Tag: Cornwall

Pandemic Pondering #72

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns3 Comments

Spring in Cornwall is often beautiful but it is always tempered with a lot of rain. This year, in Lockdown, Spring in Cornwall has been magnificent. The beautiful show of wild flowers on Cornish hedges are more perfect than ever, almost Chelsea Flower Show perfect, because they haven’t been subjected to the bad weather of most years. Today I got up early to catch them in the rising sun. The bees were busy and the tiny lanes were a symphony of bird song, buzzy bees and pollinators whose names I do not know.

The pictures start at home and end with the Love Tree. I wrote a blog on 13th February called Love Tree/Jelly Shoe.
https://theoldmortuary.design/2020/02/13/

Tomorrow it will get another whole blog to itself .

@theoldmortuary poppies.

Beautiful seed heads on some grasses that have just turned up in our front garden planters

The perimeter wall of Trematon Castle swells with vibrant colour every May and June.

I painted one of the more formal walls of the castle,in Spring, a couple of years ago.

The next few images are an homage to perfect Foxgloves. These are the hardy perennial show stoppers of the Cornish hedges around here. Their strong architectural shape is indicative of Spring in Cornish hedgerows. Usually on closer inspection that are a little battered and bruised by traditional West Country weather. In Cornwall the day Lockdown was announced the weather became sunny and for the most part predictable . The next images are a celebration of Foxgloves in their prime, untarnished by the elements.

All Foxgloves were papped on the way to the Love Tree. I will start off with a couple nearest to the castle, after that the blog gets unashamedly pink.

I came across the cutest road sign on my travels. Steady On. Such a great statement to gently urge caution.

And it’s partner sign , politely thanking drivers for due diligence.

And finally, the Love Tree, tomorrow’s blog subject.

Pandemic Ponderings #60

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, WordsLeave a comment

A day of two words.

Now there really is no link between these two words apart from the serendipity of them turning up within a lunchtime conversation within one minute of each other.

This is Pandemic Pondering #60 and I like to make special numbers a little bit different or special.

Kakistocracy could be worthy of a blog as some parts of the world are living through one right now , but I’m not certain I would feel uplifted by discussing it.

Petrichor is quite another matter. I’ve loved Petrichor all my life without knowing the word until today.

In rural Essex , where I grew up, Petrichor was pretty rare. Essex has one of the lowest rainfalls in Britain. But when it happened it was glorious.

The word was created by two Australian researchers in the 60’s. The smell is actually produced by bacteria that release Geosmin into the air when rain hits healthy soil. Humans are particularly sensitive to the fragrance and it is almost universally loved. Curiously it is also responsible for the earthy taste of beetroot which is not universally loved.

Beetroot and feta galette with za’atar and honey.

Sam’s Tamimi and Tara Wrigley, from Falastin a cookbook.

So the smell of Geosmin is what I and most humans love, and certainly my Essex experience would exactly be explained by Geosmin.

But what about my love of London streets after rain, there is precious little healthy soil in some parts of the city but there is warm tarmac and cement added to the Geosmin from parks and gardens.

© theoldmortuary

St Paul’s and its neighbours in the City of London.

Cornwall and rain are inextricably linked and Petrichor is a rare treat because once the rain sets in there are very few chances to enjoy that wonderful smell despite us having acres of lovely healthy soil. Some of it on riverbanks.

Pandemic Pondering#50

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderings, SerendipityLeave a comment

Another significant number in Lockdown and a significant day. The 75th anniversary of VE day.

In lockdown this anniversary will be something that we have more time to reflect upon than usual.

There will be no street parties, civil events, sombre church services or riotous family gatherings around our own familial heroes.

Flags and bunting are popping up in our local town, but not in the amount that would have happened had life been normal.

Britain does not wear its national flag on its sleeve or in its gardens or even up its flagpoles quite as much as many other countries. Days like today are the exception. Although our own riverside town has quite a flamboyant exception to this statement.

The Union Inn, on the Cornish side of ‘ The Great Divide’ , the River Tamar, boundary between Cornwall and the rest of the world, is an almost daily fix of the Union Jack.

As I write this I can look out on our local church at a flag that would have fluttered on actual VE day

In the past my daily commute took me up Regent Street, a street that was never shy about getting its flags out.

