My favourite physical activity is sea swimming. I do it year round and the sea temperature today is 12 degrees.
What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?
I do not consider myself a ‘hardened’ sort of person. 12 degrees is about the mid-point of swimming in Plymouth.
The Bobbers, my swimming group have dipped in water at 7.8 but I don’t think the water has ever gone above 16 degrees in the three years we have been swimming regularly. If I were to ask the internet about swimming in 16 degree water the advice would still be that it is not advised. We do just fine doing something many people would recoil from.
Wintering. There is a plethora of good vibe articles about learning to love short and wintery days. I have never been a fan of West Country winters. I love the crisp cold winters of London, the South Coast and East Anglia. But I have chosen to make my life in Devon and Cornwall, places where the winter is warmer wetter and unrelentingly greige. Wintering positively is something I aspire to. Book reading and twinkling lights are an easy boost.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning I attempted to record my greige reality. Another alleged way of boosting the love for winter.
Dusk.Early morning.
I can’t say that simply recording these images felt particularly positive. But using my randomly generated AI photo editing made the evening pictures a much more positive experience. For some reason the morning ones remained resolutely dull.
Dull morning manipulations.
The dusk shot was a revelation of different interpretations.
Festival Campsite.Winter scene.MoonlightBright winter day.
I am intrigued by the difference between morning and afternoon photographs. It has to do with the position of the sun and which direction I am facing. West is best. I tried to create some interesting images from the morning shot, but it was not to be. The afternoon shot just kept giving fabulous manipulated images. Which certainly inspires me. My wintering, late afternoon walks with the dogs can include some greige photography as long as I face westward. I already feel perkier about the post 4 pm walk.
26 Days to Boxing Day.
K is for Kindness which we should all aspire to particularly during the festive season.
Another K is for Keith, my Dad who was always a kind, generous and open minded man. 30 Christmases without him seems like a mad number.
I often wonder if Keith is one of those names that might get lost in the future. It is a strong Scottish name meaning wood but I cannot image it ever being trendy . I have never known a nasty Keith. They are rare but always lovely in my experience.
I am not a habitual list-maker. There is a constant rolling list of lists in my head and there are random notes in a paper diary.
Midway through December the paper diary becomes more and more two diaries, both bulky, that need to be referred to.
A morning of admin both personal and Tennis Club has required the two diaries, my smart phone and my laptop. 4 things ! Plus my brain.
Seasonal lists will start to appear in the 2024 diary in the run up to Christmas. Whilst walking the dogs at lunchtime I will consider which lists need to be transcribed onto paper from my swirling thoughts later this afternoon.
And so on to J on 26 Days to Boxing Day.
I rather like the letter J. It may be the first letter I learned to write as it starts my first name.
Both my children have a J. Jays encourage a flourish. Jays feel like happiness they make me smile. Some lovely words start with a jay.
When less seems like more. If there was a plan for less decorating of our house on a grand scale, this Christmas, you might think the job would be quicker and easier. But that seems not to be the case. I am not sure why . Maybe being selective takes more effort. One side task that required patience was the re-repairing of a wise man who was last repaired in the eighties. Thank goodness for occasionally catching The Repair Shop.
A British T.V show that works miracles on precious items. From idly watching I knew that I needed to remove all old glue and a little shimmy with an emery board. To give the best result for the successful joining of a wise torso to wise legs. The Wise Man is currently at one with himself, his fracture invisibly repaired.
Tomorrow the unusual job of returning unused decorations to the storage box will be done. For an inexplicable reason the sandalwood box that always holds our Christmas Decorations for 11 months of the year also holds the ashes of a long deceased cat. He may wonder what is going on, his fragrant sarcophagus is usually baubleless in December.
And on to I in 26 Days to Boxing Day.
Inukshuk
An Inukshuk from Canadian relations. Always part of our Christmas.
Our first Christmas themed outing last night to a Choir and Brass Band charity concert. The dark evening and Christmas Lights made the city look both contemporary and historic in the same moment.
