Quite a giddy day today. An early trip out in a city that has free parking for three hours in some places. I registered my car number plate. Logged that my parking was up at 11:55 and went about my trivial business. Only to find this ‘Have a nice Day’ tucked under my windscreen. Who knows what has gone wrong but that is for me to sort out but, the very obvious ‘Please Recycle’ that amused me. Should I find some other hapless parker to receive my fine?
The bag itself had not been sealed so I have a small snack sized bag to refill with biscuits or a small piece of fruit. The possibilities seem endless. If only the recycle sign on food wrappers was quite so obvious.
Giddy has been the word of my last 24 hours. Yesterday I broke my own rule of not drinking caffeinated drinks beyond 12 noon. Gloriously tasty coffee fueled my natterings with someone I met recently who grew up in the same small market town that I did. We went to the same Primary and Secondary Schools. She is a little older than me but we know so many people in common and used the same book shops, coffee bars and clothes shops. Buying our first Levi’s in the same shop in Sandpit Lane. Two hours of nostalgia and the swapping of names familiar to both of us. I checked a map on my return and felt happy that Faggot Yard, a location on my bus route home still existed, we had mentioned that. How funny that two women so deeply embedded in the Essex countryside for 20 years should have floated off from the place of their genetic history and laid anchor after our working lives are over in the port city of Plymouth. We were both aware that our choices of careers would probably not allow us to stay in Essex for ever but also that parts of us will always regret that. What a joy to have met so far from home.
The insomnia caused by my coffee intake, entirely deserved, was full of a lovingly recalled nostalgia.
And now to appeal against that parking fine and find something really jazzy for that recycled bag to do.
A not so funny thing happened and then I had a birthday when two funny things happened. A few weeks ago, as a diligent clothes recycler, I had created a pile of clothes to go to the Charity/Op shop. All good stuff that I no longer needed. An improptu trip to a small local town gave me the chance to drop the bag of clothes and household items. There was a warm glow of a job well done as I skipped into the shop.
The warm feeling ebbed away over the ensuing weeks as my beloved Levi’s failed to put in an appearance from any clean washing piles. Somehow they had gone with other, much less loved garments to make money for charity. I shouldn’t feel bitter but I do.
Today I am 66 and guess what? A new pair of Levi 501’s popped out of birthday wrapping paper. This is the second time in my life that this has happened. Exactly 50 years ago the same thing was my 16th birthday gift. Those 501’s on that occasion came from a small shop called Len Smith in Sandpit Lane, Braintree. Those jeans lasted so long I know that these ones will outlive me if I can keep a hold of them. Another less traumatic thing this morning was some birthday money from my former mother-in-law. I wrote and phoned her to thank her after I had researched rambling roses to put on our yard wall. Her name is Brenda and I found a rose called Brenda which I will buy along with another called Rambling Rector to discourage our neighbours cats and chickens from taunting the dogs from a six foot high wall.
Brenda
Not everyone can encourage their mother-in-law to scramble on a wall with a vicar to deter pests.
The Art Group word, or words in this case, is Tuesday Treats. Hmmmm, not so sure that these are Tuesday specific treats and one of them is distinctly guilty of oversharing but here we go . These treats are mostly blog inspired. This is a bit of a classic meandering ponder.
The first one was a travel treat.
Teignmouth was completely unknown to us. What a gorgeous treat it was, amazing architecture, red sands and only a little tarnished with the usual seaside tat that Britain specialises in. We are going to go back with more time to explore so no more on the town but here we go with the oversharing.
The public loos were of a good standard . We were camping on a simple camp site with no facilities. Our van has toilet facilities but we observe strict rules which is why occasionally we visit a public loo. We popped in to perform the morning rituals not permitted in the van. Teignmouth Public Loos have a quite surprising soundtrack.
How staggeringly appropriate to hear at such a high volume Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple.
Smoke on the water,
Fire in the Sky
Smoke on the water.
I suppose the lyrics resonated at some level with the action to be performed.
The volume certainly resonated through the Municipal porcelain setting up a micro reverberation. Quite Unusual.
Thank you Teignmouth, unforgettable!
No more oversharing but another warning. Pandemic Pondering # 201 shared the spoken word One Hit Wonder Desiderata. A regular blog reader shared Baz Luhrmans spoken word song Sunscreen in response. Written by Mary Smith it also became a One Hit Wonder. Like Teignmouth it was unknown to me until Saturday , it is quite a treat. Some of you may wish never to hear it again, call it the Desiderata effect.
