Mentions: theoldmortuary

Pandemic Pondering #200

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BooksLeave a comment

@theoldmortuary are having a strange old week. Lots of work to do towards an anticipated end point without ever quite knowing where that end point might be. As a consequence we’ve had no wi-fi and poor signal coupled with too much physical work for pondering. On a positive note there has been time for reading this week. I’ve finished the book club book mentioned in Pandemic Pondering #236. Some bits needed rereading before the Monday Zoom meeting.

My choice of reading has changed with the pandemic. With more time I’ve given myself the chance to enjoy a broader range of styles. This book is as marvelous as it’s title. A contemporary dose of magic realism. A tale of the West Country with the cliché content woven in a unique way.

Book number two in the informal @theoldmortuary Book Club is…

This is quite a ride. Is it poetry or prose? A breathtaking, stay awake long-after-bed-time read. No spoilers here. I’ve never read anything quite like it in its style. It has the punch of a short story with twists and turns that made me squirm with anticipatory caution for the protagonist.

Finally number three

This has everything that book one has in using geography I am really familiar with, London. Coupled with Modernist Fine Art and a Windrush generation narrator. The Spanish Civil War is also a massive character in this book.

In my Covid Friend Collection I have gathered a scatty English teacher who probably winces at my punctuation and grammar but can also talk the hind leg off a donkey. I’m pushing these three in her direction so we can have a good old book natter. Happy Sunday xxx

Pandemic Pondering #199

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Since early in the Pandemic Lockdown @theoldmortuary have been trying to minimise plastic use. We’ve got a good stock of bottles and jars and we have largely been quite successful . Occasionally though particularly tenacious stuff stays stuck in the corner at the bottom of a bottle even after a good spin in the dishwasher. What we need is a good old fashioned bottle brush , we’ve looked sporadically for one but it’s not always remembered and we are trying to avoid too much Amazon shopping. Preferring, where possible to shop both independently and local.

Our trip to Burford provided us with a Bottlebrush Epiphany!

This carving could do with a Bottlebrush.

Beautiful Burford has a Brush Shop.

https://oxfordbrushcompany.com/

A selection of bottle brushes that would make you giddy even if you didn’t need a bottle brush. Other brushes too; but I kept a tight hold on my excitement and came away with two brushes for those hard to reach places and grubby nooks and crannies.

Had I realised that the current cold and stormy weather was going to send many spiders into our house I might have bought the gorgeous creation below instead of just photographing it for texture.

Feather duster for banishing spiders.

Pandemic Pondering #198

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FriendsLeave a comment

October started @theoldmortuary with a touch of socialising with our Covid friends that we first met in Pandemic Pondering #44 on the 2nd May. A chance meeting in a coffee queue at Hutong, Plymouth, has led to a summer of meeting and exploring various locations in Devon and Cornwall. Again quite by chance we were both staying near the Cotswolds town of Burford. Given the location of our meeting it would have been uncivilised not to have met up for a coffee. Covid friends know the area well as they lived in Burford for a while. For us Burford is somewhere we pass through but never stop because it is always somewhat crowded with tourists. One of the bonuses of the pandemic is less tourists, so today was a good day to stop and have a wander. Burford is hugely picturesque and my photography is never going to be as good as the images you could find on the internet, so Google Burford to find all the gorgeous images and information that others have provided.

Cotswold Stone

The morning colours of Burford were amazing. It helped that October arrived wearing sunshine first thing in the morning. There was still dew in the nooks and crannies of the churchyard.

We also found a petulant cherub on a grave. She/he looks like the sort of toddler to avoid rather than a second order angel to spend eternity with. She/he may be unhappy because someone has dressed her/him with her/his wings under her/his chin. Speaking as someone who recently put a hoody on the wrong way round, I understand the grumpiness. It’s hard to be effective with either thing on back to front.

