Just a waterfall in the English countryside, below a pond.
With a glass shute that humans and cows can walk under.
And a message.
If people, or cows for that matter, for just one minute, allowed Modern Art to get into their heads rather than allowing it to flow over their heads, the world would be a very different place for them.
Or maybe significantly different. Not so likely for the cows.
5 minutes is all it takes at Delamore Arts. Staying longer is even more interesting.
At no point in blog #900 were we more than 2 miles as the seagull flies from home. But as you can see from this map we live in a complex place water-wise. To cover that 2 miles as non-seagulls involves either a long drive involving a toll bridge. A car ferry or a foot ferry.
#900 theoldmortuary ponders.
When I moved from Cornwall to Devon people questioned the decision but being a woman from Essex I always felt rather more like a Tamar Valley resident than a Cornish one. Cornwall can be tricksy with people not born there. Devon has a more open heart. The small move to Devon was, and is no big deal.
The big deal is of course the way I serve scones.
Geography and Cream. Critical!
If in doubt eat a cheese scone no jeopardy with a cheese scone.
This weekend has brought me a rich archive of Facebook time hop memories. Some of them were serendipitous. Yesterday we met some London friends at a country park and walked miles in mud and bright sunlight. 11 years ago they had sent us this message.
Their family now has two dogs but everything else is as it was, we laughed all day. Below is baby Hugo and baby Monty on the same day.
Another doggy memory features a baby Lola and our friend Steph.
Every picture tells a story, and the story of early 2016 is not one for an upbeat sunny blog. But there is so much love in and around this photo and we all needed it.
February wouldn’t be February if art wasn’t starting to wake up for the year.
The point of this Sunday ponder is to just enjoy these moments. Social Media isn’t for everyone but this weekend I have really enjoyed the reminiscences delivered to my phone over the last two days. The one below was a chilly family outing to Oxford Street. The gorgeous piece of Street Art perked us right up on a rainy day.
Maybe the take away from these February memories is that there is always so much to look forward to with ten months of possibilities to anticipate. Just like a tree waiting to grow leaves in the sunshine.
A little extra from yesterday. An accidental dam in floodwater.
This patch of England has been my home since 1988, it is far from my place of birth and in that time I have not always lived here. But it is where my soul has its feet under the table. This morning for no reason in particular I wondered why Plymouth Sound was a ‘Sound’. Geography had the answer.
Yesterday we were at the far west reaches of the Sound, at Kingsand and Cawsand. The furthest point seen through the circle is, I believe, the far west point of Plymouth Sound before it becomes the Atlantic Ocean.
Conversely dog grooming occurs on the furthest easterly point at Wembury.
Yesterday I was able to take a photo of Both the easterly point and the most westerly with a wooden tall ship in the middle.
The Pelican of London had just left Plymouth and was taking quite a buffering from the wind as it sheltered in Cawsand Bay. Madness to think that a tall ship moored here would, in the past, have been ripe, low hanging fruit for the smugglers, pirates and wreckers of all the places we love to walk our dogs and enjoy gorgeous scenery.
Bigger than a bight and wider than a fjord . Packed with history and landscape. 99% of @theoldmortuary blogs occur from here.
Today’s late blog is late because the planned blog did not go to plan. I had an early start this morning and a lazy evening last night so there was no back up plan. The 3rd of February is an insignificant date @theoldmortuary but a trawl through past photos taken on the 3rd of February have a strange coincidence. In recent years the footpaths and fields of our Cornish lives had become quite difficult to navigate as winter rains make the ground underfoot muddy and slippery. By February I was pretty intolerant of me and the dogs being grubby after every walk. Sometimes I would seek a more urban environment with tarmac paths in parkland. Devils Point in Plymouth was often my choice because there was also good coffee at Hutong.
And fabulous views.
Of course between these two photos Covid struck and that changed everyone’s lives. By February 2021 we had evolved into the sort of people who loved to swim, year round in the sea. Not something we could achieve safely near to our home in Cornwall. By late 2021 we were living in Stonehouse, a quick walk to the coffee shop, the swimming area and the beautiful views. The beautiful flowers, Cafe Au Lait dahlias, were left in Cornwall.
Yesterday was my birthday. Under normal circumstances I don’t think birthdays always get a mention in my ponderings. This one gets a mention because it was quite unbirthday-like. After a week in London providing love and support to a new grandaughter, and attending the blogging course, my birthday was the day to travel home.
Not that the birthday was unmarked. Sunday evening there was a fabulous curry for supper boosted by savoury Bengali snacks from Brick Lane and a Connie the Caterpillar Cake.
Our drive to Devon was made birthday-special by visiting a Gails Bakery on our pre-drive dog walk. Gail’s is a large, London, chain of bakeries. Their cheese straws are my personal gold standard. Because it was my birthday I chose two baked goods to accompany me to Devon and a flat white, oat milk coffee. I picked, as my luxury item a brioche bun. Unknown to me it was not just any bun but a Christmas Bun!
