Neon signs are rarely created to encourage quiet optimism, which is exactly the sensation this statement evokes in me. But if I felt commanded to feel good, invoke would be the correct word.
If I had commissioned this sign I think I would have added the word ‘again’.
I’m only pondering this because neon signs are expensive so you want to get them right. On the other hand googling ‘It’s time to feel good’ has given me an earworm for a Monday morning which it would be unkind not to share.
“It’s time to feel good” is a commonly misheard lyric in ‘Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. The actual lyric is ‘and don’t it feel good’
So there we have it, a classic ponder to start the week and a pleasing earworm, have a good Monday
Evening dog walks are getting a lot more twinkly. I love this completely contemporary festive home. Nothing tacky about this house
This festive property takes a more traditional approach, and diligence to lightbulb placement. At home we have gone for something a little less ostentatious.
Our home window is a work in progress, the next stage is baubles in every shade of garish. Lime green and pink anyone?
It is not all about dog walks in lovely places and comfortable places to sleep. Sometimes Hugo and Lola believe that they are doing actual work. Here they are on car duty while we have a wee and grab a coffee.
Yesterday was pretty full on for them. Early morning house guarding duty while we went, with other bobbers, for what turned out to be the most disappointing ‘ bob’ of recent times. It was a really low tide so there was a good bit of rock scrambling before we even hit the water and then it was all a bit sea weedy for a while until we hit water deep enough to swim in. The dogs, of course, had to offer counselling and support when we returned.
After the car journey there were more dog responsibilities. Urban Squirrel watching.
These illuminated winter trees warm up my late afternoon dog walk. I try to get the second dog walk of the day done before the sun starts to dip below the horizon. There just seems to be something wrong about having two or even three walks of the day done in darkness. Again yesterday I missed the dimpsy twilight and hit full on dark just by delaying our departure a tiny bit. These trees, recently illuminated, perked our walk up marvelously.
The dogs have the unique experience of having a wee while illuminated. Something that they are completely indifferent to. Were the same thing to happen to me I might also struggle to see the beauty of the moment.
Trees are not the only thing to have taken on some festivity. The tunnel that leads directly to the sea is a bright arc of colour.
Wonderful as this all is I really need to get out earlier if I want to catch the last hour or so of daylight for the next couple of months. Maybe I should set an afternoon alarm!
I’ve spent the last couple of days with fellow Gallery Guides at The Box in Plymouth. The picture above is three of us standing in the North Hall of the museum within a video installation which is part of the Songlines Exhibition.
One of those unusual moments when illumination does not make something easier to see. I haven’t really written a blog about Songlines yet, I am still finding more to learn and appreciate every time I spend a few hours in the galleries. By the end of February when the exhibition closes I will have distilled my thoughts. For Gallery Guides it is not just about the installed artwork, the reaction and questions from the public also forms a vital part of our perception of the exhibition.
Yesterday I had many different interactions with visitors and some of them really do set me thinking. This exhibition has brought people from all over the country to Plymouth, some of them with vast experience of world travel and Indigenous Culture.
Talking to strangers is something I took for granted before March 2020 when Covid shut the world down. Now it is something I only really get to do at Art Exhibitions. Thank goodness art expands the mind.
When I was a teenager growing up in North East Essex, absolutely not the ‘cool’ or ‘trashy’ Essex of modern urban myths, I thought I lived in the Boondocks.
With only a few people of my own age,and even fewer of them that I actually knew, I imagined I was having the dullest adolescence ever. My internal imaginary life was vivid and full of colour, teenage passion and adventure. Real life not so much.
Travel, maturity, and now a lived experience of a Killer Pandemic, has made me recalibrate my thoughts on my adolescence and life in general. Some of my travel has taken me to actual Boondocks, making me realise my teenage years were actually giddy with opportunity. Only a few of which I took.
During the Pandemic many of us have lived a bit of a Boondocky existence, for various periods of local or national lockdowns.Venturing out only to take exercise or undertake essential tasks. People who actually live a Boondock life have possibly been the least affected.
Writing a daily blog since November 2019 has stretched my mind in all sorts of curious ways. If I were ever to find myself in an actual boondock or when I find myself in a mental boondock, I am obliged, to myself,to find something to ponder, this has been a valuable and enriching experience. Not one I am keen to give up any time soon.
