Our introduction to Hutong Bagels was a couple of days late but serendipity delivered them on a day when we could bask in winter sun.
Dressed for the cold, we felt as warm as toast. I’m wearing a tweed coat I picked up at a charity shop over the New Year. It was in the window and the subtle colours called out to me. What a find. A Saks 5th Avenue brand, every edge is bound with leather . A Transatlantic coat to keep me warm while I look out over the Atlantic. Not that I would have dreamed of scrabbling about on rocks in it if I had actually bought it in Saks. Truth be told the only time I could ever have shopped in Saks I needed an afternoon sleep. Rooftop bars and the New York tradition of free pouring spirits meant I was not a very effective tourist in the afternoons!
Coats are only temporary though. After an hour of basking it’s time to get our clothes off and swim with the ‘ Bobbers’
Cold sea swimming has become addictive. Not just us, the whole of Britain is dunking in the sea more than ever before.We go out twice a week. Today we shared the water with boats and a seal. The seal is called Sammy and lives in Firestone bay. There are no photographs of the seal but the boats were more co-operative. Clyde Fisher was the big chap. Powerful and Faithful are the tugs.
A glorious weather weekend lifted our cabin fever this weekend. Snow and Bagels were forecast.
A favourite coffee shop reopened as a take away destination. Sweetening the deal with home made bagels. Bagels it seems got the good people of Plymouth out of their beds very early and by the time we arrived at 10:30 the bagels were just a memory. Good coffee in hand we set off on a city walk enjoying the sunshine. The sunshine kept coming and the walk kept walking. 7 miles or 11 km later we arrived home. Only then did the snow arrive!
Obviously I ponder, I’ve always pondered, and I’ve pondered sayings like this for as long as I have pondered. Several years in Sunday School failed to drum Christian forgiveness or much else into me.
* note to readers. My grandmother took me to Sunday School, my parents were casual atheists. However my parents were always rapturous and industrious when I was returned to them several hours later. I was always puzzled about having to attend Sunday School when, even to a child, it was obvious that Church lay in the same place as Unicorns or Mermaids for my parents. Parenthood cleared the whole thing up, ‘Sunday School’ was a guaranteed child free space for my parents to enjoy ‘ conjugal bliss’ in much the same way that a Thomas the Tank video might have done in the nineties or for more prolonged events a Disney Film.
” Never bear a grudge” is another one. I do not bear grudge for the whole Sunday School thing. I do rather wish two hours a week had been better spent with my grandparents in a swimming pool or soft play area, but those were things of the future.
All of this is a perambulation taking us to my home grown philosophy. One that has never been peer reviewed or researched.
My cheeks stay resolutely in the same place. Bygones are inclined towards the dusty. I do forgive, and mostly I forget. But I don’t forget, the really big, important harms to my soul. That really does seem to be an act of foolishness.
Instead my non- forgiveness, my grudges if you will. Live in a small disheveled carrier bag within the massive Industrial Unit of my happy, glorious memory bank of fabulous life experiences. The grotty, grudge carrier bag lives in a closet in the small room of sad memories that sits within the massive Industrial Unit of happy stuff.
There really is a point to all this pondering. Just before New Year I received a text asking me to do something. Every point of my personal moral compass was twirling round to point towards me saying ‘ Yes’. The whole Industrial Unit of Happiness said ‘yes’. The small room of Sadness said ‘Yes’. But when my thoughts delved into the very small, very grotty, carrier bag of grudges, my fingers found the unfamiliar word ‘ No’. Knowing that this was the guidance I actually needed the decision was made. It has not caused me a single sleepless night.
Don’t bear a grudge. Discard the unimportant ones. Keep the significant ones in a grotty carrier bag out of sight. Pop your hand in very, very rarely if all the happy or sensible stuff is not giving you the right answers. Not all wisdom comes from a good place.
Sometimes to get a good nights sleep we need wisdom from the grotty carrier bag.
Mornings can be strange when winter sea swimming is a regular habit. The times we swim are predicated by tide times and anticipated weather. The weather is the least important. It has become entirely normal to wake up, look out at frosty cars and know that all we actually need to put on for breakfast is a pair of swimming knickers and a wetsuit. The contrast is even madder when we realise that only twelve hours before we had felt cold dressed in several layers of thermal underwear and winter clothing to walk the dogs at the same location.
Sea swimming is a massive, positive, side effect of the pandemic. We have formed an informal group of swimmers and watchers so that anyone who wants a swim can find a swim buddy on our Whatsapp group. Everyone in the group knew someone but before winter swimming most of us did not know each other. We have never seen each other with our clothes on!
Equipment is the thing, in the balmy days of October we rocked up in normal clothes and congratulated ourselves on this wonderful free hobby that we had discovered. Incrementally winter started biting at our resolve to ‘keep things simple’. Birthdays and Christmas came and went and with it the gifts of accessories for our new hobby. One person gets something new and others fancy getting the same. Recently this took us to a strange place. Researching Sinx gloves on line is not for the faint hearted. Coupled with the phenomenon of jabbering like crazy beasts when the endorphins hit, our post swimming ‘ bobbing’ chats are far reaching and without the usual social restraints that you might expect in a group of people who don’t know one another well. Over-sharing might be the correct term. To onlookers it probably sounds like the random squeals and hoots of a seal colony. Social distancing doesn’t help matters but I think we would be loud even in a close knit huddle.