Somehow Christmas always seems to open a portal into the past in a way that other celebrations don’t.
Our journey was very much 2024. The local shopping Mall was alight with shop lights and Christmas decorations, but all entrances were cordoned off and there were police cars and fire engines with flashing blue lights. In the moment the area looked like a film set. The shopping Mall was also our destination of choice for parking so some quick thinking was needed. A small backstreet carpark was found and that inconsequential change of plan flipped us back through the centuries in an instant. Instead of walking to the venue on 21st century paving we had to use an old back lane.
And that was the inspiration a couple of years ago for the charcoal sketch of Dublin.
A man takes a pee in a back street. Illuminated by the lights emerging from a pub. It could be an image from anytime in history except the second figure, a cook on his break, is illuminated by his mobile phone.
What is it about Christmas that makes the portal between now and the past just a little easier to see?
And so on to 26 days to Boxing Day with H for History.
2 days of storm avoidance. Yesterday was the stormy pre-storm. Loads of wind but no rain to avoid so the walking to coffee ratio was quite high. But a coffee shot makes it into the blog.
Overnight Darragh boomed down our chimneys and whistled through the streets.
This morning still no rain so another walk and another coffee, but Darragh was a mournful screaming demon through the rigging of ships and trees were shedding branches. Winds of 90 miles an hour were recorded not too far away from us. Common sense prevailed and we returned home.
And so to 26 Days to Boxing Day. G represented by December EnerGy.
December energises me, mostly because I love Christmas but also because I have hosted Christmas for more than 40 years for up to 20 people at times. That does not happen without a good deal of energy and planning. But this year no hosting of significance and yet the energy is still upon me. With the added pleasure of knowing that when Boxing Day arrives I will not be exhausted. My cupboards and storage areas are getting the attention I usually lavish on festive planning and shopping, I walk the dogs for as long as daylight lets me and I am reading more books and painting. The G of December EnerGy is being repurposed fabulously.
I am so glad my evening dog walk has had a festive tweak because my pondering is a little dull. Earlier this week I went into one of our roof spaces to retrieve some stored Christmas stuff. I also took the opportunity to bring down stored stuff that needed sorting as it had not been looked at or needed for 3 years.
I recently discovered that our house is 35 years older than our fireplace suggests.
The first time it was sold was in 1854 or 57, the handwriting on the deeds is hard to read.
On my occasional visits to the roofspace I am always impressed by how well it was built. But clearing the boxes stowed in the roof since we moved in, revealed something that is really interesting. One of the main supporting timbers of the roof is an old, wooden ships mast. How fabulous is that?
I popped back into the roof yesterday and just had a few moments pondering the journeys that that piece of wood might have made before ending up in a shipyard in Stonehouse and then being used to support the roof of a house.
There is a good bit more pondering to be done on my recent discovery. This was a new home to the Borland family. Two generations of War Office Civil Engineers lived here until just after the Second World War. Their role in the 1860s would doubtless have been the construction of the Palmerston Forts, built to protect Britain from an invasion by France. The invasion never took place.
The Palmerston Forts, constructed to encircle Plymouth and to protect the Royal Dockyard against a landing by the French, were built during the 1860s and 1870s following a Royal Commission set up by the then Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (hence the name).
The Commission was prompted by public concern about the growing military and naval power of the French Empire, coupled with the alarm which had been engendered in Britain when Napoleon III (the nephew of the infamous Napoleon Bonaparte) became Emperor of France in 1852. A perception arose that Napoleon III might contemplate an invasion of Britain in order to avenge the defeat and exile of his uncle in 1815.
As a result, the Commission, of 1860, sanctioned the provision of enormous resources for the defence of the principal naval dockyards on the south coast, these being Portsmouth and Plymouth. Many of the Palmerston Forts survive well as Scheduled Monuments (designated as such by Historic England) and are therefore recognised as nationally important and worthy of preservation.
Funny/strange to think of the very significant conversations that would have been held in this house.
Even stranger is that one of the tatty old bits of rust we treasure in our backyard is a big bolt thing that may have come from Palmerston Fort fencing.
