#156 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

Early morning on the Stonehouse Peninsular. I’m freshly out of a hot shower and on an early morning dog walk, knowing full well that the next time I am standing here, in about an hour, my warm clothes will be off and,along with other bobbers, I will be submerging myself in the Atlantic. Nearly three weeks of a nasty virus has kept me out of the water. My lingering symptoms are no longer significant enough to keep me on the shore clutching a hot drink and nattering with Coach. Three weeks out of the cold water is a significant mountain to climb. She said mixing her metaphors like a pro. I’ve even added arty filters to the image to make it feel more enticing. Today we have a first time bobber joining us and a visiting bobber as well as several Covid recoverers. Definately a day for pulling on our big girl pants and getting on with it!

Yesterday this huge boat was tugged past our bobbing spot. I could feel the thrum of the three tugs long before I saw the vessel.

Yesterday, I wished I had been in the water as this boat passed our swimming zone. There is something rather thrilling about being in the water when the tugs are working really hard, guiding big ships through the safety channel. The rumble of hard working engines in water turns into something that is so much more than a tingle as it is transmitted through our submerged bodies. Its a tingle but fatter, not quite a throb. Whatever it is I could do with one today to encourage me in…

Happy Friday x

P.S. It was wonderful.

#155 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’ve just managed to finish another visual/aural/real world and sensation mind map. This one created at dawn on the Vernal equinox on the Thames at Pangbourne. Since learning this technique on a recent course with Tansy Hargan I am beginning to find this colour mixing, meditative shape creating style really useful for making notes of the 3d experience of outdoor painting.

These were my quick notes.

And here they are together.

Far from being a completely perfect landscape this painting expresses the highlights and my irritation at sharing the early morning peace with a man still drinking from the night before. Almost the highest high point was the dawn chorus, something that accompanied me from the camper van down to the flood meadows on the banks of the Thames. The pinky gold colours are a representation of that sublime early morning sound of birds waking up and singing. Bird song filled the air and enveloped everything I painted. Really the inebriated man takes rather too much of the image, but in truth he really pissed me off.

Not because he was drunk, he was just a bit too much in my face, perching on ‘my’ bench when there were ten others available, asking stupid questions and scuffing his over white trainers in the dust beneath the bench. I’m sure he had no malign intent. The same cannot be said for the swan who approached for snacks, but the inebriated man skipped off on uncertain feet as the hungry chap approached, so a hungry swan became a good thing.

Water colours do not appear on a swans ideal diet so he, just like the drunk, waddled off. Leaving me at last to the pastoral scene that I had got up so early for.

Spring is finally here, it was good to be up early to see it arrive.

#154 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Serendipity1 Comment

Early morning wanderings, naked toes for the first time this year and a proper ponder. Dorothea Ltd is a very unusual name for a historic piece of cast iron street furniture. I had a lot of time to ponder some odd things on my walk today. The dogs took the business of sniffing out other dogs peemail messages very seriously, so there was lots of time for pondering the small stuff. Dorothea Ltd turn out to be pondering golddust. Please follow link.

https://www.dorothearestorations.com/about-us/history

Have dogs, will stand still a lot, is the motto of my day. Fortunately I had pre planned some supplies to keep me fortified on the walk.

Sunrise reflected as a Pain au Chocolat

The walk was one I have shared many times on the blog but these highlights are purely generated by prolonged sniffing locations.

Fabulous reflections on The Barbican, Plymouth.
A cafe sign has been removed showing a more nautically focussed business from the past.

What more strange things have my dogs given me to share with you?

A doorway into the sky.
A very complicated image that curiously mimics the random Union Jack on the next building.
Bold Primary Colours in morning sunlight.

So there we are, my visual notes from early morning, prolonged dog stops. I have no idea what information they gathered this morning. Information gathering exhausted them. Both fast asleep for hours on our return.

#154 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)Leave a comment
Eccles Cake in brown paper bag. Jacka Bakery

Texture is everything when taste and smell are as wonky as mine are currently. This Eccles cake is the perfect food for now. So many textures that boredom does not set in and  with the added bonus of pastry so beautifully flaky that I ended up wearing it. Our trip to London did not bring me the fire- water ginger beer that I sought, nothing tasted anything more than mildly gingery. Our mustard jars are empty and a quick spoonful of horse radish is just the thing on toast. I am very lucky to not have the foul and dreadful phantosmia flavours that many anosmia sufferers get. Burning timbers treated with tar and mildew is as bad as it gets.

