#521 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn historyLeave a comment
Daffodils were yesterday, today is tulips.

Plymouth is a city like any other with suburbs. Many of those suburbs are unknown to us in any real sense. Sometimes they are just corridors from one familiar place to another, often these journeys are taken by just one of us. Yesterday we did one of those journeys together with the dogs. On this particular journey there is an odd little car park, often full with no obvious purpose.

” I’ve always wondered why people park there.”

” Me too.”

“Let’s park there”

And so began a lovely early Spring walk with bright green moss and foliage surrounded by Elizabethan ruins.

We had stumbled on the site of Radford House.

http://www.lostheritage.org.uk/houses/lh_devon_radfordhouse.html

Plymouth was a very significant city in Elizabethan times and this was a very significant house in those times. Many of the illustrious names who visited here are viewed somewhat differently in recent times, as Colonisation and Acquisition are considered at a more granular level.

The Harris family who owned the property were very wealthy and the house has been linked with many myths and legends of lost treasure and hidden assets.

One substantiated story is about the Armada Service. Crafted between 1581 and 1602 from Silver and Gold captured,most likely,from Spanish ships that were raided in the New World. 22 plates, bowls and cups made from plundered precious metals

The family held onto their silver until the English Civil War. 1642-46. At that time the family had a cunning plan to hide their wealth by burying it underground on nearby Dartmoor. Unfortunately not such a cunning plan as after the war nobody could remember the location .

The silver was found in a potato store in 1827 by an agricultural labourer, and after changing hands a few times it is now held in the British Museum. Some other items from this collection have been identified by United States auction houses but the whereabouts of these items are unknown. U.S readers might like to check their basement store rooms. Link below to identify.

The Armada Service https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-armada-service/PQH1iUIHlXHh1w

So this is what happens near a car park with no obvious purpose. A lovely walk and a few minutes of googling. Some exercise, a story and some moss covered logs. Blogging perfection.

#520 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Cornwall, Gardens and gardening, Serendipity2 Comments

This blog is 3 years late and could have been another year in the Procrastination Pile. I had arranged to attend a Daffodil Festival with a friend in 2020. The festival was cancelled in the early weeks of Covid Restrictions and this is the first time it has been held since. The extra year of procrastination could easily have been added to, by my poor choice of clothes yesterday.

As you can see from the header picture things were a bit wet! I had had a perfectly tolerable dog walk without a coat and in Birkenstocks while at home in the morning. The further I drove into the Tamar Valley the wetter it got.

The lanes were running with brown rainwater pouring off the fields. I phoned my friend and suggested a different outing. A snug pub with warm food and no drips.

Her response was to bring me warm socks and wellies and feed me a scone and a cup of coffee.

And with that we were off! Some daffodil varieties were being shown indoors. Definitely an easier environment to appreciate them, were it not for steamed up glasses and rivulets of cold water tracking down my neck.

Daffodils and Pewter in the Great Hall.

I started recording the names of the Daffodils but honestly I think I am going to get into a pickle with that, so these beauties are enigmatically anonymous.

Outside nothing had improved despite making the absolute most of sitting with a scone and coffee. We hadn’t even managed to put the world right.

The outside locations were not overrun with visitors, the cafe on the other hand was heaving with wet humans. There is a point in every adventure when enough is enough, even for a woman in borrowed, vivid, socks and wellies. I love these socks!

Below is an experiment, I don’t know if this QR code will work,but if you can,give it a try.

Readers, it works! The audio clip Seagulls and Sunrise is lovely and tells the history of Daffodils and the Tamar Valley.

#519 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering3 Comments
The End of the Day, Tinside Lido © theoldmortuary.

There is a magical moment, on Summer evenings when the swimming public have been ushered out of Plymouths Iconic Tinside Lido.The fountain is still turned on, but there are no swimmers in the water,no bystanders sat on the walls. All the staff are out of view, stacking sun loungers and deck chairs against walls far below us. For a moment the fountains sounds are not masked by squealing swimmers and all you can hear is splashing water . Then, just like that, an unseen hand flicks a switch and the splashing water of the fountain is silenced. A funny pocket of silence occurs before all the normal,environmental, sounds of a busy seafront road take over as the sun sets on another day. Why does splashing water sound so good?

I listened to a radio programme the other day about a charity that makes requested soundscape tapes for prisoners on death row in the United States. Even in completely land locked States the requests often included some sort of watery sounds. I’m still pondering what my sounds would be, were I to find myself in that somewhat niche environment.

#518 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Friends and Family3 Comments

Today would have been my Dads 92nd Birthday. For many people, including myself, he was the easier person in my parents marriage to get along with. His genetic gifts to me have been reliable, useful and enabled me to see the world and my place in it easily. My mothers character, skills and temperament was more skittish and impulsive. She divided a room, he could bring a room together.Their combined talents have given me a skittish core with a practical, sensible overcoat Sometimes I bore myself, other times I wonder what an earth I am going to get up to next. As their only child I was a puzzlement to them both. Neither could see their characteristics reflected in me because their two strong personalities masked any obvious inherited characteristics reflected in me.I was their conundrum. My skittishness was measured and my steadiness unreliable.