Effectiveness is the key word for this blog. @theoldmortuary has more things to do than the time available for a couple of days. Blogs will be brief but hopefully not dull. Link below to properly explore Burford.

https://www.cotswolds.com/plan-your-trip/towns-and-villages/burford-p720323

And the Churchyard where these pictures were taken.

https://www.burfordchurch.org/

Pandemic Pondering #196

On By theoldmortuary.designIn The BoxLeave a comment

@theoldmortuary has been involved with a new museum and art gallery in Plymouth for the last couple of years. Until recently as a hard hat tour guide of the building site. A job that involved wearing shared PPE, hard hat, steel toe capped boots, fluorescent waistcoat and rubberised gloves to enable me to show groups of people around the museum site as it was being built.  Tours stopped once the museum was ready for its internal fit out and the return of exhibits to the new space. Then Covid-19 struck and everything was delayed.

Yesterday the museum finally threw it’s doors open to the public albeit in a more controlled, socially distanced way than anyone had planned..

Staff and volunteers have had a few days of soft openings with restricted numbers of visitors to practice on.

Photographs were and always will be allowed but publishing them on social media, blogs etc was banned until the first full day of opening to the public. Rather than bombard you with many glimpses of the museum I will share pictures as I learn my way around the museum. I’ve done two shifts so far in the same space. St Lukes Contemporary Art Space.

The new fused glass window by Leonor Antunes is the first thing that dazzles visitors.

As the light outside changes the mood of the gallery alters significantly. Within St Luke’s there is an installation by the same artist, it is fascinating and relevant to Plymouth it deserves its own blog at a later time.

The link below is a positive piece of publicity that explains, far better than I can, the whole Box experience.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/22/new-plymouth-museum-and-art-gallery-opens-with-mayflower-and-mammoths

And here a link to a less positive article.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/sep/22/the-box-plymouth-gallery-treasures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I will spend many hours in The Box during the current Pandemic; focussing on just one exhibit at a time will be an intriguing discipline.

Pandemic Pondering #195

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments
Sunflowers

Sunflowers on a tricksy day. Pandemic Ponderings is not the place to share all the ups and downs @theoldmortuary . More a place to ponder on the pandemic and the effect it has on a fairly normal household. Today a small family pet went on that dreaded one way trip to the vet. Not one of the coffee hounds. Visits to the vet are a hugely affected by Covid -19 precautions and restrictions. So today was difficult plus difficult. Yet the vet we met was brilliant at expressing kindness and compassion at a distance and with a mask on. A sad experience made better by someone who was brilliant at being a good human.

The death of small pets, always seems to be a particularly poignant grief. I’ve always thought it gathers all the sadness that is laying around in your mind from other experiences and allows it a way out which seems disproportionate. I suspect the pandemic has magnified that sensation. Which is why I’ve allowed this subject into Ponderings.

Living through the Pandemic has probably made @theoldmortuary all a little bit more fragile or sensitive. The normal tribulations of life just seem that little bit more taxing.

Sunflowers help.

Pandemic Pondering #192

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

The  link below takes you to an excellent article published in the Guardian today.

Pandemic Ponderings has covered most of the topics mentioned but the whole lot, covered by a proper newspaper, makes for a less whimsical read. Even before this article appeared, today, other people’s writing was going to inform this blog.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/sep/25/top-10-locals-guide-to-plymouth-mayflower-400-anniversary?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

This is the book,randomly chosen, for the September choice of my book club. By a huge coincidence a character in this novel visits Plymouth . A couple of comments in the book reminded me of things I have not yet pondered about . Given that this blog is about Plymouth, I will just share the Plymouth based one today. But before that an aside.

An hour or so before this blog was due to be published I finished this book. Further curious and serendipitous connections come to light. I love the book for many reasons, including its locations. It is based geographically in places I know intimately, Cornwall and the area around St Pauls Cathedral in the City of London.

Just as I sit through the rolling credits of films, I also read the acknowledgements in books. This one dealt a huge dollop of serendipity. The author, Sarah Winman writes ” Thank you to The Gentle Author and the community that has grown around the Spitaldfelds Life Blog- you are a constant reminder of why we do what we do”

Spitaldfelds Life is the Gold Standard that drives my writing @theoldmortuary . The Gentle Author guided and encouraged me, and many other blog writers to simply write. The surprise to see him mentioned at the back of this novel gave me such a warm and welcome boost. He really is the loveliest of men , the courses he runs are inspirational.

