Mentions: theoldmortuary

Pandemic Pondering#92

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity, This is not a sports blog, Words3 Comments

This image of Hugo pretty much sums up my lifelong indifference to one of Britain’s favourite sports, football or soccer. As a blog that very loosely charts social history it seemed wrong not to mention the return of competitive sport to England.

Initially I didn’t give the cancellation of sporting fixtures much thought, but sporting events are, at the very least, background noise in the cultural life of a country. Significant events mark the gentle climb out of winter hibernation because they get media attention. The Six Nations Rugby tournament, The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the Grand National are as much a sign of Spring in Britain as a Daffodil. Even if you pay them no attention they exist. Except this year they didn’t because of Covid-19.

I missed the sporting markers of Spring.

I must be one of the least capable people to contemplate writing a blog about sport. Pondering is exactly that sometimes . How does the return of professional football touch, however briefly, my Ponderings..

Words of course.

I do love intelligent conversation about any subject. In some ways it is relaxing to have no opinions on the subject being discussed.

Football my aural pleasure.

Quite a few years ago @theoldmortuary were in a Jamaican cafe, in East Dulwich. One of only two tables occupied.

The table behind us had three men on it talking animatedly but most importantly, intelligently, about football.

Obviously, we eavedropped a lot, our magical Harry Potter stretchy ears weaving invisibly onto the next table.

We remarked , once we had left, how great it was to hear football discussed so wisely. When we left we realised we had been listening to two retired players talking with the owner of the cafe. This was my late introduction to an interest in football talk and the seed of an idea to carry this blog.

Football is much in the news this week . Post lockdown the men’s professional teams have started playing matches in empty stadiums in order to complete their 2020 fixtures.

More importantly a 22 year old professional footballer, Marcus Rashford used social media to eloquently force the British government to perform a U-turn on policy regarding providing meal vouchers for the most vulnerable schoolchildren during the long summer vacation.

Thankfully podcasts have brought us as much intelligent football/sport chatter as we can handle since the ‘ East Dulwich Ear Incident.

Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy accompany our long car journeys.
https://g.co/kgs/XiyDTW

Just this week I’ve caught two football podcasts.

Gary Neville applies Sports psychology to real life on Out to Lunch with Jay Rayner.A fascinating natter over simultaneous take away food about philanthropy and football. During the pandemic Out for Lunch has become, in for a takeaway, on your own with a lap top.

Lame joke me would have preferred it if his brother Phil had actually discussed the same topics.
https://castbox.fm/x/1FqhV

Then out of nowhere our favourite coffee shop launched their own football podcast.
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=544048&refid=asa
https://m.facebook.com/TheHutongCafe/

Headphones replace Harry Potter Ears but the effect is just as pleasing.

Daisies growing in the penalty box lines on a disused football pitch.

So here’s the conundrum , we’ve really not missed sport itself in the last three months but it will be good to hear about it again,and for it to mark time through the seasons. For actual pleasure and also importsntly because Eating Podcasts have filled the void left by sport. That is not entirely a good thing.

Meanwhile Lola can also demonstrate sporting indifference every bit as well as Hugo.

This is not a football club bench!

This is not a sports blog.

Pandemic Pondering #90

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

#90 and exactly 3 months since I started Pandemical Pondering. #1 on the 17th of March was inspired by having to cancel an art exhibition I was organising with an art group . I was also showing symptoms of a virus so my lockdown and isolation was a week ahead of the official British Lockdown.
I didn’t really think 3 months ahead or imagine a daily pondering , pondering on for 3 months.I just checked the camera archive for the 17 th of March and I have nothing exciting to share. It must have been an unremarkable day.The unused public toilets near us gained a For Sale board and the shadows were longer.In those 3 months our lives have changed in unimaginable ways that have no direct relationship to Covid-19, but Covid-19 has shaped the way we have been able to respond.
The weather in lockdown has been very kind to us and the delicate blooms in our spring garden . A bit like wild Foxgloves our garden blooms are undamaged by wind or rain. So for PP#90 let’s hear it for Pinky Plants.PP#90 is also a day of celebration. Grocery shopping @theoldmortuary has been quite a formal planned outing during Lockdown. We’ve had a running list that could be flexible to cater for shortages. We’ve not been diligent shoppers if something hasn’t been available on the day we shopped then we’ve done without. For one item three months of doing without ended today . For the first time since lockdown we found grapefruit juice in a supermarket. Giddy Times ahead.Let’s see how the next three months shape up.

Pandemic Pondering #83

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

A quarter of @theoldmortuary have returned to work today. The sort of work where full PPE is required. The other human quarter needs to sort out the art studio. Making it both effective as a studio and usable as a gathering space outside the house now we can gather with a few more people in our garden. I also needed to dig out a blackboard for us to use as a kitchen note board as we navigate cooking a new style diet. Low carb/ no dairy.