This portion of the Lyrics feeds nicely into my final treat. Another Saturday gift, a quote from Tim Rice’s biography from my fabulously wordy friend Dai, who wrote Pandemic Pondering #100.
Unlike Dai, who was a good sportsman and team person, as well as being a word nerd. I was not a good sportsperson, just a word nerd and never picked for sports teams. I always dreaded that ghastly experience when team captains were nominated and then allowed to choose from the gathered throng their teams, taking it in turn to pick the brightest and the best. I knew all too well that I would be left until the end, self- consciously checking the integrity of my plimsolls in a diligent way to prove how disinterested in the whole thing I was.
I’m sure Dai has shoe boxes full of team photos where his youthful face beams out. I however have the Primary School photo to share.
I have no idea why my face composed itself in such a toothless gurn, from memory these things took a little while to set up.
I’m with Tim Rice though on this, my life story from this measurable point has been about getting older. How lucky am I that life continues to take me on a journey of discoveries, not all of them welcome, but all of them leading me on to become that little bit older every day. Some of the children in this picture have already stopped their journey and I’ve forgotten the names of most of them but every one is a precious vessel of their own story.
Given Cornwall’s grand seafaring tradition and your nerdish love of words I thought you might enjoy this collection of phrases all derived from maritime/nautical origins. A topic for your next blog perhaps?
Naturally the first thought that comes to mind when we think of seafarers and the waterfront are long and bitter campaigns of industrial action.
But this term has its roots in the 18th century when life at sea was lonely and cruel (for example, though it seems hard to believe today on some vessels the supply of chocolate biscuits would be exhausted before the ship had even lost sight of land).and harsh punishments were handed out to offenders. But seamen sometimes got together to fight their bad conditions. They would then strike the sails of their ships – which means to lower them – so preventing the ship from leaving port until their grievance was settled.
Swinging the lead
A person who pretends to be working when he is doing nothing, or claims to be ill when there’s nothing wrong with him, is said to be ‘swinging the lead’.
Before today’s sophisticated navigational equipment, seamen used to find out the depth of water by dropping a lead weight, attached to a tins, marked rope, to the bottom of a waterway.
Some lazy sailor, would take as long as possible about it. They would swing the lead to and fro several times instead of just dropping it straight into the water. Behaviour unheard of in the VPCM but quite common in certain sections of the POMC.
On Your Beam Ends
When you are absolutely out of luck, out of money and out of much else besides, you are said did to be ‘on your beam ends.’
It’s a phrase borrowed from old nautical times. A wooden ship depended for stability on its beams- the timbers that ran across the vessel, holding the sides in place and supporting the deck. A ship that was wrecked or so badly damaged that it was lying on its side, was ‘on its beam ends’.
Not enough room to swing a cat
When an estate agent describes a house as ‘ compact’ what she probably means is that – there is ‘not enough room to swing a cat’.
The ‘cat’ in this centuries -old -saying is not a furry tabby but the dreaded ‘nine-thronged whip, known as the ‘cat o’ nine tails’ that was used to punish sailors. The punishment always took place on the open deck because below in the cramped living quarters there was ‘not enough room to swing a cat.’
For those keen students of history this explanation will evoke a memory of Winston Churchill’s famous observation, ” Don’t talk to me about the Royal Navy, it’s all Rum , sodomy and the lash.” Fortunately for those us from the Merchant Navy, the experience of the seafaring life wasn’t quite as traumatic as there was no lash and even the rum was rationed.. as for the other pastimes we mainly did jigsaws and painted water colours.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Somebody who is in a very difficult situation and is liable to be in real trouble whichever course action. he chooses is said to be ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea.’ The devil in this case is not ‘Old Nick’ but the heavy wooden beam which used to be fixed to the sides of ships as a supporter the big guns. It was called the gunwhale and was a very difficult place to get to, calling for great agility on the part of the luckless sailor ordered to that position. One slip and … splash He was literally between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Ship-shape and Bristol fashion
In the fifteenth century, Bristol was one of England’s most important ports, its biggest sea-faring claims to fame is that John Cabot and his three sons set off from Bristol in the reign of Henry VII to discover Newfoundland.