Returning to talking about the pondering the book inspired. In,A Year of Marvellous Ways, a sexual awakening and affaire de coeur is marked by the gift of a penny which is significant to the location of the entwinement. To illustrate this I need to rummage a bit.

It didn’t take long to find an old penny. Significantly this one would have been used in the Plymouth Area. It was designed by Leonard Charles Wyon an adaptation of a design by his father William Wyon for earlier pennies.

1967 British Penny ©theoldmortuary

The lighthouse, which can just be glimpsed behind Britannia is Smeatons Tower. Plymouths Iconic Landmark. Imaged on the coin in its original position on the Eddystone Rocks. 9 miles south west of Rame Head in Cornwall. Despite being closest to Cornwall the rocks are within the City limits of Plymouth and therefore considered to be within Devon.

Another blog that shaped its own destiny. Not the journey I planned but the journey that happened whilst I was planning.

Pandemic Pondering #188

On By theoldmortuary.designIn staycation2 Comments

Our Staycation took us to Totnes overnight. I worked in Totnes over twenty years ago, at the time it was known for being a town sympathetic to New Age and Alternative Lifestyles. Pandemic Pondering #232 Going up the hill at Totnes.

Twenty years later Totnes has the same vibe but wears it a little less obviously, the town seems smarter. Pondering in Totnes took me down quite a rabbit hole. A particularly lovely piece of Palimpsest caught my eye.

The name Alice Oswald can be seen through the layers of stickers and paint. Googling Alice Oswald I discovered she is a Poet of note and is the first female Oxford Professor of Poetry and also a winner of the T.S Elliot Poetry Prize . Something I only know exists because my favourite poet Roger Robinson won it this year.

As luck would have it I had taken a picture of the River Dart half an hour before I found the Palimpsest that started this ponder. Lucky because Alice is known for her work ‘Dart’.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jul/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview13?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I’ve shared the Guardian review of the poem/ book because it is all very unknown to me currently. I’ve ordered a copy of the book from the library. Let’s get on with the rest of Totnes.

Lovely Jubbly

A little smile and a nod to a favourite British sitcom Only Fools and Horses as we arrived in town.

We were camping overnight at Steamer Quay which is a really quick walk into town or onto several beautiful Riverside walks. As usual @theoldmortuary our day started with a coffee. On a day when new restrictions were set to be announced the message was loud and clear at the café.

http://www.thecurator.co.uk/phone/index.html

The Curator cafe set us up perfectly for the steep incline that is Totnes High Street. The high street is full of independents , we had a fabulous browse in regular retailers and charity shops . Earmarking purchases for when we were on the descent. Arrival at the top was rewarded with a visit to.

Another coffee shop with great coffee and outdoor seating overlooking one of my favourite Vintage shops.

We were in Totnes so obviously bumping into a stranger involved a conversation about Dry Needling , fascinating, not for me, but apparently it works.

://www.physio-pedia.com/Dry_needling#.X2pZUQw9Rfs.mailto

Interesting women were all over the top part of the town. This strong image was in the shop window of Revival

Ramping up the glamour opposite was this gorgeous creation.

This is the point that this blog ends, tomorrow we will return down the hill. https://www.fifty5a.com/ is our final stop at the top. The artwork featured in the window of fifty5a is by Lucie Smailes. https://www.devonartistnetwork.co.uk/artists/lucie-smailes

Pandemic Pondering #187

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

Just a little blog today. The subject has been covered in a couple of different ways in other blogs. A regular dog walk for us starts on Commercial Street in Plymouth and follows a circular walk around Sutton Harbour and the Barbican in Plymouth using the footbridge by the Marine Aquarium and then back via Sutton Wharf. Within Pandemic Ponderings we have only done it in daylight

Last night was our first walk this year in the dark. I hadn’t really planned a blog about it but two nice photos presented themselves and it seems a shame not to use them

The first was a flock of swans with the twinkly lights of The Barbican behind them.

The second was a lovely flat tide image of some fishing boats.

Either of these images would have charmed us if we were on holiday in Greece, but they are very close to home and it may well be the Pandemic that has made us appreciate , more fully, local scenes. The dogs , of course, never go to Greec e so have no idea why we keep stopping to take pictures on home territory. Quite possibly they are wondering why we are not making the effort to have a good sniff or do a little wee.

