Pandemic Pondering #518

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Makers Exhibition, SerendipityLeave a comment

All along the length of the Tamar Valley artists are tidying their art studios in preparation for Open Studios with the art group Drawn to the Valley. Not so at home here, I didnt enter this year because of house moving uncertainty, my new studio has barely had the chance to get untidy. I am preparing stuff for another exhibition in October so there is actually activity but currently the most creative activity is procrastination. I’m doing the research and starting the project while simultaneously trying to remember where I stowed everything.

Ive also pledged to myself to only use a small percentage of new art materials in the future and to recycle wherever possible. This current project uses second hand tapestry materials bought from house clearances. I’m also saving the tiny, irritatingly clingy left overs from sewing projects to include in this piece of work.

Yesterday the first image emerged from the chaos. I might just be keeping the procrastination under control!

Makers ©theoldmortuary

It won’t last.

Pandemic Pondering #517

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Box, SerendipityLeave a comment
©The Box. A shard from a North Devon Pottery, excavated from a Colonial site in New England

My leisure reading life and my work life are intersecting currently and in truth a little bit late. I spend a lot of time in the Mayflower Exhibition when I am working in the museum.

Both the exhibition and the book have the same constraint. Very little is known about the actual Mayflower Voyage. Difficult for Historians but good for me as the original source material is the same. The curators of the exhibition do a brilliant job of explaining and expanding the known facts and illustrate them well with actual artifacts. The 60 years following the voyage of the Mayflower is the significant part of the narrative for history and probably the least accurately portrayed by the Thanksgiving myth and beyond. As I read the book my mind is illustrated with the items and documents I spend my day with.

©The Box

This makes my reading of the book jog along very nicely. Neither the exhibition nor the book allow sentimental and fictional nostalgia, the darkness and brutality of the settlement and the impact on the indigenous people is all part of the story of European Colonisation. In reality the book is not a comfortable or easy read, but I didnt expect it to be.

© The Box

Here is the book I am currently reading.

The Exhibition is at The Box Plymouth.

Pandemic Pondering #516

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Drawn to the Valley, Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Hot on the heels of yesterdays morning blog is an evening blog of the same day, and two pictures from the exact same position with only a dog walk between them. Between yesterdays blog and this one lies the path of a day taken up by stuff, complicated by maintainance work on a local bridge. A normal 20 minute journey swelled to fill an hour and I missed an appointment. Rebooked for two hours later I filled my time with delivering brochures for an upcoming Open Studios event.

And took a trip to the supermarket. The appointment required me not to drive for two hours after so I was ‘forced’ to enjoy a late lunch in a friends garden and soak up the sun whilst my eyes returned to a normal, not blurry, way of life. Time then to head for home and get all the day jobs done. Before heading out for the evening dog walk which provided the two pictures that top and tail this blog. Since moving, our evening dog walk always takes in the area around the Royal William Yard, especially since the evenings have started to get darker. Royal William Yard is a collection of Military Buildings in Plymouth.

https://www.visitplymouth.co.uk/explore/areas-to-visit/royal-william-yard

Between the two photos we walked up to a meadow and the dogs chased each other inside the old, second world war gun emplacements of Devils Point.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/world-war-two-defences-you-2750611

I’m sure the longer we live here the more the history will soak into our bones but right now every slab of concrete is a complete mystery to us.

Returning to our original position, night was properly upon us.Time to turn our twelve feet for home.

Pandemic Pondering #515

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Summer, sunshine, Swimming1 Comment

Summer seemed to get out of bed at a reasonable time of day this morning. August often disappoints, the good days outnumbered by those that do not quite hit the spot.

As Bilbo Baggins says to Gandalph in Lord of the Rings.

 “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Sun and warmth are the butter of summer and they have been so thinly spread, recently, that summer feels very similar to Mr Baggins bread. Nothing like as tasty and comforting as summers should. I fear arriving early on the morning of 24th of August is too late. A little autumn chill is hiding in the long shadows of this morning.

I was grateful that this location was a dog walk this morning and that I could keep my clothes on. Early morning swimmers braved the same waters that I dipped in last night. There is a biting edge when you submerge, the water temperature is dropping, almost a whole degree in a day yesterday. Hot drinks are required again after a swim, shocking behaviour, August is the time for iced latte not hot chocolate!

So August, one week to go, time to show us some of the warm stuff …

Pandemic pondering #514

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)1 Comment
© Debs Bobber

We’ve just had a lovely weekend filled with friends and family. All the usual stuff happened but with extra family members. We dined in barns, farmyards, walled gardensl and out in the open and the food slipped effortlessly into our tummies as we talked, laughed and reminisced.

When Sunday evening comes with the inevitable farewells, the left-overs hide in the fridge waiting to catch out the casual grazer searching for a non essential snack.

A rare moment of culinary serendipity occured @theoldmortuary yesterday evening. A recipe in the Saturday Guardian exactly corresponded with our selection of left-overs.

©Guardian Newspapers

Sunday night supper was amazing and finished off a lovely weekend perfectly.

Fabulous fuel to take us into a new week!

Pandemic Pondering #513

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Out, outLeave a comment
©Uphill Farm

Another Saturday night at the fireside. A month ago we went to a wedding, the first in many years. We so enjoyed the wedding and the venue that when they advertised a Fire Feast we were very swift to book a ticket.

