Tag: dailyprompt

#687 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Music, Serendipity1 Comment

Live music in a standing venue is one of the great timeless experiences. Humans have been standing around in semi-circles listening to other humans making music for ever. Dancing in that semicircle can be a messy, sweaty, life affirming experience shared with absolute strangers. Beer, or sometimes worse, on your feet and trampled toes are a tiny part of the experience of moving as part of a human mass to music. Last night we joined the throng of three university’s worth of Freshers on Freshers Friday in the city centre.

We were there to see a friends band, Ushti Baba play.

https://m.soundcloud.com/ushtibaba

We had the best time. Nothing hits the spot quite like live music.

Ordinarily the question below would have had me pretty ponderingly stuck. My music tastes are eclectic, unsophisticated and possibly unpredictable.

What’s your all-time favorite album?

I don’t have enough time or head space to condense my love of music to one album. I love the effort involved in an album. Not for me a couple of highlight tracks or the shuffle option. I want to listen to an album as the musicians wanted it to be published, in the order that was argued over and then decided upon.

Had I not been out to listen to live music last night I would probably have skipped the prompt question. But I feel all topped up with good stuff this morning. Ready to be honest and say that it is beyond me to make such a decision. I may not yet have heard my all time favourite album. I have almost certainly forgotten some absolutely sublime albums. In my head there are many albums poking at my aural grey matter.

“Choose me” they beg, giving me tiny earworm snippets of their favourite tracks.

” Choose me, because you love the artwork”

“Choose me, because you fell in love to my soundtrack”

“Choose me, because I am the best break-up album ever”

“Choose me because you grieved so deeply , my tracks were your slow recovery and salvation”

I am not listening, my mind is made up. I do not have a favourite album. I am aurally polyamorous. No shame.

#686 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, WordsLeave a comment
Sketch for future project about cold water swimming.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

Writing gives me the chance to note down inconsequential things. As an artist I can sketch inconsequential things. Sometimes something of substance comes from these two activities. As September heads to a colourful autumn I am on the last leg of being out and about as an exhibiting artist. For the first time this year I did an event called Open Studios and am currently exhibiting in a gorgeous, medieval period, house called Cotehele.

Exhibiting this year has felt significantly different to the last couple of years. Writing, or capturing this thought gives me the chance to consider this sensation. Almost certainly 2023 felt like the first truly Covid worry free year for people who organise art events and for their visitors. Everything that people love about art shows was back. Sketch books, business cards and crowds. Boozy Private Views and long delightful conversations. There is so much to learn from the company of other artists and the people who love to look at art. The current financial climate has limited the amount of sales.

But the interactions with visitors have been wonderful. I have been so lucky. I’ve unexpectedly met some old friends and work colleagues for long leisurely conversations and put faces, names and personalities to people I barely knew before this summer. Some blog readers have also appeared which has been lovely.

What do I enjoy most about writing?

The ability to reflect and cteate a world that is both real and imagined , orthodox and surreal. A safe place to ponder. A place to take stock of the snippets of life that might go unnoticed.

#683 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, SerendipityLeave a comment

Pondering and Blogging are curious ways to start the day. Initially I rejected the prompt below because I felt I had nothing to say on the subject.

Share a lesson you wish you had learned earlier in life.

Whilst not exactly a lesson, today’s observation is something I constantly need to cherish. All of my life my limbic system has been a great ally in my judgement of people, places and situations. Below is the complex explanation.

What Is The Limbic System? Definition, Parts, And Functions

Put in my simple terms I should listen better to my instinctive responses. Ignore them at my own peril. If I listened better, life may have been easier in places and I may even have been in different places.

This ponder is about location. When I first moved to the West Country 35 years ago, I immediately sought out the Water-colour painting community. The group I joined had regular demonstrations in a local Quaker Meeting House. After the session people drove off to a rough and ready pub in a dockyard area. I was immediately bewitched. There was often live music and the notes and lyrics bounced off the docks and harbours nearby. In my vivid imagination the wooden ghost ships of the past jostled for space on the already redundant wharves and salty old sailors were listening to the same tunes as a bunch of amateur artists. I immediately felt a sense of belonging.

Two years ago I moved within easy walking distance of that same pub. Both of us have changed, almost unrecognisably in the 35 years. I still imagine wooden ships and salty old seafarers in this location but am surrounded by tech startups and call centres housed in beautiful historic buildings.

Last night I was lucky enough to be able to visit a replica wooden galleon. El Galleon Andalucia. So my imagination has a little more heft. The photos are from my visit. The one below is just a coil of rope but exactly illustrates how life circles around and takes us all, to sometimes unplanned, destinations via interesting routes.

