Tag: dailyprompt

#956 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Greece, pondering1 Comment

How do you waste the most time every day?

At home or abroad I waste the most time pondering. Pondering looks unproductive to the outside observer but the time is never truly wasted. Pondering also occurs when I look gainfully employed. Pondering often gets me out of trouble because pondering sometimes causes a change of direction with human interactions and different endeavours. Mulling things over or reflecting are just other words for pondering.

Holiday pondering is just the same as home pondering but in a better climate. Today I pondered Donkey Milk. Unknown to me it has been a beauty and health product from the beginning of time. Donkey milk is the closest thing to human milk . Which puts a whole different view of the Christian Nativity. When I was young I wondered/ pondered why a nine months pregnant woman would want to ride a donkey. When a mule/pony/horse would have been more comfy for her blessed lady garden and or pregnancy created piles.

But here I am the daft one. Joseph on a last minute shop before they set off was sent for some formula, just in case.  Breast milk substitute and transport all in one cute package.

I’ve just gone for a face cream. Two choices 24 hour, or wrinkle.

The wrinkles arrived a while ago so that seemed like a lost cause but 24 hour cream regularly applied could give me eternal life should I choose. Warding off the grim reaper one day at a time.

#950 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

My morning holy trinity of tea, coffee and blog. A relatively low maintenance morning routine. This mornings coffee however, has raised the intellectual bar somewhat. A challenge I am without the necessary tools to compete with. Having broadened our minds with travel yesterday. Today will certainly cover less miles. A whole holiday book/ bookclub book has been finished.

3 more brought with me, from my book piles and then I am off to the lottery that is the hotel library.

Today we are having an extreme weather event. Not for us screaming winds, rattling through our chimney pots. Scorchingly high temperatures. Which this 66 year old will not be clambering on coastal paths in, at the peak of the day.  Another life lesson, tragically learned from Michael Mosley.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/09/body-of-man-believed-to-be-tv-doctor-michael-mosley-found-on-greek-island-authorities-say

https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/15/from-cold-showers-to-hot-tomatoes-michael-mosley-top-health-tips

#946 theoldmortuary ponder.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Apart from Bloganuary I don’t tend to use prompts from my blog hosts more than once or twice a week, but I have used 6 prompts in 8 days. Of course I have to twist the narrative of the question,slightly, to fit the blogs that are bubbling under the surface, but  todays was particularly apt

As long as no one expects to be super excited by my definition of  notable.

What notable things happened today?

I have been catching up with Tennis Club admin, and prepping a Social Media campaign to celebrate 100 years of Tennis and gardening by the sea.  The angle of June sunlight is becoming just a little awkward for my phone camera so yesterday I charged up my digital camera, ready to use for the next couple of months. Usually I clear the memory card but for some reason 3 pictures from significantly different locations had been left on the card. These form my notables for today.

Tulips and an Ikea bath mat 2018.

We lived in the actual Old Mortuary and the tulips had just had their water changed when a bright shaft of sunlight pierced the window of the room that was  originally where the bodies were stored. Once the sunlight hit, the room warmed up at a ridiculous rate. With no refrigeration we always wondered quite how appropriate that was.

Statton Island Ferry Terminal pier support. 2018.

These majestic old pieces of wood were endlessly fascinating and have stuck in my mind far more than the Statue of Liberty which was the point of the ferry journey.

Cornish Pilchards in Bilbao 2018

A huge percentage of the pilchards caught off the Devon and Cornwall coast are exported to Europe, where they are presented in traditional fish baskets and are all the more charming for it.

I have no idea why these three were left on the memory card but when I say that the rest of the day was spent painting white walls white again you can see why I would consider them ‘ notable’

Below Hugo posing for my ‘white-balance’ set up shot yesterday.

Not notable but infinitely more interesting than painting an old rock wall.

Not to be outdone Lola posing for the beige set up shot.

A notable day.

#945 theoldmortuary ponders

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What are you passionate about?

I love fresh air moments. Early summer mornings in a park or by the sea before the day has fully got going.