Jacka Bakery

But I know I am not thinking entirely normally when these gorgeous baked goods inspired the idea of slumbering in them rather than giving them the true respect of being gobbled up.

Ginger cordial has become the star of my life, mixed at an eye watering concentration. My supermarket trip this morning will be driven by a search for flavour stimulation. Tuesday Tasting!

#153 theoldmortuary ponders

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

The morning after the weekend before. Birthdays and Vernal Equinoxes in Pangbourne.

It was all going on this weekend, living our best life by going to an actual party, eating and drinking a little too much, dancing on carpet and finding new friends amongst the old.

The dogs had a sleep over in Wimbledon with an actual Womble.

The dawn of the Vernal Equinox, and also the morning after the party, found me sharing nature within a pastoral scene of a Thameside, water meadow, with a gentleman who was finishing off his night before. He was anxious to share his love of nature with me I was anxious not to reciprocate. Not quite the mellow meditative experience I had planned when waking in our campervan to a glorious dawn chorus. But Plein Air meditative painters do not always have the world to themselves, even at 6:30 in the morning. My other companion was definately perkier but no less inquisitive.

Fortunately my quick, abstract sketch/ colour note was of no interest to either of them, the swan honked a bit and wandered off, all too aware the sketch was inedible. The befuddled gentleman had no understanding of my visual Venn diagram, believing I think, that his inebriation was a good deal worse than he could have imagined. He was unaware he was not welcome in my picture and certainly not on my bench! The Venn Diagram was explicit, I thought.

Sketch finished I unwound myself from the slightly frozen pose I had been adopting. As I thawed out I realised a scamper back to civilisation was required as a wee made itself known and I was all too aware that I was not alone in the countryside for any more informal seeking of comfort.

Happy Days.

#152 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn A303, Serendipity, StonehouseLeave a comment
©Nicky Chilcott Facebook

We were not up early enough to see this wonderful misty sunrise, but not too long later. Hugo, Lola and this weeks man of the week Ralph all had a good scamper on the beach while a couple of bobbers set forth for a low tide swim

The other bobbers present kept their clothes on and their body temperatures toasty.

I’m also collecting Bobbers in action for some future paintings.

All this sunshine set us up nicely for the drive to Wimbledon. A drive that was somewhat enlivened by Ice Cream from Otter Valley Farm.

https://www.ottervalleydairy.co.uk/location/

Our bladders are the deciding factor on stopping on journeys. In truth Otter Nurseries is a little close to home but no one should ever drive past such gorgeous ice cream regardless of bladder status.

Better bladder timed, for us, is Teals Farm Shop

©Teals Farm
©Teals Farm

https://teals.co.uk/

How wonderful to be able to travel a long distance and only use independent organisations. The A303 is improving .

#151 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Colour, Concatenation, Food ( but this is not a food blog), Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Debs Bobber

There has been a curious circularity to the week which has been radled by a virus. Mostly exhausted, I have also had some lovely, in person face to face but masked up and at a distance conversations and some zoom or Video meetings. Lovely Ralph wearing his daffodil was part of the Video gang, he didn’t really play an active part in the commitee meeting but he clearly is aiming to be Chairman with this fabulous pose of authority. After yesterdays blog with my photo of the resting bee, Ralphs’ mum sent me this picture with a rescued bee which she popped into a daffodil to recover his equilibrium.

©Debs Bobber

The stand out theme of the week has been the non- Covid virus and its debilitating symptoms. It is on the wane now leaving me a bit bunged up and still without any taste or smell. My amnosmia and phantosmia are on going. I’ve given up cooking from scratch unless under supervision. Early in the week before I realised that I was more than just a little taste and smell impaired, a chilli dish that I produced caused quite a response in other people but for me the only response was the stinging of my gums. I am quite lucky that the phantosmia for me is not too negative. At its worst most foods taste slightly mildewy or just stale, but for the most part I taste nothing. It has been a great week for drinking all those unusual teas that seemed like a good idea in the supermarket, that then languish in the cupboard because they have all the allure of fresh urine. Last nights curried chicken was not strong enough to register anything, my gums remained un tingly and I thoroughly enjoyed what I thought I was eating which was fresh Mango.