#681 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)2 Comments

Walking but not running is a huge part of my daily, dog owning, life

But running not so much . However in my vivid dream world last night it was all about running and shouting. I blame the large chocolate eclair I ate closer to bedtime than is usual. . Our evening had been spent enjoying pizza from a home pizza oven.

As an inaugural effort it was both hugely successful and intriguing. Three out of four were visually and flavorfully successful. One was structurally unsound but an epicurean delight. The evening was nearly thwarted by the pizza oven having a european plug. Trusty Waitrose, a rather middle class supermarket, had a travel adapter for all the European holiday makers flooding into Cornwall all summer minus their travel plugs. The consequence of pizza oven plug jeopardy was a delayed start time for eating which then pushed Eclair eating further down the time schedule.

Between eating and sleeping there was just the late night dog walk.

A sleep fueled with pizza and chocolate eclair with no real gap is not a restful event. When I woke up at six I was exhausted by my nocturnal adventures and then easily droppin off again I was plunged into a colourful world of events and activities that required me to run through airports and take part in vintage vehicle parades. When I woke up at eight and checked my phone the question below popped up on my blogging app. Any other day I would have ignored it , feeling embarrassment that running is not really my thing any more.

How often do you walk or run?

But clearly in my nocturnal life things are quite different. In my dream world I run around like a twenty five year old athlete. Parkouring where necessary, nothing gets in my way. Fueled by late night carbohydrates and fats, the world is, apparently, a place to be scampered through at speed. Who knew!

#679 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Words1 Comment

What’s your favorite word?

I have so many favourite words that it would be too hard to choose one, but I do have a word that my mum loved to use in her frequent work rants.

Audacity.

I love that in my mind it can be both positive and negative.

Willingness to take bold risks is a fabulously empowering thing. Bold is not stupid or dangerous.

In my mums work world women took bold, audacious risks, always for the benefit of other women. Bold risks because they ignored rules and regulations to better improve the services and experience of their exclusively female patients.

Men in senior positions often had the audacity to question and try to control the decisions made by these women for women. This was always the subject of her regular work based rants, always down the phone to people hidden and anonymous to me.

Somehow Audacity is a really precious word, one that I never feel quite able to use in its negative tense with anything like the accuracy of my highly indignant mother. Could I ever be cross, at her near-nuclear levels?

On the positive,though, I love it. Audaciousness is very much something I respect in almost every aspect of my life.

Audaciously I am using a completely unrelated image for this blog. The audacity of it!

#678 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn CornwallLeave a comment

What are you doing this evening?

Just over half way through my day I have no idea what I might be doing this evening. Apart from delivering art to a gallery my day has been a series of unscheduled events. Trying to photograph this apple core was more of a challenge than you might think. Over the weekend this apple sculpture made of apples has artistically diminished to an apple core. The fragrance in the sunny courtyard is the fragrance of early autumn.

Delivering art to this particular gallery is an enhanced pleasure on a day like today. But the welcome of apples and sunshine made it extra special.

By a great piece of design the poster for the exhibition mirrors the colours of the apples.

What a lovely feeling to just drop some art off and have no responsibility for the curating or organisation. However familiar I am with these surroundings the architecture never fails to charm me.

But today I was surprised by a piece of abstract planting in one of the courtyards. Almost Sci-fi with these purple Aeonium.

So what am I up to this evening, beyond some early bobbing I still have no idea. But if anything fascinating crops up perhaps I will mention it tomorrow. But returning to daytime activities , my fellow artist Debs did get a good shot of the apple core.

#676 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Describe your ideal week.

An ideal week starts slowly, not perhaps as slowly as this inquisitive snail gliding gently over a National Trust scanning machine. Yesterday we witnessed a poignant but inanimate event. A large pebble was tossed onto a bank of pebbles by the rough incoming tide. On impact, at our feet,a crack appeared in the pebble and it immediately divided into two parts. How many thousands of years has that pebble been at the mercy of the powerful waves of North Cornwall. How long has it been one pebble not two?

Now a pebble is a pebble, but seeing the smooth palm sized pebble crack and fall apart in front of us just felt immeasurably sad. The next wave would part them forever. Both halves were quickly popped in my pocket. They will no longer be tossed in Cornish waves but will peacefully rest together in my Devon yard. The week is starting very slowly.

#674 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Serendipity1 Comment

How do you relax?