Time to make tiny inconsequential pleasantries with fellow early morning souls.

What I would question is my passion for fresh air.

Passion seems such a hot, engulving sensation. I feel a little odd attaching the word passion to such a mundane activity as taking a walk in a park.

But walking in fresh air several times a day is something I really enjoy.

Why am I required to be passionate about doing something so simple ? I prefer to hover somewhere below passion and well above hatred for most of my daily activities. I suppose it could be said that I am passionate about moderation. No giddy excesses or plunging desperation involved with moderation.

Defining passion, it’s just a walk in the park.

#944 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What is your favorite season of the year? Why?

The moment the last Christmas visitor leaves I am alert to the first signs of Spring. Snowdrops are the first sign but bunches of supermarket daffodils are more reliable and achievable, living as I do in a coastal area of a city.

Although my love for Spring is genuine, there is an element of it also being an escape from dull, wet, winters. This year there was no escaping dull and wet. Spring failed to lift my rain averse mood until quite recently. All will be well now until Christmas with just a minor mood dip in autumn when all the fabulous orange and russet colours are hijacked by the faustian pact made between retailers and fools for the Western Worlds Dance Macabre of Halloween, in all its tacky plastic nastiness. I survive, just about, with my obsessive love of pumpkins.

The anticipation and revelation of Spring is what encourages me through winter once the Christmas Spirit has slipped away.

Spring is the season that opens the door to summer, autumn and early winter. Seasons that encourage giddiness and frivolity.

I suppose I have never quite engaged with winter. I try to seek out the positives but they really are pretty elusive. I know that the arrival of Spring is like opening a dark chamber of dankness and illuminating it with fragile sunbeams. Just like a bear I could happily sleep through it and be  woken with a nice cup of tea served on a tray with a biscuit and a small vase of daffodils.

,,” Good morning” says Spring “I have arrived”

#942 theoldmortuary ponders

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If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

My blog already has a tagline which works equally well for me as a human.

Pondering something nearly everyday.

Today’s pondering involves a pair of small Crocs.

A few years ago a small pair of Turquoise crocs were kept by our kitchen door. A daily reminder of a small person, a grandchild, who had moved thousands of miles away at 18 months old.

These orange crocs belong to another grandchild who lives 10 miles away.  We only realised this week that we were stepping into unknown territory. A grandchild that we will interact with much more often, who is forming her own opinions.

The crocs are not just symbolic. We don’t let her into the yard without shoes on. Although I regularly pop out with bare feet. This did not impress her last week. So now we both have a pair of crocs by the back door and I am the one who needs to remember to put shoes on too.

To navigate this new small creature with her own mind I have a book that will, I hope, give me insight into 21st Century thinking.

I love that my own ideas on raising children are ‘ So last Century’

I am looking forward to reading and learning current thinking for the under fives, but I am very aware that a small person certainly thought I was being naughty or transgressive for going into the yard barefoot. I may need to get her her own book.

The Back Cover

#940 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity1 Comment

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

I am a devourer of books, which is why I anonymised my book pile for this blog. My list of books that have had an impact would be bigger than 3. But in my reading life, 3 is the magic number. I tend to have 3 books on the go at any one time.Sometimes 4.

1. My current fiction book of choice.

2. A non-fiction book . History, Biography or some other subject.

3. A digital book or audio book stored on my smartphone.

(4) My Bookclub book if it doesn’t sit comfortably in 1,2 or 3.

Currently Book Club books are the books most likely to have an impact on me. 1,2 and 3 are self-selected and what I would choose to read, but a book club book often knocks me off my reading orbit. The most enriching thing about a book club book is my book club.  Once a month I get to talk in depth or in a flippant way about the book we have all read.

There is something rather marvellous about being able to talk about a book that has been read by a group of people at the same time and then being able to talk about the book, regardless of whether I enjoyed it, with other people.

This month we read ‘Scenes from a Village Life’

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/05/amos-oz-scenes-village-life-review?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The book was written in 2011 and nicely sums up my point about reading a book at the same time with a group of people.

