Mentions: theoldmortuary

Pandemic Pondering #356

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, Serendipity1 Comment

When you leave home in sunshine for a swim and by the time you arrive your car looks like this you know its going to be an interesting afternoon.

The hail did stop but the skies were pretty menacing for our swim.

As this blog is published it will be the second Mothers Day in Britain that has gone unmarked by  gatherings because of Pandemic Restrictions. @theoldmortuary will be at the centre of busyness tomorrow. Situated as we are close to two large graveyards. The only mothers who can be safely or legally visited currently are dead ones and only then if their last resting place is local. Last year was markedly busier in the cemetery than usual and I’m sure Mothers Day 2021 will be much the same.

We are really missing family contact. Our nearest and dearest are hundreds or thousands of miles away. Not that we are unique in this matter but it is irksome. Better to be irked than dead of course or grieving for a recent loss.

Two sea swims in 24 hours when it is chilly is exhausting. Our Sunday regime will involve an early rise to avoid people, especially those who are breaking Covid restrictions to meet their mothers! Being irked also brings a side order of  grumpiness with rule breakers!  Gazing at the sea with coffee in hand and not immersing ourselves in it is the plan. Almost certainly , especially if the weather is good we will regret not getting in. Skinny dipping will be considered and rejected immediately, not seriously but wishfully. Dogs will be walked and another morning in Lockdown will be ticked off.

Pandemic Pondering #347

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment

Yesterday was International Book Day. Serendipity put this book into my hands. I ordered it because I like the input this psychotherapist brings to a TV art programme. Graysons Art Club on Channel 4. Eponymously named for her husband, ceramacist Grayson Perry.

We have a lot of Grayson’s books @theoldmortuary. He is an original thinker. We go to his exhibitions and his live performances. I’m sure Philippa will not have written a bog standard self-help book.

https://g.co/kgs/BYLCwC

This might seem like an odd book for me to read . @theoldmortuary our parents are long dead and the Pandemic has rendered us theoretical relations. No hands on parenting, grandparenting , or siblinging in this house currently.

To be honest I just fancied something that wasn’t a novel, biography or a book club essential. I’ve had a great pandemic year of reading , hardly a moment wasted on a below par book. So why not take some time with a book that is not exactly aimed at me. I love reading books by wise women regardless of the theme or its relevance to my life, there is always nuggets of information to be be gleaned and used for the benefit my mind management.

Wise women will also be significant in my next reading project. I’m writing a review for this fascinating book about women who have relocated to Italy.

LostandfoundinItaly.com

Just as with Philippa Perry there is an arty connection. Linda Winter, a friend of mine who lived a similar London/Tamar Valley life as me, relocated to Italy two years ago and is the illustrator of the book. I can’t wait to get a copy in my hands, how delicious to read it with real purpose and a chance to write about art again.

Pandemic Pondering #345

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

It may be somewhat late into our International pastime of Lockdowns to give you a new hobby for your daily exercise. But better late than never, I can give you a new micro  hobby of looking for Urine deflectors on buildings during your permitted exercise. Once you know the function of a urine deflector they are easy to spot out in the open . Positioned to discourage multiple men from urinating, repeatedly, in the same outdoor location they are designed to return the flow of amber fluid squarely back onto the urinating chaps own feet. I’m sure all cultures have them. Urine deflectors are built onto historic buildings and contemporary ones. Technology might just be removing the need for this almost annonymous feature. A specialist paint or coating has been developed that bounces wee off perpendicular surfaces. I know this not because I have an unnatural interest but because my flat in London was located on a small unlit lane very close to a railway station and  @theoldmortuary is opposite a pub ! In either location I have shouted, used a hose and chased the pisser off on those rare occasions when I have caught them in the act. They are rarely apologetic and mostly indignant. Paint would be the answer in both cases , an architectural feature not really possible.

This urine deflector is on the corner of an old pub called The Butchers Arms. Now known as The Hutong Cafe in Stonehouse Plymouth.

The one below is outside the Bank of England.

Link to article below.

https://londonist.com/london/secret/urine-deflectors

Old pubs and public buildings are great locations to find them. We have a big one in Saltash, positioned between an old pub wall and one of the supporting brick legs of I.K. Brunels Royal Albert Rail Bridge that spans the Tamar River.

Mighty Engineering
Practical Engineering.

Happy hunting!

As soon as there is good light there will be a PS ( how appropriate!) to this blog …

P.S. Last night I noticed these 3 additions to the bottom of our church tower. Are they Urine deflectors? These slopes are only added to one side of the church tower base. Historically this church had its own brewery and Public House. This side of the tower would have been on the way home to the town from the pub.

