The sun sets on the first of November an infinitely better day than 31st October. As an update, Hugo is recovering well from his trauma. Far braver than us, he boldly walked the streets of our local area with never a backward glance. We were on high alert. Despite his injuries he had responsibilities. Overnight care of one of his small people.
She in turn is offering him quiet time watching Trolls with her.
It seems to work for both of them.
The sun rises on November. October said farewell with a violent attack on our little family, by an enormous black dog, unleashed and intent on knocking over an adult in order to make a feast of poor Hugo. Over in seconds it left him with a broken jaw, a squeezed and infected eye and multiple piercing injuries. The dog was able to take his whole head into its mouth. The owner knew serious harm had been done and still chose to walk away. The care of the vet, police and our community has lifted us from the despair of this brutal attack to a place where we feel comfortably nurtured. As I write this Hugo rests in a sunbeam, his jaw wired up and his wounds cleaned. Events like this show the dark side of one random human’s nature. But as we woke up in November we realised that for many many reasons we are extraordinarily lucky to live in a community that cares and makes that care obvious by acts of kindness. November has started as a bright and beautiful month. Long may it continue on this setting.
Long ago Hugo, when he was a puppy, was a model for neckerchiefs for a local, coastal clothing brand. After this event he is not quite the attractive chap he once was. He has a good side and a very bad side. For the time being he is only available for bookings in profile.
There is not a tiny part of me that thinks the trashy celebration of Halloween is worthy of my time. But here I am , on a day when I have precious little time sharing two Halloween images that have tickled me.
What’s something you believe everyone should know.
Spending time doing unexpected tasks can be enjoyable.
This morning I did not expect to be making knitted bunting. But an experiment at 8am worked out rather well. I picked out autumnal colours from some donated knitted triangles that had been given to a tennis club I help to run. At 11am myself and a friend were sat overlooking the sea,sewing bunting that could be used in the clubhouse during the late autumn. By midday we had had great quality nattering and had produced 3 strings of colourful bunting. Neither of us had planned to do this but the fruits of our unexpected task looks rather lovely in situ.
What does it mean to be a kid at heart?
I have always struggled with the statement above. How can anyone pass through puberty and genuinely remain a kid at heart. Once we are adults everything is viewed or expressed through the experience of metamorphosing from child to adult in the years of adolescence. Wishing or pretending to be ‘a kid at heart’ is just magical thinking, presumably just cherry picking the wonderful things about being a child. I realise this comes over as a little grumpy so here is a chocolate croissant heart to lighten the mood.
A gorgeous weekend of bright sunlight and long shadows. We are still in the process of domestic refurbishment so we didn’t see as much of the outside as we could have. But natural light streaming through the windows helped a lot with painting walls.
The clocks went back this weekend, a sure sign that the inevitability of winter is near. Samhein is nearly upon us.
Peak Pumpkin
Here is the blog I didn’t feel I could write . It wasn’t quite my story to tell. Early in September two old school friends went to a football match. Nothing unusual about that,except 50 years has passed since we were at school in Essex, and now we live on opposite sides of the world. When I moved to Plymouth 35 years ago, I visited the local museum and noticed a Plymouth Argyle player in a 1928 team line-up with the same name as my school friend. The two men also looked similar Our letters, emails and nattering has taken all that time to come to the point when we were both at the same Plymouth Argyle match. It turned out to be quite the day out. The sun shone, we were treated like V.I.P’s and the team won a spectacular match.
@theoldmortuary guest writer Dai Pullen will take over from here.
My grandfather Jack Pullen played for Argyle a hundred years ago. To some, that might seem like nothing more than ancient history. but for the club, it is a history about which it is both very proud and respectful. I got to experience this first-hand recently when I was invited to visit the Home Park while I was staying in Plymouth on holiday from Melbourne Australia. My visit was hosted by Paul Hart (Forever Green Ambassador), Bob Wright (Greens on Screen official photographer), and Matt Ellacot (curator of the Plymouth Argyle Heritage Archive). It is impossible to imagine any club in the land having a nicer, more enthusiastic and dedicated set of representatives totally committed to collecting, preserving and archiving material which illustrates, the club’s long and distinguished history. They also want to acknowledge and celebrate players who have represented the club throughout its history, by creating a community of former Pilgrims who will continue to be welcomed to and be included as part of the club long after their playing days are over. To quote Paul Hart, “We want to make sure that everyone who has worn the green and white will have access to care, training and support should they need it.”
It is this level of genuine commitment and inclusion which helps set Argyle above and apart from the rest of the pack. My day at the club was absolutely outstanding, I was treated to lunch in Thatcher’s Sports Bar where I was seated with a group of true club legends, Duncan Neale Martin Phillips, Steve Davey and Marc Edworthy. I’m not sure what they put in the water down in Devon, but a nicer, more charming collection of lunch guests would be hard to find. But wait, there was more. Paul escorted me down to the pitch where he presented me with a Forever Green collection of items celebrating my grandfather’s Argyle career and in return I donated a number of precious items of memorabilia to the care of the Plymouth Argyle Heritage Archive. This included the champions medal he won as a member of the team which finally won promotion to the second division in 1930. There was also the shirt he wore when selected to represent Wales in an international against England in 1926, along with the Welsh cap he was awarded for this appearance. These items had been in my possession since I was a boy, and it had been a difficult move to offer to donate them to the club. Having met those charged with managing the Argyle Heritage and its artefacts, however, I was left in no doubt that I’d made the right decision. This is an organisation which honours and respects its past, while simultaneously looking ahead to an even more glorious future.