It’s all a bit confusing so notes and shopping lists will help.

We did the usual morning dog walk, pre pandemic style. Me the dogs and headphones with Jay Rayner staying in for lunch on his Podcast Out For Lunch.

George Ezra, Ed Balls and Edgar Wright were great company on my walk and on the Studio tidy up.

https://www.somethinelse.com/projects/out-to-lunch-with-jay-rayner/

Regular walks can be a little bit mesmeric. There is a link with yesterday’s blog, Pandemic Pondering# 82 and Advent#15. In Advent #15 I shared the walk with a dear friend whose funeral I mention in Pandemic Pondering #82.

For this reason I thought I would share some of the sights of the walk, some days it’s good to reflect a little. Although too much reflecting and not enough concentrating gave me the first Horse Fly bite of the season.

Looking west from Churchtown Farm Nature Reserve to the River Lynher
Kissing Gate
Up and Over Style
Dog bottoms, my usual view.
Hugo and Lola
Seed heads in a building site.
Rusty elbow and fern on a barn.
Pink roses falling off a wall
Teasel
Poppies coming to the end of their days
Geraniums believing they are in the Mediterranean

Back to the tidy up….

Pandemic Pondering #82

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Serendipity3 Comments

Today @theoldmortuary attended the webcam funeral for a dear friend and regular reader of this blog. I think he would consider himself ordinary but actually he was one of the loveliest people you could hope to meet. There was so much love in St Petrocs Chapel it was easy to feel comfortable with this new way of celebrating and marking the passing of a life well lived.

The celebrant and family created a beautiful service that warmly evoked everything about our friend. Wonderful music had us dabbing at our eyes from almost the first note. Could this be a new way to mark the passing of someone when there are reasons that make actual attending of a funeral difficult.

For the first time ever , we travelled, digitally on this occasion,to the Crematorium at Bodmin. It was a beautiful day and the natural backdrop was perfect.

Is a daily blog, particularly in a pandemic, Social History ? Particularly in the hands of an ordinary person who just ponders and then writes about it.

I wondered about the appropriateness of mentioning a funeral in a blog, but it was an experience that has been altered by the Pandemic and this is our new normal for the foreseeable future. It may shape the future of mourning or it may just be for now.

If nothing else a daily blog is a way of recording the changes we are all experiencing.

Pandemic Pondering #81

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family4 Comments

A pandemic 1st for @theoldmortuary. A Day Out.

Today we went to the Eden Project in Cornwall to have a socially distanced meet up with some of our family.

The Eden Project opened to the public recently for the first time since Lockdown.
https://www.edenproject.com

The Eden Project has got socially distanced tourism spot on. You have to book a slot, so it can’t be a spontaneous visit but beyond that the amount of control is so deftly handled, once you are in, it is easy to forget the restrictions of the pandemic, without ever flouting them.

On arrival there are ample public toilets, water stations and a take out coffee shop. The hosts who welcome you have the same welcoming charm as London 2012 Olympic Volunteers, and that was considered a Gold Standard of hosting. Hand sanitising gel is available as soon a you reach the welcome concourse and throughout the site.

Only the outside area is open during this pandemic opening. Visitors are guided to wander through areas that can be overlooked by anyone dazzled , quite rightly, by the magnificence of the Tropical and Mediterranean Biomes or the Science of The Core in more normal times. This is a fabulous chance to experience the outside with restricted visitor numbers. The peace is magical.

Instead of biomes we got intimate with bees.

And wandered down Cornish lanes.

Flower meadows and single specimens slowed us down. This was the most tranquil visit we have ever made to Eden

Fragrance is everywhere. Once we had meandered our way down to the Biomes more toilets were available and another take- away coffee stall, again social distancing was imposed with a gentle reminder.

A great time was had by all.

And for Miss VV, her first experience of being, very gently, escorted out of a venue as the last woman standing.

Pandemic Pondering #80

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

#80 … I did not expect to be still going, but here we are, no end in sight. #80 should perhaps be a significant pondering but today, Saturday, has hijacked the blog by revealing something to me ( us) never before seen.

Despite living the biggest portions of our lives very near the sea and a huge river no-one @theoldmortuary has ever had a nautical bone or thought in their bodies . Human or dog it’s just not our thing. Today the coffee/breakfast quest took us unknowingly into a leisure boatyard.
https://www.yachthavens.com/yacht-haven-quay-plymouth/

The coffee was good and the breakfast fine. There was a cute pirate quote on the cafe wall.

‘I wanted to be a pirate but I couldn’t get my ship together’
https://m.facebook.com/TheMessRoomCafe/

But the stand out thing of the morning was not coffee or breakfast, apologies to The Mess Room and thanks for being open to serve take- out deliciousness.