Detail from stained glass window. Plymouth Synagogue
1st of December 2021, welcome December. Who knows quite how you will shape up pandemicwise or in general, something to ponder on, I’m sure.
New handrails to the sea. There have been some refurbished steps through the rocks into the sea for a couple of months. Yesterday the steps were fitted with new and much improved hand rails. Despite only being a small walk from our usual beach this access point can sometimes be safer if the sea is rough at high tide. The new handrails make it an even safer option. Yesterday Spearmint the seal also chose the safer option for her morning swim.
Flipping things even further a diver had to get out of the sea in order to take underwater photos of her.
For all of us winter swimming has properly started now. The cold water buzz is back.
A life before Covid-19 or a ghost of Christmas past? Both really. Carnaby Street in 2018. We had recently returned from South Korea and Hong Kong. In both countries mask wearing in public was a fairly common occurrence but beyond the fastidiousness of some Asian tourists mask wearing in public was unimaginable in the joyous throng of people enjoying the Bohemian Rhapsody, themed lights,of London’s Carnaby Street.
Two years on in 2020 and the World is in full Covid-19 swing and we are one month into,experimental, Winter cold water swimming. A ghost of Christmas future, or more accurately future winters.
As it happens exactly that. One year on from that sunny November beach scene and this is the pot of hot coffee that is pre- warming us before this mornings swim, the croissant is already gone. We are discussing the ‘Are we mad theory’ the same theory that we will discuss this weekend when we return to London to see Christmas Lights.
Were we mad?
Yes we were and it was one of the most tranquil, gorgeous swims of the year. Will we be mad enough to visit some of London’s Christmas lights this weekend. I really hope so.
“Perhaps Juliet could illuminate us” was a phrase my English teacher would sometimes use when one of my essays had gone somewhere unexpected.
Lighting him up with a torch would almost certainly not gone down particularly well. In choosing, for myself, the loose working title ‘Illumination in the countdown to Christmas’ for the month before Christmas 2021, I fully expected to use both meanings of the word at various points. Yesterday, Storm Arwen, gave me illuminating photographs that did not at all illuminate what was going on around me.
Nothing in this picture articulates how much effort it took two women and two dogs to get to this point. Even a closer look at the sea gives no hint of the power of the wind.
A stop at our regular coffee shop was a battle against the invisible elements, and a moments foolishness of removing my coffee cup lid gave me a face full of the “flat’ that gives a Flat White its name. Yesterday was the start of another birthday surprise, a trip to Bude. Hugo and Lola were off to visit some friends for some overnight care.
There is absolute peace in this picture, but five minutes before we were unable to get to our friends house. We either had to leave our car at the top of the hill and walk the dogs down to them or tackle the tree which had blown down and blocked our path. The tree had a fragile beauty while laying, languidly broken, across the drive. No match, I thought, for one woman, so despite wearing some lovely clothes I jumped out of the car to move her gently to the side. Appearances can be deceptive and despite being slender and elegant she was going nowhere with one woman power. Two women in lovely clothes and two dogs in the managerial role, of hovering about but doing nothing very effectual,struggled to move the stricken tree. Ultimately we dragged her to one side, not particularly elegantly but effectively enough for us to deliver the dogs for their overnight stay.
The reason for our trip to Bude was an evening ‘Take Over’ by Chef Dan Murray at Temple Cafe.
I don’t really have the words or expertise to adequately describe the beauty and depth of what we ate but the picture below in some ways illuminates the whole evenings experience.
Fried Artichoke Chips
Just wonderful!
Illuminated Artichoke Chips illuminating the two meanings of the word.
Illumination in the countdown to Christmas. Rain, Petrol and a rusty gulley. Whats not to love! Rain was the predominant weather today and would have featured somehow. The plan was to write a bobbing blog with accompanying rain seascapes. Nature thwarted me. We met at high tide, which coincided with dreadful rain. We procrastinated a good bit. The thought of a plunge into cold water while being drenched by cold rain was not enticing. The precipitation was persistent but eventually we shrugged off our warm dry clothes to a certain fate of getting damp while we swam, not a great help when trying to dress. Beyond getting out and dry I had also planned some gorgeously grey shots of Plymouth Sound. When my hands had warned up enough to take a post swim photo the weather decided to put on its party face.
Not what I had planned at all but useful as another Illumination shot on the countdown to Christmas.
And there’s more.
You just can’t trust the weather, I’m sure to get gloom sometime soon
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