Even then my day, wasn’t quite over, there was a home game against Sunderland to be played. There were a few things about present day Plymouth which my grandfather would not have recognised. The refurbished stadium, for example., and the bowling green-like pitch. The giant video screen would have blown his mind. The one thing, though, that would have been instantly recognisable was the roar and full-hearted support of the home crowd. What an atmosphere there was in the stadium that afternoon. And when Joe Edwards, scored the winner, in the final minute I swear I felt the spirit of old Jack right there with me in the stand. What an experience, what a club.
Best day at the football, ever!
Giddy with excitement, I then paid a call to the club shop and spent a fortune on merch. But never mind. I was feeling Gert Lush. And impatient to do it all again. A huge thanks to everyone who made my visit to Home Park so memorable. Forever Green? really how could I not be.
Jack and Dai discuss tactics.
What is your favorite form of physical exercise?
My only forms of physical exercise are walking and sea swimming. With such a small, but effective repertoire it seems churlish to choose a favourite. Especially as they go hand in hand. I walk to the sea to swim. Yesterday the offshore wind made the sea so rough I had to swim in a small tidal pool.
Writing a daily blog is a constant evolving habit. Some days I know exactly where the blog is going, other days I respond to a question from my blog hosts. Some days I wait for a nugget of inspiration as the day unfolds. The only rules are that I write something each day and give some thought to my subject matter.
Not particularly blog related but I regularly like to look at my photo archive held on my phone or in the ‘Cloud’ and see what was uploaded on previous 24th Octobers. Or any other date for that matter.
Doing so proves to me that within lifes repetitive cycles there are always significant moments.
The colourful land crab at the top of the blog was actually photographed on the 20th October 2015 in Sai Kung, Hong Kong but on the 24th October I cropped and edited the photograph to use as my screensaver on my phone on the 24th October.
Late afternoon in Wembury 2012. 24th October. Wembury is somewhere I take the blog often. On this particular day I was pondering the fairly recent death of my fathers friend who despite coming from Essex was very familiar with this coastline. When I was a child my parents friends were just part of my childish outer circle but knowing my parents friends as an adult was a lovely experience and it is sad when those connections are lost.
This was a brick wall in an underground car park in the City of London between Smithfield Meat Market and St Bartholomews Hospital. I only ever parked there once despite working at Barts, but was thrilled to find this really old wall and an advert for a long lost coaching inn nearby.
The underground car park had originally been an underground railway station in the 1800’s for the meat market at Smithfield. It was also the location of the MI 5 headquarters in the James Bond film, Skyfall.
Which moves me on, pondering to another wall on 24th October 2017.
I had a new app on my phone that meant I could ‘hang’ any of my pictures on any wall I chose. Giddy times. Finally 24th October 2021.
My peak moment at Dahlia growing, the last dahlia of our last dahlia season at the actual Old Mortuary. The Dahlias were lovingly moved to our new city home. The Dahlias were not impressed with city living and checked out. Who knew they could be so fastidious.
24th October a routine kind of day but stuff still happens.
This morning I set a winged unicorn off on her return migratory journey. If this sounds like the opening sentence of a fantasy novel, that is a coincidence, it was my lived experience this morning.
Last weekend my Hong Kong located granddaughter asked for a cuddly unicorn for her 6th birthday. An easy gift, I thought. I could easily have transferred money to her parents and they could have bought one locally. But that never seems quite right to me. A birthday gift should not, in my opinion, just be a transaction. She should receive a unicorn that I have chosen for her and it should be accompanied by a card with messages written by her Nana and Nona. Which is exactly what she will unpack in 6 days time.
It was impossible to find a British-made unicorn. Which begins the migratory story. The unicorn I settled on was made of soft plush fabric with a rose gold horn. Oh, the choice of unicorns is extensive but her request was for a cuddly one so I ruled out glitter, sparkle and sequins. Those materials make for a very itchy and ultimately unsuccessful cuddle. My unicorn of choice was made in China just a few miles North of the border with Hong Kong. She was then shipped to a prestige toymaker in Britain who posted her to me after an electronic exchange of money.
Just one brief day in Devon and she was boxed up, with a card and posted off to Hong Kong. Her first journey from China would almost certainly have been by sea in a container and that would have taken roughly 30 days. Today she will travel by lorry and aircraft and that journey is predicted to be about 6 days. If she becomes a favourite cuddly friend she may travel back to visit us with VV in less than 24 hours, which is why I consider her to be migratory Unicorn. I was told that a horn was essential but wings not so much. This is the exact point of me choosing our unicorn because she has wings. It makes the whole migratory fantasy more believable and in turn more magical. Grandparents who live at a distance from their grandchildren already live in a fantasy magical realm. We are not a daily reality or any practical use to our grandchildren. We inhabit a sort of untouchable imagined world for the majority of time. A similar place to the fantasy of Unicorns. So why wouldn’t I max up the capabilities of a gifted Unicorn and make sure she has wings to travel. Sometimes I wish I had wings of my own to visit more easily, or a winged Unicorn to carry me.
P.S 6 years ago most of the thinking adults in our family poo-pooed the very idea of unicorns. Our small people who are 6 and under have taken no notice. It seems we must follow suit.
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