What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
If my blog creates one additional smile in the world then I would consider that a ponder well used as far as the world is concerned .
#1006 theoldmortuary ponders.
Tag: dailyprompt
#1003 theoldmortuary ponders.
List 30 things that make you happy.
What I think is the point of a list like this?
An infinite amount of things make me happy most days.
Better and easier perhaps to list the things that make me unhappy and yet that list is also infinite but in a much less significant way.
The impact of happiness is sustaining and expansive. We must all dwell in a state of unhappiness from time to time but I find it is best given a good thinking on. Pondering perhaps, but then finding ways of diminishing the impact of sadness on daily life. Dwelling on happiness is a good thing. I find the inside of broad bean outer cases as an instant happy fix. Not perhaps something that marks me out as a wise old sage or internet wellness coach but it works for me every time. Similarly the inside of Horse Chestnut, conker,cases.
Imagine being so loved and nurtured that a disposable soft cocoon of natural fibres is created just to encourage you to thrive. If I was feeling particularly decadent as a small broadbean I would ask to grow near a bed of tomatoes so that my fluffy thriving was enhanced by the fragrance of crushed tomato leaves. So many things to make me happy. Why ever would I stop at thirty?
#982 theoldmortuary ponders
Dogs or cats?
For 55 years I was a cat or nothing sort of person. Many of those years with house/flat only cats. And all cat-owning years with a dirt box in my home. Then I got dogs+cats and now I am in an exclusive relationship with dogs. Yardening changed everything. We work really hard to have a child safe , beautiful space to relax, in our urban, coastal yard.
What we have never wanted is a cat latrine. We have neighbours in the extended locality who have any number of pet cats that are free to roam, shit and piss in other peoples outside space. Honestly I am so over cats! Apart from this one who was posing so beautifully for a visual pun in Brixton Market.
#977 theoldmortuary ponders.
Are you seeking security or adventure?
This blog is supposed to be about me finishing a watercolour after four months. But then my blog host put this teasing question on my admin page . I can answer the question with this painting. After four months of doodling I thought I was done. You could say, I was secure that enough was enough. But the minute the finished photograph was taken I knew that security was never going to work for this string bag of windfall apples. The leaves are not bold enough, the leaves are going on an adventure. The leaves are going bolder. Flakes of gold leaf are going to make the leaves sparkle.
There was never a plan to paint windfall apples in a string bag. I just wanted something to paint in a meditative way while talking at an artists social gathering.
First coloured orbs appeared.
Then the string bag.
The arrival of the string bag somehow turned the orbs into bruised and imperfect apples.
And that should have been that, but the leaves are all wrong so the August gathering of art natterers will see me possibly adventuring too far with this picture. It could go well . It may not.
In my search for creative adventure I could be…
Gilding the Lily.
Saturday pondering, it is often a surprise to me how a blog will end and sometimes even the beginning takes me unawares.
#973 theoldmortuary ponders.
What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?
I have the ugliest pair of crocs to wear in our yard. They live by the French windows and never see action anywhere beyond the yard. They have a much more grippy sole than a regular croc and were only available in two colour ways. This camo green with electric blue was the most acceptable of the two offerings. They need grip because in winter, parts of the yard can get slippy.
The outdoor mirror is also the only one in the house where it is easy to see how a whole outfit looks.
So the crocs get worn with all our best outfits. Small crocs are provided for small people.
There is a flaw in this strategy.
Sometimes small people or even larger people interrupt the flow of getting ready to go out. On occasions the crocs have made it beyond the front door to the outside world with posh/smart/lovely outfits because they were not taken off. A return home is essential on these occasions.
#972 theoldmortuary ponders.
What are you most excited about for the future?
Writing a daily blog about the repetitions and mundanity of regular life has given me appreciation and fascination with how unplanned moments shape the activities and experiences of most days. Making every day an adventure of sorts. Future ponders that are formed by normal life are very exciting. What will I be thinking about next?
Yesterday we had a Naming Day to attend. So fancy clothes were required.
A small boy was welcomed into his community, with a service by a celebrant, surrounded by his family and friends. A bubble of Love.
We were in a small Devon village where similar services along with marriages and funerals would have been celebrated in similar ways for centuries.
Food, drinks, lots of hugging and happiness. When the time came to leave we were stuck. Halted by a scene that would have been part of this small villages life for the same amount of centuries
The sheep gave me time to ponder on the importance of marking these life milestones with my friends and family. As many of us shrug off the rituals and commitments dictated by religion we don’t mark becoming a couple or the arrival of a child as much as our forbears did. The last vestige is perhaps funerals but even those are going the ‘no-fuss’ way. But gathering together to eat and drink with our fellow humans, for a couple of hours to mark a significant event is such a lovely thing to do. We should do it more often perhaps, gathering is good for us. In reference to the first image. Are gatherings the building blocks of family, community and society?
Are we missing out in a non-celebratory world?
#966 theoldmortuary ponders.
How do you express your gratitude?
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.
Although here is currently a white corner.
#962 theoldmortuary ponders.
What are your daily habits?
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.
#956 theoldmortuary ponders
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
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.
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