Tag: Devon

#179 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Travels1 Comment

This blog had a theme in the planning stage but an early morning message from a school friend, who lives in Australia slightly changed the narrative journey.

There is an inevitability about being a woman and revealing the county of your birth if that county happens to be Essex.

But life is a path travelled, and for now my path has taken me to Devon, and currently not too much further. I am 14 weeks into a wait for a new passport which has transitioned from being a holiday busting pain in the arse, to a smug sense of relaxation as the news media constantly broadcasts travel doom. Showing over- busy airports struggling to move a whole Easterworth of happy travellers for the first time in two years.

For now, this Essex Woman is going nowhere, and yes I have been many of the things Sarah Perry observed, so maybe not imposing myself on the wider world for a few months is a kindness imposed by the United Kingdom Passport service.

#131 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Home TownsLeave a comment

My apologies for the blogs being more than usually peppered with art stuff. I am in the midst of an on-line art course called Finding Your Colour Voice. I am trying to complete the course initially in a little over the ten working days and two weekends. My plan is to do each day’s tutorial and weekend projects as soon as I can after they drop onto the website. After that I have another 4 months when the content is available to me to study more at depth. Precious Pondering time is mostly colour related at the moment.

My project yesterday was to create colour charts from a huge variety of sources. I made a start by producing 4 colour charts of places from memory. I’m going to share two of them as they are my short term memory efforts. Unsurprisingly they are of places close to home and easily visited to check out how accurate my memory is. I also have recent photographs to share my thoughts. On reviewing yesterday’s work, I am immediately struck that with these two I have very specifically created a winter colour palate. The other two places I completed are clearly less season specific, I haven’t visited either of them since the pandemic started.

I am particularly pleased with the Cornish colours, I wanted to show the softness of the county. Something that is less obvious in the brashness of summer. Something that doesn’t show well in the photograph is the greigeness that cloaks the county frequently.

Stonehouse is altogether ‘harder’ despite being geographically not far away. It does however share the greige and that colour,or indeed sensation is much better depicted on the Stonehouse colour chart.

A tremendous exercise, many more charts to paint…

Artist / educator

#45 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach Life, BobbingLeave a comment

Todays blog was knocked off the front page by another story of bobbing. This is how tranquil the area was when we went for a dip last night. But what lies underneath?

A playful seal! Spearmint the seal joined the two distance swimmers at the furthest buoy and swam back with them to one of the other swimmers. They calmly warned her that they were not alone. Not trusting them at all she disbelieved them. Calm, was not, in truth, how any of them were feeling . An onlooker who was alerted by their excited chatter said she had never seen anyone swim back to the shore so fast. On arrival back in Tranquility bay Spearmint played around with two other bobbers before noticing that the others were getting out, she joined them in a rush for the beach and the video that follows was her being calm with a background soundtrack of excited chatter.

©Teresa

Teresa, the quick thinking onlooker who filmed this also had a video of Spearmint having her supper.

©Teresa
©Teresa

I think it is safe to say that the whole encounter was a lot more exciting for the humans, Miss Spearmint just takes the whole thing very much in her stride.

©Teresa

Soon after she returned to the sea the water if not the ‘ bobbers’ was entirely tranquil.

#44 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Coffee Hunters, SerendipityLeave a comment

I had known for a little while that this particular blog was going to be about illumination because I had tickets to attend an illumination festival in the Royal William Yard.What I hadn’t expected was that the sunset over our evening swim would be quite so spectacular. Just a tiny tweak on the saturation of this image brought out all these gorgeous colours.

After drying off and warming up we set off to visit the area around Ocean Studios which was the location of Illuminate.

Like lots of things this event has been postponed a few times.

Many of the illuminations were similar to previous years but a new one was a fabulous, luminescent squid called Bobby Dazzler by Kate Crawford and Beth Munro. Visitors were invited to add embelishment to Bobby with fingertips dabbed in luminescent paint.

Outside we could write on a graffiti wall. My rookie error was to seek out a clear piece of wall to advertise this blog without checking the appropriateness of the surrounding marks.

Also new to Illuminate were the thousands of bugs and moths fluttering in the breeze to remind us that we must protect biodiversity and species around the world. There was also the luxury of a cafe serving decent quality late night coffee, always a bonus!

The architecture of the Grade 1 listed buildings lends added texture to projected videos.

And although I failed to record a video the musical pipes and interactive lights were fascinating. Although not particularly musical in our hands.

Returning just for a final comment and illumination to our sunset swim. Here I am wearing my night swimming hat which was a birthday gift last week.

©Gilly Bobber

#26 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Tamar ValleyLeave a comment

The better late than never blog. This morning I got lost in a world of responding to complaints letters, to an organisation I do some work for and ordering wallpaper. One distinctly more pleasurable than the other, then the sun came out and it would have been rude not to have been out in it. So here we are…

More tales of the river banks from my Tamar cruise of Tuesday. It seems to me that regular readers of this blog will have seen the locations in these pictures many times but always from the perspective of me having my feet firmly planted on one bank of the Tamar or the other. Tuesday, unusually found me sailing up and down the Tamar. The top picture is of course the Tamar Road Bridge and the Albert Rail Bridge two structures that link Cornwall with Devon and by extension the rest of the world. As best I can these pictures are in order as we sailed past them, some locations photographed better on the way up and others in the setting sun on the way back. First up is Smeatons Tower on the Hoe.

The picture below is our swimming beach, 5 mins away at cruising speed. Tranquility Bay at just after midday at  high tide.