©Uphill Farm

Sharing platters and communal seating under a marquee without sides made for a really comfortable event that felt more like a village fete gathering than a tentful of strangers. More comfortable than a village gathering because village gatherings always have the local personalities you would rather avoid. ( My own growing-up village had the post master who at only five feet 4 inches tall was also a peeping Tom, rather a challenge, but one that he rose to at weekends)

The marquee is within a walled garden on the edge of Dartmoor so everything that grows there is slightly ahead of our coastal yard.

The food was magnificent and music from Winter Mountain was very chilled as the name suggests. We had a great time, so good that we failed to take many pictures so this is a tiny blog. Below are some pictures from the Uphill Farm website. Have a fabulous Sunday, wherever you are.

https://www.uphillfarm.co.uk/

©UpHill Farm

Pandemic Pondering #512

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Home Towns, Serendipity3 Comments

A day of sweet and sour. Three hours in an actual physical bank and the transaction still not completed by the time we left. Not a businesslike bone in the building! The sweetness that started the day came out of boredom as we waited and waited. I had bought some sunflowers and noticed that there were beads of nectar. I also marvelled at the Fibronacci Sequencing of the seed head. The bank was very dull!

Overwhelmed by Fibronacci excitement and curiosity and with plenty of time on my hands I decided to taste the nectar.

Tiny, twinkling beads of sweetness but oh so sticky!

If banks still had piles of money I could have covered my hands with nectar and plunged them into a pile of money and run around the corner and delivered it in person to the bank we were trying to make the transfer to.

Flights of fantasy and Fibronacci wonderment can only get you so far and there are no longer piles of money, obviously waiting for sticky fingered clients, in banks. After three hours we failed to transfer any money from one account to another. Legally or illegally, with or without nectar . Time to head off for afternoon tea in a barn.

Fully charged with sugar and tea there was only a couple of hours of downtime before an evening of questionable entertainment.

©Marianne Bobber

Four bobbers went to an outside performance of Jaws. Screened at our local Lido we were surrounded on three sides by water as we visited Amity Island for the 4th of July. We still jumped and screamed. Tomorrows bob will have an extra texture of frisson.

Pandemic Pondering #511

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FireworksLeave a comment

Another day finished off with fireworks at Firestone Bay. The late night dog walk was a little more glamorous than usual. Not so many boats out in the Sound tonight but the sea was still twinkling and bustling as people dropped anchor to enjoy the show.

There was a gorgeous illuminated Jellyfish hanging over Tranquility Bay at one point.

The dogs were transfixed by the spectacle of bright lights in the sky. It is hard to imagine what their canine brains made of it all. They had already had a great morning of running in one of their favourite gardens and then an afternoon of padding about in the yard as I strung lights in the plants.

It was another day of chores, errands and yardening , enlivened by a cherry and almond slice and a good natter with a friend while Hugo and Lola chased imaginary squirrels around her garden. After today I’m pretty much through all of the house moving chores now, so the return of proper summer would be greatly appreciated. One last firework and this little blog is over. If this dull summer continues I’m going to start baking cakes again, my weight has only just recovered from the 2020 Cake season!

Pandemic Pondering #510

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Fireworks, Serendipity1 Comment
©Kim Bobber

The Bobbers were out and about around Plymouth Sound last night, watching rather than swimming.

The British National Fireworks Championships are held in Plymouth every August. After a Coronovirus hiatus last year there was some doubt if the event would happen this year after the recent murders in Plymouth. It was decided the competition would go ahead with the two evenings events dedicated to those whose lives were taken. A minutes silence with a torch vigil, ended by heart shaped fireworks took place 15 minutes before the main event.

There were hundreds of small boats out in the Sound twinkling while they waited for the fireworks. Paddle borders too were illuminated.

Then the fireworks started and boats on the water were transformed into silhouettes.

©Debs Bobber

We spent the evening at Tranquility Bay the normal location for Bobbers. Not quite such grandstand images but only five minutes walk from home.

Fireworks over Tranquility Bay

Hearts and conversations are very much at the centre of everything in Plymouth right now. Snatches of the same conversations are heard wherever people gather, as the city tries to comprehend the events of last week. Catching a heart in the sky seemed quite fitting.

Pandemic Pondering #509

On By theoldmortuary.designIn choresLeave a comment

If the sun doesnt put in appearance then the time is right to get on with the jobs that have been on the back burner. Todays jobs were dull but a rare shaft of sunlight on this glass collection brightened up the journey to the tool box. A Chrysanthemum also lit up the kitchen, an imitation sun.

Todays jobs really were too dull to mention but they were achieved by lunchtime and my reward was a good long dog walk before returning home to do other dull stuff like going to the Post Office and the Hermes drop off. The post office trip was to send properly kitch shoes to our grandaughter. Crocodile Crocs and sandals with motion activated LED’s . Gloriously silly and just what a two year old needs to make life even more wonderful. The nights are getting darker so we need to chose our evening dog walk with some consideration of good lighting. Tonight we more than achieved that by finding Fibreglass cows ruminating under a twinkling tree.

Lola found this location very much to her liking and as soon as she had sorted herself out we headed for home. A dull day completed succesfully is quite an achievement.