Coffee and breakfast knocked off the pedastal of pleasure by a giant fork lift truck.

Now that IS a fork lift truck to aspire to. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, being used only to warehouse or smaller fork lifts. Multi story boat storage was pretty unexpected too.

Around the Mess Room there were some nautical detritus to catch the eye.

One other Saturday revelation. It’s not only humans who have scatty hair during this pandemic. Have you ever seen such a non iconic palm tree?

Pandemic Pondering #79

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FriendsLeave a comment

Easing out of lockdown. Not so long ago conversations with people other than those that share the same home was a bit random or coincidental. We may have been deprived of hugs or the normal interactions with friends but our local to @theoldmortuary life has had some amazing revelations. We now know all of our near neighbours, and have had time to talk at length with many of them. We’ve made some new friends from distant places, distant in lockdown is not so far as it used to be. Being coincidentally in the same place at the same time made Coronafriendships. Social distance garden meetings have been lovely with our more longstanding friends.Today was a bit of a novelty, we had two meetings with two different pairs of friends . It felt novel and a little bit exciting . Giddy even.The morning started with a summer playlist . The stand out track was Peaches by The Stranglers . Such is my weird pandemic head that without thinking I chose these two garments to wear today, and the curious meandering that is Pandemic Pondering #79 formed itself.Back to The Stranglers. Peaches is one of those pieces of music that everyone is familiar with because bits of it are sampled in TV shows and other music. It was considered to be a seminal punk song in 1977 when it was released.
Listen to Peaches (BBC In Concert 23/04/77) by The Stranglers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/the-stranglers/peaches-bbc-in-concert-23-04Enough of the Peaches, back to the nattering. This morning’s meeting was with people I’ve known for around 30 years, there have been some gaps, but now we see each other regularly and laugh about ridiculous stuff. The talk is non stop. After three hours we had jaw ache. A brief break and we were off to nattering session 2 this time with someone we met a couple of weeks before lockdown , more nattering and laughing at preposterous things . We completely forgot to mention Book Club which had been the plan. More jaw ache.Laughter is an amazing thing , it jiggles your belly and burnishes your mind.With my mind burnished and my belly jiggled it’s back to peaches. I’ve had a trawl through the photo archive and plucked out some peach images and had a look in the colour theory books. The photo file was a richer source of peachy stuff than the books. Peach seems a little overlooked in colour theory world.Peach represents immortality in Chinese culture. It is named for the interior flesh colour of the white Peach. It is a range of soft colours between pink and orange. It was first mentioned in literature in 1588.Art Deco in the 1920’s and 30’s used a lot of peach.With the randomness of the internet I can also share a code , which I accidentally wore today. In the gay community a ‘ bear’ who wants to hook up with other ‘bears’ wears a peach bandana. Exactly my choice for the new government guidance of face covering for public transport.Peaches from the archive.Last year’s Cafe Au Lait Dahlias.Close ups of a peachy rose.Autumn foliage in the garden.A tiny shell on a beach in Cuba.A peach trumpeted daffodilFriends , peaches and The Stranglers, that was a curious blog, sometimes they just write themselves.Have a peachy weekend.

Pandemic Pondering#75

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, Serendipity1 Comment

It is a complete coincidence that #75 is occuring on the day that Lockdown restrictions are being eased in Britain.

I have pondered when exactly I would stop writing Pandemic Ponderings. If things were uncertain in Pandemic Pondering #1, there is no greater clarity as I reach #75. The uncertainties are different but not less. At #1 I wondered what would become of this country, led, as we are, by not particularly competent politicians. By #75 I no longer have to wonder because we are all pretty much in the dark. I do have to think very hard for myself about how and when I will ease my own lockdown and introduce myself back into a different world, because our government has not given me the confidence to think that they are capable of giving the best advice.

In consequence, pondering will continue until it feels right to stop. I am the best judge of this.

#75 is a significant number and, by serendipity, today really rose to the challenge of making a day memorable.

Memorable Moment #1

A friend shared this simple piece of text explaining one reason why we all need to be cautious about rushing out of Lockdown, for other people’s sake.

Thanks Tessa for the following message.

