It took more than the usual one morning coffee to power me through a day after a night of staying up all night to watch democracy unfold. But at 9 in the morning I had not expected to fuel my day with a sugar rush provided by a free sample of soft scoop Ice Cream.
Pure white Ice Cream to calm a mind that had been watching the differing colours of political parties skid across the T.V screen all night. I found all the AV special effects fairly baffling as the night wore on. But the, normally serious political journalists seemed to enjoy playing with computer generated building blocks. I’ve recreated my Ice Cream in the style of my overnight T.V politics experience. Baffling , I think you will agree.
In a last mention of the election some surprising news. Overnight Hugo and I had to swap sides.
Sofa slouching and varifocal glasses do not, a comfortable overnighter make. To avoid a nasty crick in my neck we swapped sides on the sofa every hour or so.
Sun rising on a different political landscape in the United Kingdom. Yesterday no political broadcasting was allowed until 10pm. Obviously broadcasters had to find a way to swerve those regulations #dogsatpollingstations on X and Instagram featured pictures of dogs waiting patiently for their humans to make their votes . All news programmes featured images of pets patiently waiting. Hugo and Lola were happy to pose. Not least because under normal circumstances they are not permitted in this churchyard.
Hugo even kept me company in my overnight vigil to watch the rolling coverage of our election results.
We are both a little tattered round the edges this morning. I bet he wishes he loved coffee.
Up early this morning to vote, and hopefully change the political colour in this country. I am 66 years old. If this election goes the way it is predicted then for the first time in my voting life I will actually have voted for the party that goes on to form the government. This is for geographical reasons, I have moved about a bit. I have often had to vote tactically and have on occasions voted for a successful and effective local M.P. But it shows the weakness of our first past the post system that for nearly 50 years my votes have felt impotent and pointless beyond local results.
Being up with the lark was surprisingly social for me and the dogs.
But, being greeted, on the harbourside by this enthusiastic, swimming-sheepdog slightly dampened my early morning joie de vivre. In her defence she was spooked by a drone powered camera. Presumably getting picturesque shots for news bulletins.
I hope that is the only dampening of my political spirits that occurs over the next 24 hours.
During my morning dog walk I popped into an exhibition at Royal William Yard (RWY). It is Shark Month at Ocean Studios. There are loads of lovely Sharky images, but on a bright morning this one was the only one not glazed and not suffering from loads of reflections. The website of the artist is below.
In the cafe there was also a really cute collection of bits and pieces left at low tide near to RWY.
I particularly liked these little bits with text on.
As I regularly poke about at low tide I was quite jealous, I never find anything with words on.
But then on my walk home I had a moment!
The tide had delivered me a cracked and grubby plectrum. With words on it.
A freebie advertising gears for Mountain bikes.
Here’s the moral dilemma of the day. Do I donate to the communal exhibition of tidal finds? Or does a grubby plectrum start my own collection of mudlarking treasures with text on.?
Positivity and learning are a fabulous way to express gratitude. Even when something seems all bad there must be a tiny nugget that can be a point for learning and some sense of positivity can be found. A deliberately delayed blog as I knew this morning would feature dog walking, doing the laundry and white painting the grubby white outdoor cooking area.
My reward for doing the laundry and the painting was a delayed sit down to write the blog. The dog walk was, as always mostly positive. Laundry is kind of meh. Although the top picture of white washing, white walls and white Agapanthus was my nugget of positivity.
I am very much over, painting white walls white. My own fault for extending the original project but this little rest is the nugget I can be positively grateful for.
I’ve been nattering on about Syneshesia with a new friend. We met, but in the way of the current world, we have not actually met, in the most negative of spaces. The death of someone we had in common and a Zoom Funeral. In nattering on-line we have discovered that we are both synesthesic and have followed very similar career paths. Finding someone to natter about synesthesia is definitely something to be grateful for even if it came from a sad space. Quite how to formulate a natter about synesthesia as an interesting blog subject is something to ponder while I return to white painting. Who knows if I will get there. Pondering positively is my daily gratitude for being here.
A late blog today. No specific reason. I was pondering on talking about Synesthesia today as it affects me. But goodness that is a big topic, one for another day as it turns out. We’ve had a fab weekend of listening to and watching the Glastonbury festival from the comfort of our house and garden.
The BBC studio at Pilton Farm, where the Glastonbury Festival is held, have exactly the same cow models but they are painted a very traditional black and white. After we watched the fabulous Coldplay set we went out for the evening dog walk and our vivid cows were looking magnificent against the dusk sky.