Pandemic Pondering #340

On By theoldmortuary.designIn theoldmortuaryLeave a comment

Casting a long Shadow. Part 1

I could, of course, be talking about the effect of the current Pandemic. Absolutely it has, and will, cast a long shadow on all of our lives. Not all the long shadows will be negatives. @theoldmortuary, in common with everyone, we’ve had some absolute shockers of negative experiences associated with Covid-19 but there have also been some life changing positives.

Casting a long shadow. Part II.

But today , I’m talking about the long shadows cast by our fish sculptures. The bright sunshine caused, George, our 22 year old cat to bask on the stairs. As the afternoon progressed the fish shadows started moving towards her. At the same time her own particular sunbeam left the stairs and started tracking up the wall. She was not impressed.

Being a predominantly black cat George rarely features in photographs, which made todays impromptu photo shoot all the more lovely. It also gave me the chance to consider long shadows.

Pandemic Pondering #339

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BoxLeave a comment

There was a time when Thursday blogs were based on my experiences as a gallery guide at The Box. A Pandemic put a stop to that but here we are on a Thursday and this blog will be distinctly Boxlike.

Not Real World of course. Another new tech experience .

The Box Quiz

The people with all the questions and all of the answers.
Two of many categories

The low tech answer sheet.

What I can’t show you are my fellow competitors. Microsoft Teams was new to me and I had failed to download the system . In consequence only the hosts/quizmasters were visible to me eveyone else was just a disembodied voice as I was to them!

The questions were fired at us at speed, all the better to thwart googling cheats. It was a fabulous quiz and reassuring that I could actually retrieve random facts from my pandemic befuddled mind.

As it happens @theoldmortuary did quite well. Which just goes to prove that straddling the digital/ Analogue divide is entirely possible, especially if you have your comfy pants on. Or even if you don’t. No video evidence!

So thats it, another Thursday Box Tale.

Thanks to everyone who made the magic happen.

Pandemic Pondering #336

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings5 Comments

There has been a good bit of pondering over this blog today. No standout trail of random thoughts stood out yesterday ready for publication this morning. The tomato figurehead was a late arrival, its significance will be revealed later.

February is watercolour month @theoldmortuary . Not this year, the studio is partially packed away. I’ve not painted anything since a commission was finished before Christmas. Not able to quite control creativity I found something I can keep in a small bag, Lino printing is likely to become a method of illustration for these blogs once I get going effectively.

For similar reasons watercolour is my medium of choice in the dark months of January and February. It doesn’t require studio space, just a dining table which happens to be in the actual old mortuary, which is lovely and warm. ( Not a sentence associated with real mortuaries)

February is often about experimenting. So linoprinting is not such a great leap. Watercolour portraits, fascinate me. This one is of Fred, one of my schoolfriends. Painted a couple of years ago. I enjoyed the discipline and probably need an excuse to do more.

February is also about buying new art materials and getting to know them. The quickest way for me to do that is to revert to my earliest artistic endeavours and one that I only truly revisit on holidays ( no time soon I think)

Watercolour landscapes, a fine way to relax and experiment a bit. As a holiday activity it is unequalled, although many of mine are not truly watercolour as it is all too easy to dip a brush in my gin and tonic in error. This last watercolour will feature in tomorrows blog too, as it is a painting of the ‘Nearly There Trees’ a famed Landmark on one of the routes into Cornwall.

So back to the tomatoes. Inspired by The Lighter Side of Science on Facebook a page published by https://www.iflscience.com/

This site is perfect for the strange old mashup that is me. Part artist , part scientist, part ponderer.

I’ve reused and paraphrased their quote of today onto my painting. When else would l get the chance to use a painting of a tomato!

Pandemic Pondering #317

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings2 Comments

Wednesday, ‘Hump’ Day. Definable for a week but when will England pass the ‘ hump’ day of the 3rd Pandemic Lockdown. Pedaling uphill with no summit in sight and no promise of a freewheel to the end is so much harder in these winter months.

I’ve always enjoyed February so it feels unfaithful to not be so keen this year. February is the month we make plans for the rest of the year.Meet ups and even, dare I say it, when holidays with family and friends are planned.

This time last year I was preparing to curate a Spring Exhibition , although  I had a sneaking feeling by the end of February that we might well be planning in vain. Working closely with other artists in any collaboration isn’t ever a waste of time and I gained 
a good friend, who has proved to be  a valuable pair of ears in this pandemic, while planning the exhibition that never was. We may never have cemented a friendship without the unique circumstances of the pandemic.

