. I am constantly learning and I should probably delete much of the last three years blogs on the grounds of badly written nonsense. Ponderings seem protected and will be excused any future cull because in my mind their mission statement to continue through the experience of this Pandemic makes them many pieces of a whole project.
I strongly suspect I will still be at this pondering malarkey in another 100 days, when @theoldmortuary hits 1 year of pondering. Thankyou for reading. Please close the doors on your way out.
Monday finds me pondering a word . Inspired by one of those internet vocabulary tests. Luckily I can illustrate my feelings on the word with some glorious Dahlias from The Garden House.
The word is loathe. Most dictionaries suggest that it is in many ways a stronger feeling than hate.
Loathe means to hate or detest something. Loathe is much stronger than hate. It implies deep-seated, simmering hatred. … If you loathe someone or something, you hate them very much.
I’ve talked it over with friends this weekend and opinion is divided. Full disclosure means that I must tell you that we discussed the word using various humans we knew in common to illustrate our thoughts. Thankfully glorious Dahlias help me to illustrate my opinion in a far kinder way.
I’ve always considered loathing to be a more nuanced dislike than hate. Hate can happen in an instant but loathing takes time and consideration. My problem with ranking loathing over hatred is that I think they can have equal value strength wise. They can also be used in the same sentence correctly , be of equal value and illustrate feelings beautifully. This is where the dahlias have their moment.
I hate what snails do to dahlias, I loathe them for ruining such beautiful blooms.
I’m not bitter about snails constantly, or their sluggy friends. I do have perspective, but if they put a slimy foot anywhere near my dahlias, or a mouth near my ‘ ray floret’ (petals) then loathing will simmer.
I’m done. Have a marvelous Monday.
P.S Just as I published this blog Facebook reminded me exactly why I feel snails are loathsome. In 2019 @theoldmortuary had a glorious year, our first, of cultivating Dahlias. 2020, a landmark year in so many ways produced dahlias that had been pre nibbled before they even bloomed, already identified as snacks they attracted snails from all over the place to feast and party on our blooms.
Coffee and books, some days just ooze with pleasure.
This one started well with the arrival of our coffee prize from Extract Coffee. Our beans were roasted by hand restored roasters Big Bertha and Vintage Betty at Extract Coffee.
Coffee at my elbow, it was time to Bookclub Zoomstyle.
Again no spoilers, we all felt very much the same about this book. A complex beginning that could be off-putting but a good tale once the narrative established itself .
Three of us shared an emotional moment that had happened when we met earlier in the week,with the group. @theoldmortuary and a Covidfriend all lost our parents at an earlier than average age, we all loved our parents dearly. A passage in the book had made us all have a little weep. And then another weep when we discussed it and then today when sharing the tale of our weepings, there were more weepings.
The protagonist had never known her mother and now her father was close to death.
“On the third and finalnight, a bright light shines from my Father’s body. And in the sublime peace of his face, I saw my mother waiting for him.”
” I had never seen my mother’s face and had longed beyond all longing to one day see it. I still do.in fact- that is a desire that age hasn’t softened- because that night her face was hidden, covered by the thick tress of her dark hair.”
” But I knew it was her because she used words like mine and daughter and her breath was of the sea.”
” My father said to her: Hello my love. You’ve come back to me.”
” My mother said: I never left.”
“And in those three words was a lifetime.”
” He said: Shall we go then? And they turned to me and they said: Can you let us go do you think?”
” And I could say nothing. I raised my hand, a feeble attempt at a wave, I think. But I could say nothing. Because I was 14 years old and all I wanted to say was, Please, don’t go.”
There’s not much that can follow such a passage but fortunately the book offers a very upbeat Bonus Material addition to the book.
To be a Reader
by Sarah Winman
To be a reader, for me, is about entering a world of unimagined possibility; to have the willingness to suspend disbelief and to journey trustingly across the terrain of another’s imagination.
To be a reader is to feel a little less lonely. To be a reader is to be challenged. To feel anger, to feel outrage and injustice. But always to feel, always to think. To be a reader is not a passive state, it is active, always responding.
To be a reader is to have the opportunity to question ourselves at the deepest level of humanity – what would we have done in this situation? What would we have said? To be a reader is to feel empathy and compassion and grief. To be awed and to laugh. To fall in love, with characters, locations, the author. To be a reader is to learn and to be informed, and to rouse the dreamy inner life to action.
To be a reader is to take time out from the group. To not fear missing out; to turn off the TV, YouTube, the Internet. It is to slow down and engage; to be of the present. To be a reader is to find answers. It gives us something to talk about when we are unsure what to say.
To be a reader is to have the chance to collect stories like friends, and hold them dearly for a lifetime. It is to feel the joy of connection.
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