Our fluorescent cows have only experienced one music festival in the Royal William Yard. I was writing for a local arts magazine so we had some press passes and had the most wonderful time buzzing about. Such a shame it only happened once. A casualty of the hiatus of the Covid years. I suspect having only happened once there just hasn’t been the impetus to get it going again. I do rather like the freedoms that a press pass allows. Imagine having one for Glastonbury. That would be a giddy few days of blogging, apart from the cows of course , which are stultifyingly normal.
Saturday turned out to be quite the day of textures. Breakfast in a boatyard and Lola took me on a wild Hedgehog tracking adventure. We never found the hedgehog but her tracking led me to an old boat and I love the accidental colours that old wooden boats reveal.
I also had a curious moment with the new photo editor function on my phone. It uses a couple of algorithms to generate different versions of a photograph. Firstly using the information in the picture and secondly using information gathered from previous edits that I have saved. As a regular tool to use I would say it is a little unreliable. But as a lover of the serendipitous the function is proving to be very interesting. I download RAW data images from my actual digital camera to give the algorithm more to munch on. What it drags up from my past edits is beyond my control but yesterdays trip to the carwash made a fascinating Greek Seascape.
From this.To this.
My last textures of the day were aural. My local community choir sung a Contemporary Pagan Song Cycle on the theme of the Green Man Myths in an old Church of England building. Unusual but then not when you consider that many great churches are built on the sites of Pagan Temples. I love a bit of a sing but am hampered and helped by my synesthesia. I am quite incapable of learning to read music, and I don’t really learn by ear, but by the serendipity of the neurodivergance of Synesthesia, music goes in and I can sing it out. All the right notes, mostly in the right order but not always.
To say I keep a low profile when singing is an understatement. Kind people jab pencils at me and flutter the music sheet at me . Honestly it could be a Cornflake packet but I nod and smile. I am hugely bored by music pedants who bang on about notes. C’s and D’s are just bra cup sizes to me. As for the mystery/ worry of the missing Triangle dinger. I have no idea of the jeopardy involved in that WhatsApp thread. But the percussionists were energised by that predicament.
Fortunately our Community Choir has a composer /conductor who has no time for the niff naff of music pedantary so I can keep my head down and not feel like the musical Village Idiot that I am. Our performance was gorgeous,full of crunchy textured soaring notes and unusual harmonies. The Green Man and mid-summer were glorious in the churchyard.
Funny things happen at our bobbing sessions. Yesterday we took part in some smelling research. Luckily for me and my ailing/failing sense of smell it was an early morning swim when my sense of taste and smell are at their patchy best. I wasn’t able to identify any of the smells but they did still evoke memories of place and time which is exactly what the research was about.
My very early swims in Greece last week, 5:30 am, gave us the absolute best of Basil, Oregano, Geranium and Rose from the gardens of our temporary home. There wasn’t really a sea smell but the Flisvos ( sound of lapping waves) added to the early morning pleasures. If I were ever to run a sanctuary for burnt out humans it would be by the sea on a Greek Island and early morning swimming and walking through herb gardens would be essential therapy.
Anyone who reads my blogs know that blogging is one of my reliable daily habits. Along with dog walking and tea and coffee drinking.
A weekly or often more frequent habit is swimming in cool or cold water. Even at its peak the sea water nearby rarely reaches 16 degrees and International wisdom would suggest that swimming in those temperatures is not advised. Our coldest ever swim was 6 degrees one winter day.
After a week of balmy swimming in Greece, I had my first cooler dip this morning. Initially it was a bit of a shock,but I quickly acclimatised and enjoyed the fizz and tingle of a colder swim. I love how it resets me. The cold swimming and the company of my bobbing friends sets the day up with positivity.
In Britain we are approaching a General Election. I don’t feel this blog is my place to bang on about politics but this morning a fabulous apolitical quote jumped at me, so here it is . Typed across Firestone Bay. A place where it is my habit to regain positive vibes on a daily basis.
More white wall painting on a cooler, more dull day. Infinitely more difficult than the textured but plain walls of the pre-holiday planned painting. This is a daft job. One that should be done in the winter when the plants are dormant. But that does not fit in with my, self-imposed, end of June deadline. Everything planty is pulled forwards and pushed to one side. This blog is being written while paint dries. I can already predict that there will be a lack of paint that will call time on this project.
Interesting nail art.
White walls and morning sun make interesting photos. The one below fails on many photographic rules and parameters but I really like it.
And then just like that a cloud and shadow changes everything.
Since the Greek holiday I have been enjoying playing around with my digital camera and my phone. They talk to each other now. I love the unpredictability of their relationship.
All funny little observations against white walls. Which I must now return to.
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