Last night we were swimming there while Miss Spearmint a,newly resident seal, was having a supper of very fat fish just off the steps. I’m not sure any of us were aware that very fat fish swam anywhere near us! Below is the Royal William Yard where at least one of our daily dog walks takes place.

The next picture is of part of the waterfront of Devonport Royal Naval Dockyard. Not somewhere anyone can casually walk a dog. Some of these buildings are High Security, Ministry of Defence areas.

Maybe that is enough for one blog. Allowing even more tales of the River Banks later.

#25 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photographyLeave a comment

Sharp November sun and calm waters were exceedingly kind to our river cruise yesterday. So much so that there are too many pictures for just one blog. Today I’m going to concentrate on the, almost abstract, waterscapes that presented themselves in the liminal time an hour or so before sunset. They will be a little bit repetitive because all they involve are the sky, a river bank and the river itself.

In these images I am looking out of the back of the boat in the direction of Calstock. The land with autumnal colours of tan, gold and orange is in Devon and is enhanced by the setting sun about an hour before sunset.

This picture is looking directly towards the east, the Devon Bank, just a few minutes later. There is, deliberately, barely a trace of human habitation in these pictures. A slightly longer exposure time enhances the effect of light on water.

Not so long later the Cornish and Devon river banks take a turn in the sun together , everything changes as the river winds itself through the valley to the sea.

Cornwall is the thin slice of  bank that meets  the Devon bank on the horizon. Although they look joined in this image, caused by another twist in the river. The Devon bank identifies itself by being indistinct because there is an example of an Atlantic Woodland growing down to the riverbank at this point.

As the light fades further the Cornish bank takes over the star roll, the river is less winding as it opens out into the Hamoaze and eventually Plymouth Sound. This shot looking towards Saltash gives no hint of the thousands of people who live in the first large town on Cornwall’s border.

Not so very far along is the sunset over Torpoint.

More tales of the riverbanks tomorrow.

Pandemic Pondering #482

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and LolaLeave a comment

A shameless dogblog. Low tide this morning and an empty beach gave the dogs a rare chance to scamper on the beach. Lola is perfectly camouflaged on her new local beach.

Hugo, of course, would only be camouflaged at pure white tropical beaches, which are not local to us.

It’s not only our swimming hobby that stops them visiting the beach often. They have very low respect for other people’s activities. The peaceful activities of strangers are their main interest, book reading or yoga are activities to step away from the hurly burly of regular life. Neither experience is enhanced by a furry nose and whiskers snuffling extremities, however unthreatening the intention.

They also snuffle limpets who do not react.

Pandemic Pondering#461

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Late in the day blog. I’m blaming massive domestic admin again. @theoldmortuary has relocated to the other side of the Tamar. Often with this view it could be predicted that this is a blog about bobbing but today this was our early morning walk. So brief and sometimes late blogs this week while we find ourselves in our new home and also find our stuff in the many boxes that crossed the Tamar yesterday.

©www.paintel.co.uk

Pandemic Pondering #439

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterdays ‘bob’ was a little different. A nearly 10 mile walk, enlivened by lemon cake and tea in the clifftop village of Mortehoe before we descended to Barricane beach for a dip.

Fresh Foxgloves and lots of mud was the reward of walking after a day of heavy rain.

After serious refreshment in the village of Mortehoe, made prosperous by farming, smuggling/wrecking and tourism we descended down to the coast. Farming and smuggling created beautiful architecture, tourism less so. But what humans can make ugly nature can improve, and the views on the way down were spectacular.

Nature and cultivation pulled out the stops too.

Barricane Beach, a small rocky cove was hugely enhanced by sunshine and the fragrance of curry being prepared. Sri Lankan Curries are the evening speciality of this amazing location, prepared by the Barricane Beach Cafe. Please go to their website below for photographs of the actual beach . I managed not to take a single picture!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Beach/Barricane-Beach-Woolacombe-163881457003060/

An hour or so of resting in the sun, was followed by some wonderful swimming/ bobbing as the tide came in and a first time ever experience of freshly served curry to warm us up as soon as we emerged from the waves.

Not a bad day at all!

Pandemic Pondering#433

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Friends and Family, Gardens and gardening, Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Plenty of sunshine and a lovely bit of misogyny.

A sunny Bank Holiday weekend has brought many moments of mirth and pleasure. I took this comment from our towns community page on Facebook. I too think the mowing of the wildflowers is a dreadful shame. In the portion of the graveyard that we overlook, the graves  are so old that they are extremely rarely visited. The wild flowers make the area calm and contemplative. Pollenators love it. Never could the author of the comment have imagined she would get such a delicious example of misogyny as a response. Alan R is quite the man for going off at a tangent, in unexpected ways. In other churchyard news the poppies are  really showing off.

Planted to mark 100 years since the end of World War 1, this their third year is their most glorious.

Despite spending over a year walking every inch of our local area we discovered a new viewpoint yesterday. High up, ovelooking Plymouth Sound. There is a tarmac viewpoint just behind the old Marine Biology building on the Hoe.

The views are splendid.

On such a beautiful day it would have been impossible not to swim, or bob, in the sea. An evening bob with bobbers, friends and families was the perfect end to a gorgeous Monday.

Unexpectedly early, some of the bobbers took delivery of their new summer, post-bob, cover ups, this weekend.

All excitedly modelled on the Whatsapp group.

In other news my fabulous school friend Dai Pullen, an occasional contributor to Pandemic Ponderings has entered a short story competition. If you have the time please visit the facebook link below, read his entry and vote if his wordplay floats your boat.