Royal William Yard.
And with that cliff hanger I move on to F for 26 Days to Boxing Day.
Fairy/Festive lights.
The two pictures of the Royal William Yard are how the normal evening dog walk looks.
I am so glad I made the most of two days of good weather and more importantly I basked a little in sunshine.
Pirate Santa eloquently shows the difference. West Country Greige is back this morning. He also sets the monotone ( with a pop of red) of my day.
A day of catching up with domestica, also with a pop of red.
Domestica is dull and even duller on a greige day. So enough of that.
So E for 26 Days to Boxing Day.
E is for Education, and you may thank me for this, or not. No monotone.
Hot water bottles have a lifespan. Who knew? Hot water bottles should be no older than two years. I had no idea. I am sure I have only had about 5 hot water bottles in my life. I am way older than 10! Hot water bottles live an unloved life with me. Only really thought about now when my back aches or my feet are cold. My last hot water bottle did fail, it started to leak. The ‘new’ one is already too old to use officially. I really dont know how I feel about this I imagined we would be together for some time.
Yesterday I learned the Daisy Date Wheel. The way all hot water bottles are marked so we can tell when they are passed their 2 year lifespan.
4 dots in 5 segments around 22.
My hottie was made on the 4th May 2022. Out of date by 7 months!
When I read this yesterday I pondered that I had never seen a daisy on my hottie . It was a real shock to find the daisy and even worse that she had exceeded her lifespan! The risk of a scold from boiling water should she become faulty seems a risk not worth taking. But I have clearly been taking this risk most of my life.
Pondering efficiency. Hmmm, Tuesday turned out to be rather efficient. Some Wednesday things were achieved a day early. Dawn today saw me with the realisation that I had some free time. The Bobbers had a morning swim planned which I realised I should no longer avoid.
My early morning consideration was to wear a wetsuit or not. A wetsuit is a tedious adjunct to a bob so the decision was made to go into the sea in skin. A great decision as it turns out. Chilly for certain but a real mental and physical boost. Bobbing friends are one of the great positives of the COVID years.
My efficiencies of yesterday were largely centred on the tennis club that I help to run. I was there very early and took the photo below.
The tennis club has two grass courts, a fabulous garden and a spectacular location. I found a lovely piece of prose about gardens last night. Written by Derek Jarman in 1990, a favourite Punk Polymath of mine. The two needed to be put together.
So D for 26 Days to Boxing Day has emerged. D for Dawn.
24 days to Boxing Day. 3 days into Meteorological Winter. The sun is shining. Some dates are more memorable than others.
The birth date of my children is always memorable. Today is one of those days. In 1988 my son was two, we had recently moved to Cornwall from Brighton. We had lived in Cornwall for almost a month, I knew nobody and I had spent most of that month waiting for the rain to stop. The rain stopped and on the 3rd of December we spent his birthday at Cotehele House, kicking leaves and eating tasty soup to keep warm. More for me than him we were at Cotehele to see the Festive Garland. But for a small boy, armour, swords, and candles were the best bit.
Cotehele is a small Manor House, little altered in 500 years. Lit only by candles or daylight.
I no longer spend time with my son on his birthday but by coincidence I took his two year old niece to Cotehele on the same day 36 years later. She is not a great leaf kicker but she is a pebble hunter . The armour didn’t thrill her but a box of unused flowers were very engaging.
So I have become a serial parent/ grandparent who plans a day trip in December not so much for childrens entertainment but my own. Knowing that their fascination with small details will keep them happy and interested. 500 years ago when Cotehele was a thriving home and country estate,children would have loved the small details of leaves and pebbles and the sensation of open fires and sunlight. 2 year olds have not changed so much. Neither have adults. Every sense gets a tweak on a visit like this.
In the gardens I found the perfect C for Day 3 of 26 Days to Boxing Day. Cornish Language Christmas words.
There were also some fabulous winter colours in the garden. C pretty well covered I think.
theoldmortuary.design 