My drink of choice has become ginger beer, the more gingery the better. Normally I can be a right lightweight with ginger beer but this weekend I will be heading to the Afro- Caribbean shops to buy virtual firewater. This is the hottest I managed to get in the west country. Depicted as a colour doodle.

Not a scintilla of heat in that! Talking of heat, I kept my phantosmia of burning wood and tar to myself whilst working at the museum, it really was better for everyone that way.

One more Ralph to send you on your way this Friday. I’ve not really been taking many pictures or been quite so out and about but whatsapp is a wonderful resource of other peoples pictures

©Debs Bobber

#150 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SpringLeave a comment

A late published blog because the early morning ran away with me and then serendipity took me in a different direction. I am 10 days into a virus that is not Covid. Every day the test(s) come back negative. It is however quite the worst cold I have ever had and it has robbed me of energy, lung and brain function and I have absolutely no sense of taste and smell. The picture above exactly conjours up my eating and drinking life currently. It is the inside of a cherry and almond puff. I know that on my tongue there should be the sweet blend of pastry, lemon, cherry and almond all in separate sharp clarity. As depicted, luckily, by the sharp red and yellow colours in the centre of the picture.

What could I actually taste? Maybe a sensation of staleness and indistinct wooliness as depicted by the blurry edges of the pastry. What a disappintment!

Taste and smell blunted I set off on a car journey and listened to the radio. All well and good you might think but clearly without taste and smell some other senses are upping their game. Despite having seen the news reports of the return of two Iranian hostages I was quite unprepared for the audio file of the families reunions, something done in private and away from official cameras.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10622561/Nazanin-Zaghari-Ratcliffes-daughter-slept-reunited-parents.html#v-6031229203077808800

Only the audiofile reveals the tears of the hostages and their families as they are reunited. I became a weepy, damp, mess and pulled over into a layby to sort myself out and continue to drive safely. The layby was gloriously filled with roadside daffodils. They were my salvation.

Definately something to lift the spirits and stop some random in-car blubbing. But serendipity stepped in to make the morning even more special. A sleepy newly emerged bee.

Who scrambled onto the edge of a daffodil and promptly fell asleep in the sun.

Which was just what I needed to sort myself out and drive on. An unexpected start to a very ordinary day.

#149 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn BobbingLeave a comment

Starting the day with a sunset maybe a bit counterintuitive but last nights sunset was so crisp and clean it is a shame not to share it.

Sunsets were a bit of a thing yesterday in the studio too. Still sticking with the coursework of my ‘ Finding Your Colour Voice’ I painted a bobber, wearing a ‘Raspberry Beret’ in the style of meditative shape making and colour blending.

And there I leave you with a fine and delicious earworm for the day.

#148 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, SerendipityLeave a comment

Morning mist cleared, yesterday, to reveal a very blue day, all fresh and twinkly. We had plans to catch a ferry to the local park which is just across the river in Cornwall.

A very low tide and being the first customer gave me the chance to take this photograph of the sweep of the slipway. Four of us had planned a combined dog walk, we gained an extra dog as another friend has succumbed to the dreadful non Covid virus. So Ralph joined us, very much dressed to have a blue day.

We were early enough to see the heat rise from a freshly manured flower bed. Surely a sign that Spring is here.

Also a sign that writing a daily blog can affect the way you respond to things. The fountain should be the star of this photo but I am more thrilled to have captured the steam rising from the flower bed behind.

A day out with dogs can have its moments and the dogs took off, unleashed, into the formal gardens where a gardener shouted at us for their bad behaviour. To be honest it could have been a recorded warning as we never saw the actual gardener at the time. So intent and camouflaged, was he, with his bush trimming that the only evidence of the man himself was his fury.

The whole incident must have un nerved me because after that I failed to take any further photographs for the blog and it is a spectacular location. Our walk was always going to be shorter than the location deserves as a trip to the dentist was planned and a friend was coming over for the afternoon. We have decorated three rooms since she last visited and she has undergone a few medical procedures so stairs are currently not her friend. So we employed technology to show her round the upstairs rooms.

Another friend was supposed to be presenting the interior design improvements but probably won’t get a call any time soon for real TV work, as waving and clambering in the bath does not make particularly slick viewing.

Still photography may have done the job more effectively but would not have caused quite the same levels of mirth and merriment.

A day well filled with people and moments.