Pandemic Pondering #50. A significant number and for world history the anniversary of a truly significant day.

Worthy of two blogs I think. This is the Early Edition.

Pandemic Pondering #47

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity2 Comments

Late April and early May brings a simple pleasure to the walls around the old mortuary. It’s so simple I couldn’t really think how to weave it into a ponder. The area immediately next to our house was an old quarry which means there is an abundance of walls around us, presumably built with rocks from the quarry.

Daisies, however implausible it may seem, just stick themselves to the rock and grow. Early in the season they are lush and beautiful, later on the they get scraggy and ugly. Not Surprising really.

I took these photos yesterday with the idea of a future blog but overnight Cornwall has been hit by a fierce storm.

©Cornwall Weather Team

Given their precarious existence serendipity may have made me photograph them on their last day of lushness.

Update

After the storm

Pandemic Pondering #30

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Memorial Benches, Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

Book bags and Woodland walks, featuring dog bums

We don’t forward plan much these days. A firming up of rules on driving to exercise during Coronovirus Restrictions freed us up to venture just a little further afield. The journey also gave us the chance to drop bags of books on the doorsteps of ‘Shielding Bookworms’ , actually members of a local book club,who need to self isolate for 12 weeks. Describing them as I did I made them sound like a covert infestation requiring pesticide.

Cadsonbury Woods, a Riverside walk near Callington has been a favourite walk for 30 years. It has an additional uphill walk to an ancient Hill Fort. We rarely do that because we always have the dogs and the fields are often being grazed by sheep. Without the dogs we would normally sprint up hills of such challenging gradients like mountain goats. Not today.
https://www.tamarvalleyvibe.uk/?p=1639

There were a few cars in the car park but we mostly had the woods to ourselves. Most visitors must have been of the mountain goat variety.

The birdsong was beautiful and recent work, felling trees to protect the river bank from erosion, had really opened up the walk to bright daylight. We even found a Memorial Bench.

There’s a lot of dog bums in the following pictures, some faces, some nature in springtime but I completely forgot to take a picture of the most significant part of the outing.

A cup of tea from a flask and a shortbread biscuit, which we had to share, after a couple of hours of walking in the woods. Bliss in these unusual times.

Pandemic Ponderings #24

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

Its all a bit domestic here today but there is a note of High Fashion. Vogue magazine has stated that a full compliment of female pubic hair is the new look . Funny that given that no-one can take their lady gardens to a beautician for waxing and stripping. Normally @theoldmortuary we follow most of the advice from Vogue slavishly, but today we just had to trim our bushes.In other news the cutlery drawer is tidy.The dog walk/ permitted exercise took on a whole new shape today. We took a picnic and the delay gave us the chance to see nature just highlighted by a setting sun.Finally some lovely texture randomly created by a pile of stuff actually in the old mortuary.

Pandemic Ponderings #19

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PangolinsLeave a comment

Pangolin fever @theoldmortuary hit new levels yesterday when a Pangolin popped in for tea on his way to Truro to join Miss VV’s menagerie.

Pangolin posed for pictures in the garden before being popped in the post instead of an Easter egg.

Pangolin particularly liked the litchen on our old bench as it seemed to be to scale.

The old hedge was less comfy but gave a good moment in the sun.

Happy Sunday to humans and Pangolins wherever you are…

Pandemic Ponderings #17

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

April sweeps in with more promise than March. These two months share the joint responsibility of bringing in Spring and hosting the Easter holidays. This April of course will be unique and this Easter, unusual, because whatever way we traditionally spend the four day weekend. This year will not be the same, in any way, for humans.

The natural world and built environment knows nothing of our 2020 restrictions. Away from our homes all these things are happening. Aprils past have provided these images.

The only one I’ve actually seen in 2020 is the first, 500 yards from @theoldmortuary.

The others are out there, but not for this year.

Wild Garlic brings vibrancy to rural lanes, and fragrance to the kitchen.

Sunshine illuminates beaches effortlessly.

While wild grasses hold the dunes in place.

Old cars twinkle in London Streets.

While bossy notices fail to realise Bill Stickers is currently Socially isolating, untroubled by threats of prosecution.