It is no surprise to any regular @theoldmortuary blog reader that over the last 3 years my relaxation comes from swimming in the sea with ‘The Bobbers’. No one is more surprised than me to say this. If I were writing this blog in 2020 my answer would almost certainly have been reading or listening to music. In Ocrober 2020 four and then five of us started swimming regularly in the sea at Firestone Bay. That number has swelled to 21 as of yesterday.

What started as an immune system boosting, cold dip, for one bobber has become a fellowship of swimmers and Coach. There is nothing official about us, just a Whatsapp group where times of ‘Bobs’ are called. The Whatsapp group messages rarely stick at just a tide time and weather prediction. Our Bobbing friendships have similarly become intertwined, interesting and most importantly supportive.

Sometimes in the past, pre 2020, I knew that if life was tripping me up, with too much to do or think about then a couple of hours in a good book would set me right. Not so much now. Even in the depth of winter I know that a dip in Firestone Bay or another cold alternative is exactly what I need. Developing an eclectic and supportive group of ‘bobbing’ friends has also been life changing and life affirming. People who I would never have met in any other way have been brought together by a shared interest in getting chilly on the coastal edge of Plymouth Sound.

In fairness to ‘ Bobbing’ it does do a lot more than relax. This blog could equally have asked all of the following questions and I would have written something similar.

Where do you laugh the most ?

Where can you always get advice?

Where do your maddest conversations happen?

Where can you always get a hug?

Where do you enjoy biscuits the most?

7 Bobbers Bobbing

#672 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Serendipity1 Comment

Are you holding a grudge? About?

Sometimes one of these Jetpack prompts really is a pause for thought.

Do I hold a grudge?

No. I do, however, have a mental filing system of harms done, both great and pathetic.

I use this filing system to learn by experience.

Anybody, myself especially can cause harm to another inadvertently or unintentionally. If I am made aware I certainly try to not repeat my bad behaviour.

But the sad fact is that there are many people in the world who set out to cause harm to others. These people are best avoided. This is not bearing a grudge but just a sensible precaution.

If I held grudges, specifically compared to my mental filing system, I think I am creative enough to consider revenge as an art form worthy of quite a lot of thought and planning. I suspect my revenge would be malignant,served cold but with deadly accuracy. The drawer just slamming shut is so much easier for me to live with.

The mental filing system permits a much more subtle and less harmful act to all. If someone has more than one harmful item in their drawer of my mental filing system then there is a risk that their drawer may be closed forever. Minor characters with no redeeming features have their drawer shut and locked with relative ease. People who are more important, or are of greater interest to me certainly can keep their drawer open longer, maybe forever, even though, of course, their harms can often cut deeper.Best not depend on that though, nothing in the filing system is guaranteed. I hold the only master key.

rhdr

So Grudges- no thank you

A nice tidy filing system of harms, or learning events. Yes please.

#678 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Serendipity, Travels2 Comments

Why do you blog?

My  inspiration to blog is not particularly noble. Someone, who had already irritated me had said that I had nothing interesting to say and that any blog I wrote would reflect that. I struggled a little to find my place in blogland. Then a variety of things occurred including a World Pandemic when, if we were lucky, none of us had much of interest to say. My blog evolved into what it currently is, a ponder on some small part of my day or a thought that I have had. Like many of us,my life has a repetitive pattern so I need to find a nugget of interest or something different about things I do every day. The photo above is a case in point. Last night’s dog walk took me just across the water from my home, my home is completely invisible, and would be even if the ferry had sailed away. Behind the ferry is a narrow strip of land occupied by the ferry port, the Ministry of Defence and a Primary School sports field. The tiny strip of land occupied by the Ministry of Defence is on a narrow rocky ridge, partially covered by trees. It is this ridge that obscures my view of the ferry from our side . Although as the trees lose their leaves we can see the bridge of the ferry if there is a high tide. If I were any good at throwing a hard ball I could give the crew on the Bridge a nasty shock as I write this blog. Similarly I could get you some fabulous drone footage of happy holidaymakers on the ferry from the comfort of my bed. However the Ministry of Defence would take a very very dim view of me flying a drone over their strip of land, so that is never going to happen. It never ceases to amaze me that so much is happening maybe 200 yards from my home and yet this is one of the most peaceful places I have ever lived. Just occasionally if the tide is right, there is a sensation of a thrum from the engines, or when the wind is in a favourable direction, we can hear the public announcements as the ferry gets ready to leave. As someone who loves to travel and loves the idea of travel I find there is something quite energising about living so close to a ferry port. My mind can travel vicariously every time the ferry leaves port and be equally gladdened by its safe arrival. And that my friends is why I blog, nattering about insignificant things to an invisible audience. Simple pleasures.