Storm Christoph blew off today leaving us with this gloriously red sunset. Firestone Bay living up to its name, although it has this name for a different reason.
It is named for all the canon balls that were fired into the bay in canon ball times.
The day started pretty greige but the weather forecast showed us a rain free gap in the morning. A walk in the woods was prescribed during the gap between yet more unexpected and unplanned domestic admin. The woods did not disappoint, some lively vibrant colours, plenty of water, courtesy of Storm Christoph and the first signs of Spring.
Our hour of exercise was soon over and it was time to return to the domestic admin but not before we sought out some more vivid colours in the car wash.
Our domestic admin had some requirements beyond our home, the timng of which was random but had to be done before 5 which took us to Devils Point at the perfect time for a brief and unexpectedly lush sunset. This is a good thing because domestic admin can be dull!
Lets build up to this, we all know where this is going.
Another greige old day. Hannahs birthday,and we had plans, weather permitting, to walk on beaches, enjoy coffee and have a great burger for supper. The weather was having none of this and an unplanned but essential session of domestic admin stole time and space to achieve the planned day.
Modified plans held the same ingredients but not quite the same pizazz as anticipated. Coffee was from a drive- through and picnic lunch was a side order whilst we read through mountains of paperwork. The dog walk was taken during a miraculous break in the weather, we were still blown about like shuttlecocks but without a side serving of torrential rain. Hands were firmly dug into pockets so no photographs of joyful dog bottoms enjoying a playful walk. Facebook came to the rescue on this particular subject. Offering me an image from 8 years ago. Hugo’s first day out in South London, about to create his first patch of yellow snow!
The only bit of our day to stay on plan was the burger. In some ways another South London throwback. Zephyr Burgers were a pop-up in our neighbourhood. https://www.zephyrburgers.co.uk/
What you don’t expect when you move back to the West Country is for a familiar London pop-up to pop-up close to home again. Currently parked at the back of Bullet Proof Brewery on Mutley Plain.
Our burger choice marked not only a birthday but also had a nod to the inauguration of a new Potus.
Either the carb load or a more reliable hand on the nuclear button made for a good nights sleep.
Storm Christoph shaped our 10,000 step exercise hour today. We walked from Victoria Park to Mutton Cove via the 18th Century Richmond Walk. Ordinarily this walk is a heady mix of beautiful seascapes and a mix of marine and industrial landsapes. Today the greige of a wet and foggy pre-storm made scenic pictures a pointless exercise so we concentrated on Street Art and man-made embelishments to our route. Contrariwise the first picture is of King Billy our halfway point turnaround.
The reason for the slightly odd order of pictures is the unbelievably grim, greige weather. On the return walk it was easier to see and stand still with the weather at our backs. The next three picures show a man made structure being taken over by the sea and nature and then being recontrolled but not reclaimed by humans once again.
Next a lovely palimpsest of heavy iron doors, paint, rust and graffiti caught our attention next.
Followed by a lone tag on an old wooden gate.
Then a colourful flourish to the end of our walk in the tunnel beneath the Stonehouse Bridge.
Not a greige image in sight. A modern miracle on a day like today.
Our first bunch of supermarket daffodils illustrate this blog today. They have just emerged from tight buds. Strange to think that daffodils were a favourite subject when pondering started. Now there are so many favourite subjects that I would not have imagined a year ago.
My maternal grandmother would often say ” Some of us quite enjoyed the war you know”
I cant say I’ve enjoyed the pandemic, could anyone? It has forced me to adapt my life and I enjoy many of those adaptations. The unexpected benefits of a pretty dire period of history.
Daffodils are also known as the Heralds of Spring. I think mid- January is pushing that title a bit, particularly in Cornwall where daffodils arrive early and long before the worst of the winter weather. Regardless of their reputation they are very welcome guests @theoldmortuary , particularly in this tricksy period of the pandemic. Maybe the next time I buy the first supermarket daffodils of the season, life will have taken on a more easily navigated road map and just possibly I will have stopped pondering Pandemically.
Blue Monday is a strange concept in a World Pandemic where, to use the same colour qualities, the United Kingdom is currently in deepest Navy Blue.
Our hours exercise took us to a quiet beach where I got three pictures of an annonymous surfer. There was a bit of blue to carry on the colour theme . Hopefully, with the arrival of a vaccine, we can all ride a wave of recovery.
As well as he does.
This is not a perfect surfers beach however . The skill shown in these pictures is all the more impressive when some of the harder geographical features of the same beach are revealed.
A fine Blue Monday metaphor for the current situation.
A little bit of Plymouth Street Art. I’m not sure what it means but curiosity aside,it is a lovely thing to look at. I was looking for something blue to illustrate this blog. Then this jaunty seagull took me on an unexpected journey.
Here we are in the second weekend of the third lockdown. Worse than that this is the weekend before Blue Monday . Said to be the worst day of the year. So called, because of dark evenings, poor weather, festive joy draining away, and bills arriving by post.
I’m not sure any media source will be brave enough to joke about Blue Monday this year. January can be very flat even without a worldwide pandemic but glum is the word that springs to mind when thinking about January 2021.
Searching for something blue to illustrate “blue Monday’ brought me blogging luck.
The Street Art seagull brightens up the street and puzzles with his enigmatic message. He most certainly is not glum, almost the reverse. Then Google steps in.
‘None Here’ is the tag of Exeter based artist. Steve McCracken.
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