Closer to home a city beach and sea water pool look crisp but chilly.

Even closer to home the bridges between the rest of the World and Cornwall look super sharp in the evening light.

For now we are at the far end of these bridges and nowhere else.

Pandemic Ponderings #14

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family3 Comments

Yesterday was unusual because I didn’t feel particularly inspired to write and was in the lucky position of having written two blogs in one day earlier in the Pandemic so had the chance to stay numerically correct . It is 14 days since Pandemic Ponderings started. I’m not sure what made me not want to write . We needed supplies so I drove the car to a farm for eggs and then hit two supermarkets for provisions. We went for another massive walk. In the same direction as #13 but the opposite riverbank.

The need to bake became imperative and a rich black Guinness Cake sits in the kitchen this morning, some of it already eaten.

In London Cornish Pasties were being made by my daughter and her boyfriend.

Last night we attended a virtual Pub Disco, streamed on Facebook. Hosted by family member Lee Anthony

So there was a lot going on.

My mind was almost certainly taken up with thoughts that swirled around reregistration as a Radiographer. A decision made for me by the government.
It was a big decision to deregister when I left London two years ago. My long career in the NHS had accidentally gone full circle ending exactly where it started at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

An injury in New York, I fell over a flower bed, had thrown up a number of health ssues I was unaware of and some that I had chosen to ignore. The pragmatic approach and slightly early retirement seemed the right answer to these problems. Which it was, the Health issues have righted themselves with rest, medication, weight loss and exercise.

Reregistration is usually bloody hard and involves crossing the government’s palm with Silver and donating time freely to the NHS to prove worthiness and usefulness.

As if by magic in a Pandemic, reregistration becomes easy, which makes me wonder why such apparently useful people have always been made to take a difficult path if they change their own minds.

No time to be churlish.

Both myself and Pandemic Ponderings will be taking a path unimaginable to me 14 days ago. Let’s see where serendipity is taking us tomorrow.

Pandemic Ponderings #9

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Mother's DayLeave a comment

Mother’s Day in the UK yesterday was bittersweet. The weather was beautiful but in reality too many people forgot about Social Distancing and enjoyed too much Fresh Air and exercise. Mount Snowden had its busiest Sunday ever , and it’s been around a long time. I wasn’t there but it was pretty mad. The Government got cross and said people were selfish. I agree and that’s a big thing to say because if I were a stick of rock, the word Conservative does not run though me.

@theoldmortuary we took a Social Distance walk around the uncrowded but very sunshiny and uplifting Plymouth Barbican and Sutton Harbour. Enjoying a take out coffee from Jacka Bakery, completely ignoring the baked goods on offer. A good sign that we are not hooked on Bakery Porn, or any other sort for that matter

Two lovely things arrived in the evening. Chocolates from the beautiful J and a lovely WhatsApp message from S.

Not in any way eclipsing these two lovely gestures on Mother’s day. Hugo and Lola has been making free with someone’s debit card and this card had arrived during the week.

The two mother’s Day sentiments are different yet the same. My adult children are far from the days when their elimination is my problem. My dog children will never move on from me not only having responsibility for their poo but treasuring it by sealing it in a bag and sometimes carrying it for miles.

Hugo is a private pooer , when I approach him, for accuracy of collection, he gives me a disdainful hard stare that dissolves into something pitiful as he skips and kicks his way through the post defecation victory dance. Lola is a more artistic dog, she likes to choose a grassy tussock on which to balance the canine equivalent of rock stacking.

She knows that her little pile might be a thing of beauty and waits until she is well out of the way before embarking on the Defacation Dance.

I, of course, demonstrate to both of them how precious their bottom offerings are and gather them into a special little bag .

So Mother’s Day 2020 a mixed bag, you could say.

Lovely adult children being kind from a distance because that’s what the guidelines said we should do. I always think Mother’s Day is as much about paying the love back. My two make me happy and proud, they are lovely people.

The fluffs, of course, had no idea about Mother’s Day but as of tonight the country is in lockdown, they will be my constant companions and in a strange switch of fate will have more freedoms regarding socialising than me. And that is absolutely fine, I really will never have the need to sniff a stranger’s bum or genitals. Pandemic or no pandemic.