Being more appreciative of everything is a curious side effect of Covid-19. @theoldmortuary we plan on being better at appreciating everything more effectively. A hard way to learn a simple lesson.

Pandemic Pondering #184

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)2 Comments

Trematonia is a fantastical design for wallpapers and soft furnishings based on the gardens and woods of Trematon Castle.

https://www.houseofhackney.com/uk/trematonia

Obviously it’s a fictional land but it is one we overlook every day when we take the dogs for a walk.

By slightly extending the fiction I can say that we have many friends who live in Outer Trematonia, in real life the village of Trematon that stretches to the west and far beyond the castle. Today we had quite the adventure and went for Afternoon Tea at Trematon Hall, also within the fictional world of Outer Trematonia, Afternoon Tea has always seemed a slightly fantastical meal, I blame Lewis Carol and his Alice in Wonderland

@theoldmortuary we are partial to an afternoon tea. A subject we have studied diligently over the years. We were not disappointed , the reverse in fact. Close to home we found one of the tastiest afternoon teas we’ve had in a while. Julie, our host, is an amazing baker, everything was home made.

Every last crumb was eaten, in no particular order these were our  highlights , Ham and Piccalilli (the best piccalilli we’ve tasted) Pear Tarte Tatin (Pears from the garden) Scone, Clotted Cream with Tayberry Jam ( Tayberries from a neighbours garden)

Controversial image I know , especially as we are in Cornwall but the bigger news is that one of our friends cousins bred the Tayberry in 1979. Apparently it is like a blackberry on speed, which is all a little bit Alice in Wonderland, so just as well we were in the fantasy land of Outer Trematonia.

Julie showed us around her stylishly renovated home. One that many local women would be familiar with, as the Trematon Women’s Institute met here, when Liz Turner owned the Hall. Another reminder of Liz was the family Beach Hut which she had moved to the gardens to remind her of family holidays by the sea.

Following the fantasy theme of this blog I took some pictures that have nothing to do with afternoon tea and everything to do with distilling the magic of a place into a few photos.

You can just see the cousin of the Tayberry Breeder in this shot.

In all seriousness @theoldmortuary had a fantastic afternoon tea in an idyllic setting at Trematon Hall, which is in the real life village of Trematon.

Hall Farm, Trematon, Saltash PL12 4RU
01752 842351 https://g.co/kgs/97Tqb6

But one last fantasy nod to both Alice in Wonderland and Outer Trematonia.( I blame all this fantasy stuff on the sugar and copious cups of tea )

An Outer Trematonian caterpillar arriving for his own cup of tea, wise chap, excellent choice.

Pandemic Pondering #181

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Coffee HuntersLeave a comment

Lockdown @theoldmortuary changed many things , some things stayed the same.Today we received half of a prize that represents change and we await the half that represents no change. This is to encourage anyone who sees those ‘share and comment’ posts on Instagram for a chance to win a prize. The prizes are real and random people win them.

Our reading habits changed during Lockdown. Hannah completely lost the ability to commit to a book. I lost the focus for the kind of books I like to read and developed a thirst for foreign based detective drama. We weren’t unusual, everyone in my book group reported changes in genre choice. None of us managed to read the classics or ‘ difficult’ books that you might imagine time and limited life choices might allow.

Today we received the first part of our prize. 4 books fromhttps://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/ Neither of us are thriller readers but with changes in reading style so fresh in our minds and a gift of books, now must be the time.

Book bundle from https://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/
Coffee the ‘ no change’ habit @theoldmortuary . Less cake recently

Coffee and the pursuit of excellence is unchanged @theoldmortuary . Our prize will come from https://extractcoffee.co.uk/ A company we have used to send us lovely coffee by post.

What a clever coupling, books and coffee. Perfection would be enjoying both in a foreign place beside a pool. What may well happen is a flask of good coffee, a book and some warm clothes after a swim at the only pool available to us.

Tidal Pool, Devils Point, Plymouth
Tidal Pool, Devils Point ,Plymouth

Not a bad way to enjoy a prize.