She is not the only friend @theoldmortuary has gained in this unusual year. Funny to think that we have friends that we now know really well who we have never hugged or even been closer to than a metre. All these new friendships come from a tiny geographical area close to home. Less than ten miles certainly. Meanwhile friends and family old and new  are out there locally and in the rest of the world also unhugged. For the forseable future they will remain unhugged.

I suppose the best I can hope for from this February is to just keep moving forward on a metaphorical bicycle, no plans but with a basket full of hugs, waiting to spill out on the downhill when my feet are off the pedals and the future is a little more certain.

Pandemic Pondering#317

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Plymouth Open Water Swimmers3 Comments

The first lockdown baking session since non- Christmas took place yesterday. Orange and Almond Cake , as above, and Onion Bhajis. Both cooked because they appeared in articles I was reading and because they sounded impossibly easy to make. In my reading/baking experiment they proved to be as easy as the narrator/author suggested. They were only easy because we are nearly a year into Pandemic Lockdowns. In a pre- pandemic life they would still have been easy but a trip to a supermarket would , almost certainly, have been needed. @theoldmortuary we have become much more confident cooks, driven by dietary and lifestyle changes that were needed when a health problem revealed itself early in Lockdown 1.

Now we have a multi cultural larder cupboard that facilitated yesterdays cook with the aid of the internet.

Onion Bhajis , always a thing of great expectation and sometimes soggy dissapointment. No dissapointment at our house yesterday. In the book excerpt I was reading , set in East London, an unexpected visitor was welcomed with hugs, a cup of tea and freshly cooked bhajis!

Hugs!!! How retro is that.

So good was this experiment of bhaji making there were none left for a photo shoot.

Not so the Orange and Almond Cake created because a food critic said eating it reminded him of his dear mum.

It seemed implausible because it contained four whole oranges.

Whole Orange Cake – rind and all!

Follow the link above to find the recipe I used.

The cake was fabulous. Thank goodness there are the lifestyle changes that were needed to go along with the dietary ones in Lockdown I. Increased exercise for good health and immune system boosting helps to burn off the calories created by the baking experiments.

Yesterday was a ‘ bobbing’ day. Cold water swimming is very good for boosting the immune system. With cake and coffee packed we set off for Firestone Bay. Seas around Plymouth had been rough and messy earlier in the day but all that was left when we arrived were some curious currents and water that wouldn’t have looked out of place in our post-baking washing up bowl.

The cake was consumed post ‘ bob’ with hot coffee on the way home. Once home we checked a local swimming site on Facebook to see how other swimmers had fared during the day. To our surprise ‘bobbers’ were featured in a photograph.

© Plymouth Open Water Swimmers

Featuring the post swim rush towards cake!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/214153495854310/?ref=share

The link above is to Plymouth Open Water Swimmers. A fabulous Facebook page that we always refer to before and after a ‘bob’ just in case there is anything that we need to know about swimming locally.

Pandemic Pondering #316

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

It’s not often that February gets quite such a welcome, but @theoldmortuary January seemed to drag its feet a little. Probably not the months fault. With Lockdown III starting moments after non- Christmas the normal January ennui started sooner than normal. Cold water swimming has pulled us through the month with twice weekly swimming.

Strange that in a month with more time to read, I had forgotten about this book until yesterday. When I was working and commuting in London the electronic version of this book was my daily read. I never felt moved to read it out loud on the bus or train as people who read the Bible or Koran were sometimes moved to do. Now I’ve refound it I may throw in the odd snippet or morsel of London history into the pondering mix.

February the first is not so interesting , and none of my favourite diarists bothered with it but in 2021 just getting to February 1st feels good enough.

January did not slip away unnoticed yesterday. An irregular swimming companion joined us for a lunchtime beach walk.

Pandemic Pondering #315

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

After a ‘ bob’ last night we pondered on the role of Hugo and Lola on our Lockdown exercise routine. 5 days out of 7 the dogs are central to the plans of the hour long exercise event. The other 2 days the exercise is our cold water swimming session.

I think we both agreed that without the dogs some days would pass without any outdoor exercise. Today was certainly a day when indoors would have won the vote if it were not for the @theoldmortuary fluffs. To be honest if they had been given a choice they would rather have stayed in their pyjamas and read books.

As it was we made it, in dreadful weather to the Scott Memorial. The weather was so shocking nobody was there before us!

On the way we found this old tunnel and door.Revealed recently by storms blowing down the protective metal screens. It seems like a fine metaphor for January 2021 . All a bit dark and never ending with the promise of something different beyond the door. But who can even guess what the ‘different’ will be.