If we had read this in 2011 the conversations that swirled around our different interpretations of this book would have been significantly different to the conversations that were had this week in June 2024.

The impact that any book has is dependent on when and where it has been read. That makes the word ‘impact’ a much more fluid concept.

Aren’t books wonderful?

An audiobook has had me crying into my white paint pot this week while I have been labouring on my white walls.

The idea of colour blocking outside came from an Interior Design Book.

How could anyone expect me to choose just 3 books?

Huge thanks to my fellow bookworms for opening the doors and windows of books, that I would never have crossed the threshold of without your company and some hand holding

#916 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Serendipity1 Comment

Most mornings before I write the blog I have a little canter through various on-line, news-gathering  services, check out the 3rd party blog prompt, and consider the blog I was planning to write.  One  thing jumped out from news gathering that is quite pertinent to todays blog. Also the 3rd party prompt has only a one sentence answer. A gloriously simple answer that I could have used on any of my many days on earth.

What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?
My skin.

Yesterday I did two very small paintings. They are somewhere between abstract and representational, closer to abstract.

One of the articles I read this morning was about, Euphoric recall.

My life, in my old skin, is pretty much one long example of euphoric recall. My two paintings of yesterday are far more euphoric than real life. Maritime Sunburst Lichen is one of my favourite things to see on rocks.

Here it is in its active stage.

But as it ages it flattens out and leaves circular scars.

On sunny winter days it just makes me smile. My abstracts of yesterday were painted from memory with no reference images. I just threw in some  dutch gold to brighten them up , they are exactly euphoric recall because some days even Sunburst Lichen can look pretty dull.

But in my head, the lichens are gaudy circles of natural joy.

Which is very much an example of euphoric recall at its finest.

In general my blogs are all about the joyous things in life even if sometimes the inspiration point starts off in a darker place.

#915 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn London, Rituals, Serendipity2 Comments
Dragon Centre, Sham Shui Po. HK

Wednesday ‘ hump’ day and a chance to answer a 3rd Party prompt that has been circling my mind since I first read it and decided not to bother with it. But actually circles or going round in circles is appealing as an answer and doesnt knock the planned blog off the page.

Are you a leader or a follower?

As an absolute magpie for  information, both necessary and unnecessary, I am an instinctive follower. All the better to learn new stuff from people ahead of me. I have vast pots of information stored in my head.

I call it information and not knowledge because to quote my exasperated Dad, ‘I am a mine of useless information’. Despite being an instinctive follower I am more than capable as a leader, even if that is sometimes accidental. To get back to the proposed blog. I have been pondering the recent death of someone that I had an awkward, or difficult relationship with. I am not alone in finding her difficult but my conundrum was that despite our differences I could see her many good qualities and her death has both surprised and saddened me. It has also galvanised me, as these things often do, to live my life as fully and as engagedly as possible. A sort of mental energy burst. It bothers me when I don’t completely like people and, as I have discovered that becomes harder when they have died.

Luckily for me, a very clever poem to mark the death of someone who had difficult relationships has slightly rescued my circling mind.

If I Had A Voice
by Caroline Wilkes

If I had a voice now
It would be loving
And I would say thank you for all of your care.
If I had a voice now
I’d want to tell you
I’m sorry for not always wanting to be there.
My life, it confused you, it did so to me.
But I am released now and my heart is free.
The heart that was hidden beneath all the pain,
It felt so much more than I could explain.
And if I had a voice now,
I’d say out loud
I love you, I wish that I’d made that clear.
And in my lifetime
I need you to know
That I was much more than I did appear.
These are things that I’d say through choice…
if I had a chance and if I had a voice

I think this nicely demonstrates how learning something from someone else. In this case the admirable Dr Google, can circle a follower into a leader.

You may never have met this poem before. But you almost certainly have had some difficult relationships with people who have since died. Maybe all of this poem works for the conundrum of difficult relationships. Or maybe, like me, just one or two lines do the trick. Maybe just for a moment I have led you to some useful words.

Fantail Fish

So to conclude I believe leading and following are often the same thing from different viewpoints.