Survival on such perilous journeys in those days meant that the ships and equipment had to be in perfect working order. The men spent many hours making sure this was so. Anything that was well prepared neat tidy, and efficient therefore came to be known as ship-shape and Bristol fashion.
To Cut and run
Formerly anchor cables on sailing vessels are made of hemp. If a naval warships at anchor are in danger of enemy attack and needed to make a speedy departure, the crew would not take the time to wind in the anchor as this could take several hours but would simply cut through the cable and then let the ship run before the wind.
In the doldrums
depressed, low in spirits
Early in the 19th century in the doldrums was used as a synonym for ‘in the dumps’, depressed. Later sailors borrowed the phrase to describe the region of sultry calms and baffling winds within a few degrees of the Equator, where the north-east and south-east trade winds converge. Here the progress of sailing ships would be greatly delayed for many days, their crews becoming frustrated and demoralised . Hence their feelings provided the name for the area.
Lassie
In itself. Lassie is not a nautical term, but the name of this famous Collie has an interesting connection with maritime history.
The first British battleship to be torpedoed by a German submarine was HMS Formidable, sunk just off Portland Bill in the English Channel in 1915. A few hours after the sinking, some fishermen found the body of a seaman that had been washed ashore in Lyme Bay; they carried it to West Bay and laid it out on the floor of the Pilot Boat Inn, and out of decency covered it with a tarpaulin.
However, the dog belonging to the landlord of the inn kept pulling aside the tarpaulin and licking the face of the dead seaman. Despite every discouragement, the dog persisted until the landlord was forced to see for him self what the dog had apparently known all along, that the seaman was not yet dead. The man was revived, and that is the end of his part in this story. Eventually, though, the incident inspired the famous film featuring the collie who won the hearts of millions of children the world over for her bravery, loyalty and intelligence.
The point of this anecdote is that the dog was named after the survivor of the sinking of HMS Formidable, John Lassie.
These are just a few examples of the thousands of words and expressions that were coined by our gallant seafarers
This little tin has been in every home I’ve lived. I know it and its content very well and yet I know nothing about the original owner.
This was all my mum had kept of her first fiance.
He was killed in a motor bike accident in the early 1950’s.
She would never talk about him but the nature of his death caused both my parents to be certain that they didn’t want either their only child or their grandchildren to ride motorbikes.
His name was David and he may have lived in or around Braintree in Essex England, but equally he could have been stationed at any East Anglian Air field and be from anywhere.
His surname may have been De’Ath but that could also be wrong.
These are the artifacts from the tin.
Its a sad little collection, on the whole as a family we’ve avoided motorbikes.
A putty rubber is also known as a kneadable eraser, it gets you out of trouble with sketching, watercolour and charcoal.
This is not really about putty rubber . It’s more about life.
Prepping my kit for some water-colour classes I was reminded of a sentence that I last heard 45 years ago. ” Always keep your putty rubber warm” were the wise words of an art teacher called Tom Abrahams. In art terms a warm putty rubber always gets you out of trouble if you are in a tricksy spot while sketching.
Not having a warm putty rubber was exactly the moment that I remembered this quote. Isn’t that always the way.
As it happens this quote is not only really useful for sketching but is also a fine metaphor for looking at life.
Always being able to correct errors would be an absolute superpower. Meanwhile I’m keeping my putty rubber warm.
In our home we have to find space for ‘stuff’. The belongings or memorabilia from two sets of parents, now dead, and two previous individual homes. That’s a big ask of a small cottage. The sensible answer to this is that you can’t keep everything : recycling out to charity shops is not only the answer , it is also the right thing to do. If we don’t need it then a much better use is to generate money for a charity while getting it into the hands of someone else who can make use of it.
To achieve a balance and have a home that is organically styled rather than superficially beautiful with no depth of character we have curated some collections.
Casually placed in a couple of rooms are small collections of old vinyl records. Pre dating bespoke covers they have cardboard sleeves advertising the shops that sold them. They take up very little space but give a big warm hug of remembrance every time they catch your eye.
In our home we have to find space for ‘stuff’. The belongings or memorabilia from two sets of parents, now dead, and two previous individual homes. That’s a big ask of a small cottage. The sensible answer to this is that you can’t keep everything : recycling out to charity shops is not only the answer , it is also the right thing to do. If we don’t need it then a much better use is to generate money for a charity while getting it into the hands of someone else who can make use of it.
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