Marmalade is the perfect illustration. My Dad loved it and my mother hated it. There were often five or more varieties in our larder at home, experimental flavours tried once and then left to gather a dome of mould, a source of constant irritation to my mother who, once the mould level threatened good housekeeping, would throw them away with a flourish of delighted satisfaction or sometimes more fiercely, the mouldy marmalade standing in for someone or something that had really pissed her off. If my dad pissed her off she would throw away his absolute favourite, Rose’s Lime Marmalade, whether it had mould or not.

In a perfect reflection of my genetic make-up, I love marmalade. Until recently there was only ever one Marmalade for me. Frank Coopers, Thick Cut, Oxford Marmalade. From shared student homes to home ownership and settled domestic home maker, Frank Cooper has been my bitter preserve companion. More recently one of the Bobbers, Gill, has been sharing, with me,her short season Seville Orange, home -made marmalade. Gill is up there with Frank. A mass produced God and a small batch Goddess. They share the marmalade shelf now, Frank there all year, reliable. Gill fleetingly, only in season, both bitter to their core, both adored.

Wherever my parents are, and they may not have chosen,or been sent to the same other realm destination, both would be satisfied over my adult marmalade development.

My dad , thrilled that I love marmalade. My mother, grateful that it is only ever one flavour, at worst, two jars- no mould.

#517 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Spring1 Comment

The first day of Spring washed in on a wave of persistent, penetrative rain.

Drips were the tiny gems of the day hanging around waiting to catch the sunbeams that resolutely failed to arrive.

Raindrops when gathered together turn into puddles. So one puddle two ways is the endpoint of this blog. It is a puddle we have been to before, but the alternative, a variety of shots of room settings at Ikea is one step too far for a blog that has no problem celebrating the mundane. IKEA is almost a global experience, all around the world people were sat in IKEA cafes, at the exact same time as me, pondering on their various domestic needs. Ours were simple and we managed the, almost impossible, task of getting out with only one extra item. A tool to fish spaghetti out of bowls or saucepans.

The first day of Spring, raindrops, puddles and IKEA.

#516 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Cornwall, Friends and Family, London, SerendipityLeave a comment

We had an accidental weekend of nostalgia. The high point of yesterday was going to see the recently released film Rye Lane. Just about every location had been part of our South London home life. From the very first London Park, Brockwell, where Hugo took his first small, off-the-lead puppy steps in, to Brixton Market where we bought the most amazing fruit and veg, and ate Street Food from around the world. The film cleverly never fully crossed the Thames to the better known and more Iconic north shores. The film was both a rom-com and a love letter to a part of London that, only infrequently, gets a joyful spotlight on its many different faces. I will admit that my eyes stung with a little moistness of the eyes when the film went to places that I had spent time with my family and friends from all over the world. We are now dispersed but South London was where the good times rolled.

Nostalgia of a different sort on Saturday when we caught up with the first race of the Gig Rowing season in Saltash. 85 wooden boats, crewed by 6 rowers and a cox, took part in The Three Rivers Race. I was always on the heavy side for a rower but that is exactly what is needed to keep the back of the gig in the water.

The nostalgia on this occasion took the shape of appreciating that rowing was the only team sport I ever actually loved and thrived in. My eyes stung a little with the memory of fracturing and dislocating my jaw at the back end of this gig when my paddle hit a buoy that was, unusually, made of concrete and did not move in the way that plastic ones do. Unsurprisingly the buoy came out of the encounter better than I did.

These paddles are 13 feet long and weigh just under 6 kg. A quick bang on my chops when paddle and buoy collided silenced me, a bit,for a few days but the race was both continued and lost. The true nature of the injury not realized until the swelling went down many days later.

Sometimes revisiting past pleasures is absolutely the best way to spend a weekend.

#515 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Mother's Day, Serendipity3 Comments
©theoldmortuary

Mothers Day in the UK dawns bright and early. My baby octopi and their baby octopi are many miles away. For some years,I have been so very pleased not to be an Octopus Muma. I would not be writing this now if I were. Octopus Muma makes a great big life changing sacrifice when she books into the underwater maternity world. Bigger than giving up sleep, listening to live music and restful days doing nothing. Octopus Muma becomes a snack.

© Jenny Jones

The Netflix Documentary, My Octopus teacher shows the intelligence and wisdom of an Octopus Muma, link below

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81045007?preventIntent=true

Beyond the final sacrifice, being an Octopus Muma seems fabulous. Swimming in warm waters with my children. No lego to step on, no last minute costumes for school plays or ingredients for cooking projects. No need to join parents groups or be a taxi. Just all the fun stuff, adventures in kelp forests. Hide and seek in underwater caves. Catching a ride on a thermal current. The fun stops though when Muma becomes supper.

So although it is a little sad to be apart on Mothers Day. I know that I am safe. My beloved children and grandchildren are far enough away and enjoying their lives elsewhere. With no thought of turning me into something to be served from a bowl!

P.S just as I finished writing this I opened my Mothers Day card. It features a bee so cannot be included in this blog but the sentiment is worth sharing.