Despite being a fairly loyal customer , I had never encountered a Christmas Bun before. Why do these things happen just as I leave London? To save me from myself would be the best answer.
The revelatory moment occurred as I drove on the A3 almost certainly beyond the last outpost of the Gails sphere of influence. Out into the world of Surrey and beyond.
No other incident in my life has made me inspired to make brioche buns before. Googling gives me the other ingredient I will need to learn to make – frangipane.
If I manage to crack this project there is one thing certain. These buns will not just be for Christmas.
The other end of the journey also had a surprise. We stopped on the edge of Dartmoor to collect something, the unusually warm November had allowed Lichen to thrive on Gabions that had been used instead of Traditional dry stone walling. I am normally very sniffy about such poor practice but who wouldn’t be charmed by these quilt- like patches of lichen.
Now this may seem an odd pairing for a blog but anyone who regularly drives long distances knows just how hard it is to get enough green into your diet on driving days. The same goes for blogs.
The dogs have a new beach of choice for one of their daily walks. It is a river beach that lies on the Devon side of the Hamoaze , a sort of watery border area, the sort known as 4 corners in some parts of the world. To the west is Cornwall, the east is Devon, north is the Tamar River and to the south the Atlantic, or Pymouth Sound. For the dogs the beach is a collection of freshly changed fascinating smells. At high tide the beach doesn’t exist but at mid tide a treasure trove of smells for them and treasure for their human companions is there for anyone to pick over. It is hard not to be fascinated by little pieces of sea glass and pottery. This handful was gathered in about ten minutes
The dogs love the area because even the most time conscious human loses all sense of time while picking up treasure. This allows them to sniff and track all manner of fascinating fragrances without interruption by a human anxious to get home. We go there so often I have created an indoor collection of ‘treasure’ that has definite boudaries. A box lid that can only contain a finite amount of bits. As new and more colourful bits are added, less interesting ones must be returned to the beach to continue their journeys.
So far this system has worked, only time can tell if discipline or hoarding will ultimately win.
Setting up a group art exhibition is exhausting but the thrill of unpacking other peoples creativity is an enormous treat. The other great pleasure is meeting and talking with the artists as they arrive, weighed down by their precious creations.
After the last two days of setting up and installing we have a week now of being open to the public and plenty of time to chat. Anyone local to Gunnislake or the Tamar Valley, we would love to see you, there will always be a warm welcome.
Bluebell woods can be tricksy to photograph effectively. This was my best shot of the day in some new to me woods. New England Woods near Ivybridge. The river Yealm runs through the woods and will become a freshwater swimming location very soon. Alongside the bluebells the Ransomes, or Wild Garlic were bright and white and happy to pose for a phone camera.
Not that they would have been quite so happy to pose if they realised that a bit of wild garlic is a wonderful thing when added to roast potatoes.
Unlike bluebells the wild garlic were easy to capture.
And the birdsong was equally compliant.
Yesterday the blog drove life, rather than lagged behind it. Some friends were reading the blog on their way to shop at Ikea. Realising that we would all be there at the same time they Whatsapped us and we all had breakfast together. Then we parted, them to browse and buy things they didn’t need and us to click and collect with no chance of temptation. With our van loaded with multiple Kallax units we drove off to the South West Coastal Path to walk a little chunk of it. We really did pack a lot into one Ikea trip. Despite the sunshine the sea mist was not kind to us at all so there are no glorious seascapes to share.
Wildflowers had their moment in the spotlight. As did small portions of Atlantic Rainforest.
We had a really comfortable few hours in the sun, walking in a new area. We stopped for lunch at the intersection of three footpaths and took some time reading about the walk we were doing.
If you can read the text you can see that beautiful, white, Park Cattle were predicted.
We met Brown Cattle with horns. Brown cattle who had been absolutely pissed off by teenage boys running at them and screeching on the very very steep rough pasture where we met them. Brown cattle who took one look at us and decided that they would graze and wetly defaecate on the only narrow track that was available to us. Just because they could and because as representatives of the human race we had to pay the price of too much testosterone in teenage boys.
The cattle had safety in numbers so we sat down again to enjoy the non view and give them the chance to wander back off. We also had our own slight testosterone problem. At the sight of the cattle blocking our path Hugo was pumping himself up to be the Alpha male of our pack and started practicing his latent herding manoeuvres, while firmly on the lead. Despite a wait of nearly twenty minutes the cattle were going nowhere and even if they did leave, the footpath had become a stinky puddle of post lunch poo. Our choices were limited; retrace our steps, possibly the simplest, but 3 miles distance, solution to get to a point 500 yards away. Take an unknown footpath for a similar distance in a different direction or scramble up an almost 90 degree, gorse covered slope. Obviously we chose the gorse covered slope!
The details of the scramble will remain hazy. All was well that ended well. There was a huge fallen tree at the top of the slope, the perfect place to stop, take a sip of water, gather our thoughts and allow our pumping hearts to return to a normal rhythm. We could also observe, 500 yards beneath us the brown cattle still quietly grazing and pooping on the footpath. They had an air of solidarity and victory about them.
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