A quick lesson about autoimmune diseases. It is a disease where instead of your white blood cells protecting your body from invaders, they turn around and attack your cells, tissues and organs. Chronic fatigue is a symptom. It is not a cold or the flu, you will never get better, and even a nap will not help. Just eating a salad and hitting the gym won’t slim your face or get the pounds off. Sleeping 10 hours doesn’t leave you well rested, ever. The last minute changes in plans because that “just got ran over” feeling never makes appointments, it just walks in whenever you aren’t ready. Painful joints, muscles and bones, dry skin, breaking hair, hair loss, mood swings, and depression are just the tip of the iceberg. You are also prone to having multiple autoimmune diseases, they typically come in pairs of two. You easily catch viral and bacterial infections. Currently Covid 19 is the worry. You have days where no matter how hard you try, you just can’t smile for anyone.
I urge you to think twice before passing judgment and thinking our nation is overreacting to the extra measures being taken to curb the spread of this virus. YOU might be able to recover from it no problem however, carry it to SOMEONE WITH AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE and that individual won’t be as lucky. A list , maybe not exhaustive, of Auto immune diseases.All of them exhausting!
Severe Asthma, Addison’s disease, Endometriosis, M.E, Rheumatoid Arthritis, POTS, sarcoidosis, MCAD, Sjogren’s, Scleroderma, Hashimoto Disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Sarcoidosis, Hepatitis, Raynauld’s Syndrome, Diabetes, Mould Illness, Celiac, CROHN’S, Ulcerative Colitis, Pemphigus, SPS, MS, PBC, Psoriatic Arthritis, CIDP, MMN, GPA , CRPS

Memorable Moment #2

A neighbour, Gil, popped a recipe through the door for a low carb no dairy supper. If we avoid the New Potatoes. Thanks Gil.

Memorable Moment #3

These beautiful earrings arrived from a friend, currently caring for her parents in Canada. They represent our shared love of Daffodils with the beautiful Citrine beads.

Thanks Kathy

Memorable Moment #4

There is something wonderful about seeing people for the first time after lockdown. My bookclub has been having a regular, monthly, WhatsApp chat about books. For the first time today 5 of us used the video mode, it was lovely to see such happy familiar faces. Thanks Bookworms.

Memorable Moment #5

A friend gave us this orange retro alarm clock today. It is living in the actual old mortuary @theoldmortuary. I think the time has come to write an orange blog.

Thanks Jeannie

Memorable Moment#6

Three generations standing in the flisvos of the retreating tide.

Thanks Sam and VV and the beauty of the Greek language.

Pandemic Pondering #73

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns2 Comments

The Love Tree in Spring. My last visit to this intriguing tree was in early February when a pandemic was brewing far away. A little over a month after my first visit to the tree,despite the government’s inactivity @theoldmortuary we were already limiting our contact with other humans. Better to be safe than sorry.

I had read about the tree in a local publication and was interested in using it as an image
https://issuu.com/cornerstonevision/docs/issuu_love_saltash_february_20

The February photograph I used to create a print. The first of a series of works, I hope.

Love tree , wearing Spring green. Taken from the opposite side of the tree.

The Love Tree is also known as the Family Tree. People have carved their initials on the trunk for centuries. It is said that there was a leper colony nearby and that some of the early carvings date back to that period. The tree is also known as the Family tree with people hiding small fetish objects associated with their children in the nooks and crannies of the tree and it’s roots.

This gnome was an engaging chap with his apple harvest in his basket. Who put him here and what is his significance , hidden in this tree, on a remote Cornish lane. The same question hangs over each little object.

Some of the objects are placed in hard to reach places.

High up among the carved initials.

The Love or Family tree also has a new pandemic message.

Something we are all trying to do.

Pandemic Pondering #72

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns3 Comments

Spring in Cornwall is often beautiful but it is always tempered with a lot of rain. This year, in Lockdown, Spring in Cornwall has been magnificent. The beautiful show of wild flowers on Cornish hedges are more perfect than ever, almost Chelsea Flower Show perfect, because they haven’t been subjected to the bad weather of most years. Today I got up early to catch them in the rising sun. The bees were busy and the tiny lanes were a symphony of bird song, buzzy bees and pollinators whose names I do not know.

The pictures start at home and end with the Love Tree. I wrote a blog on 13th February called Love Tree/Jelly Shoe.
https://theoldmortuary.design/2020/02/13/

Tomorrow it will get another whole blog to itself .

@theoldmortuary poppies.

Beautiful seed heads on some grasses that have just turned up in our front garden planters

The perimeter wall of Trematon Castle swells with vibrant colour every May and June.

I painted one of the more formal walls of the castle,in Spring, a couple of years ago.

The next few images are an homage to perfect Foxgloves. These are the hardy perennial show stoppers of the Cornish hedges around here. Their strong architectural shape is indicative of Spring in Cornish hedgerows. Usually on closer inspection that are a little battered and bruised by traditional West Country weather. In Cornwall the day Lockdown was announced the weather became sunny and for the most part predictable . The next images are a celebration of Foxgloves in their prime, untarnished by the elements.

All Foxgloves were papped on the way to the Love Tree. I will start off with a couple nearest to the castle, after that the blog gets unashamedly pink.

I came across the cutest road sign on my travels. Steady On. Such a great statement to gently urge caution.

And it’s partner sign , politely thanking drivers for due diligence.

And finally, the Love Tree, tomorrow’s blog subject.