Motherhood is no joke, but I am proud to have nurtured two lovely human beings into adulthood. At times I have been eaten up with worries, sadness and the pressure of getting ‘Motherhood’ done right. For the most part I know I have ‘winged’ it, usually dropping down on the side of ‘Good Enough’which is fine by me. In an age where everything seems to have external assessors, or users reviews, with the goal being ‘The Best’ it is easy to forget that ‘Better,is often, the enemy of Good’

Three or four stars is just fine .

#514 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

What activities do you lose yourself in?

A lovely coincidence today when my blogging platform made a title suggestion, I could employ easily. I have often lost myself in painting. Any spare moment in March will be spent creating paintings, prints and cards for a Spring exhibition. While procrastinating I found this unfinished painting in a pile that I had discarded. Discarded because I had painted it on a new paper that I have not used before. The underlying pencil sketch could not be rubbed out and I had discarded it, probably with a touch of grumpiness. More than a year later I covered the pencil marks with some coloured Posca Pens.

And then added some indoor palm fronds for the print version. Although there hasn’t been a lot of free time today I have spent odd moments losing myself in the water of Tinside Lido. Not the actual water but a watercolour, a far warmer pursuit.

Painting and cold water swimming both give me the ability to lose myself, painting just does it for a lot longer. On a really productive day I could lose myself in painting for several hours without any detrimental effects. Swimming or Bobbing are shorter periods of loss, more than an hour is about my limit and that is in the summer.

So if I am not ‘lost’ in water or painting, am I fully present? For the most part yes, but probably the biggest lost period of my life has been spent in books or reading. Currently I am in New York with an early twenties Stanley Tucci, the pasta and the company are sublime. I may not return.

Reading, painting, swimming and procrastinating. Sometimes I am more lost than found.

#513 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’ve been painting stormy sunrise for a couple of days. It has been a stormy everything for the last few hours. I don’t think the subject matter influenced the weather, but if I have in any way got some supernatural powers today should be a good day as I am painting Tinside Lido in high summer.

Actually not this view, but I might try this one later. It is almost identical to an old poster that lives in our bathroom.

In this poster and the imagined life beyond it there are always handsome servicemen in uniform decoratively placed at every corner. Real life is not like this. In real life the swimming rafts are a good way further out and in real life the water in the lido really is a gorgeous turquoise colour. I am not sure I would feel any sense of achievement if the rafts were this close, neither would I wish to swim in a murky green sea water pool. Since taking up sea swimming, pools are not my thing. I do however allow myself a couple of dips in the Lido, just for the love of the art deco beauty and the unique experience. It can be the most delightful suntrap and conversely it is also well positioned to make the most of cold south westerly winds even at the height of summer. Plymouth was a centre for the most delightful of holidays with my parents. They were not, however, swimmers so the Lido was definitely viewed but not experienced until I was in my 40’s with children who would enjoy it as much as I did. My delightful holidays in Plymouth took in bomb sites and remarkable modern Brutalist rebuilding. Not something that has made it onto promotional holiday posters. My arrival in this city was as marital baggage to my ex- husbands career, a two year project we thought. Many years later here I am doing that classic thing living my dream in a holiday destination, completely unplanned.

Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

#512 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box2 Comments

Yesterday colour and procrastination collided. The museum and gallery where I work has an exhibition of sketches and drawings, some 500 years old and some very recent. In between the two galleries is a break- out space where members of the public can sketch and draw with pencils and paper provided. The exhibition has been open a month and there were boxes full of blunt pencils. Pencil sharpening is one of my great pleasures and a bit of a favourite procrastination. It is the perfect dopamine hit, a few quick turns in a pencil sharpener and a blunt grubby thing becomes sharp and clean. With the added bonus of a swirl of wood shaving with a bright edge.

Pencil sharpening has become a solitary pleasure since childhood but yesterday I was reminded of the pleasures of social sharpening.

When I was at primary school queuing for the pencil sharpener was a social activity. Friends were often separated during lessons, to cut down on idle chatter, but if mid-lesson we had a conversation that just had to be had in lesson time we could signal to one another and join the queue for the table mounted pencil sharpener. In one class set up it was also a break from my malodorous desk partner, a boy called Nigel, who lacked any social skills, but thought that at age 9 feeling my legs with his plump sweaty hand was an acceptable use of shared leg space. Imbecile! The sharp point of a metal compass became invaluable. Far more useful than reporting such things, which were caused by my overactive imagination, apparently.

Yesterday 3 of us set about sharpening pencils. As we created a glorious collection of shavings we kept an eye on the galleries and the sketchers but also managed wide ranging conversations covering bell ringing, dentistry and the cultural lives of ninety year olds.

Before I left the pencil shavings I took a moment to run my hand through them. They didn’t have the wonderful oily smell of wood that you would get in a carpenters workshop full of bigger shavings, something drier and a bit musty. I realised yesterday that I have no idea how a pencil is made. If you are similarly in the dark I have shared a link. Thank goodness for YouTube and How Pencils are Made.

And then there is Instagram. https://theoldmortuary.design/2023/03/16/512-theoldmortuary-ponders/