Tag: Hugo and Lola

Pandemic Ponderings #4

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Pandemic ponderingsLeave a comment

Zooming and WhatsApp has filled my day as I’m sure it has or will for many people during these early pandemic days.Setting up new forms of communication for groups that until this week simply got together is vital to keep us socially and culturally connected. Whatsapp has been part of my portfolio of communication for a while , I’ve settled on that platform for a small 10 person book club.
https://www.whatsapp.com/

Zoom is something I’ve only used once for an art course. I wasn’t so sure about it then. It worked much better today for an artist and makers organisation, we were all pretty much video conferencing virgins and once contact was established everyone seemed to relax into it.
https://zoom.us/

Away from my device I’ve had a lovely long dog walk, once again dressed as the Lone Ranger.

My walk was pretty slow as Hugo and Lola needed to read the doggy news that they all constantly leave for each other. I took their sniffing/peeing stops as a cue to find something interesting to photograph .

The last one must mean something to someone, it’s clearly important as it’s been highlighted but to the uninitiated( me) it means nothing. The others of course signify the arrival of spring and need only innate knowledge to decode. I am very grateful that in the Northern Hemisphere this pandemic is hitting us in the natural world’s most optomistic season.

Leap Year

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What to do with the extra day in 2020.

©Hong Kong Ballet

Obviously after just one Barré lesson we are fizzing to leap around on Leap Day, but this young man does it so much better .

February always needs more red.

Leap Year attracts flimsiness and fun, see my efforts above, or read Guardian flimsiness.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/29/leap-year-day-how-you-could-and-should-celebrate-29-february

But it exists to keep us all ticking along nicely in time. Introduced by Julius Caesar over 2000 years ago.

Leap day recalibrates and corrects time keeping because every year is actually 365 days and 6 hours long (one complete earth orbit of the sun) so once every four years those extra 6 hours are gathered together to make an extra day.

29 pictures in red to fill your extra day.

Red car Plymouth Hoe
Miss VV
Tywardreath rail crossing
Crystal Palace Rail Station
VV and Mum talk Rothko
Posters Devonport Playhouse
Redcurrants Butler’s Cottage
Red vase @theoldmortuary
Poppies @theoldmortuary
Jewel Salad @theoldmortuary
100 Homes Project, Plymouth
Chinese New Year , Hong Kong
Bowls South Korea
Hugo and Lola hit the Red Carpet
Gipsy Hill Brewery at The Lord High Admiral , Plymouth
Nasturtiums
Detail of painting
Street Art Haggerston
Chilli lights and cook books
Welsh Guards
Autumn Leaf Dulwich Picture Gallery
Beach plastic, Portwrinkle
Croxted Road, Dulwich
Detail from painting
Street Art, New York
Dodging the spray, Niagara Falls, Canada
Post Box, Barnes
Brixton Market
Hoi An

Party Night at theoldmortuary

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Serendipity
©The British Hedgehog Society

https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/the-basic-facts-2/

Last night, unknown to the humans at theoldmortuary, was party night. Our resident hedgehog got up early . I’m not even sure he’s been asleep all that long . All the signs were there during the day, both dogs doing excessive tracking in the garden , following tiny complicated tracks obsessively suggesting hedgehog activity the previous night. Quite how the actual wake up party is announced I don’t know, maybe Hedgehog annoints himself in a particular smell for party night. Toad and slug body spray is entirely likely in this garden. By midnight the party was in full swing, Hugo and Lola paid 6 different visits to the the garden. Despite their excitement they just like to look at hedgehog as he does his thing. I’m pretty sure the canapé provision in our garden is deplorable in February so we provided cold snacks of cat food once the wake up was official. The probable reason for the early wake up, storms Ciara and Dennis,was marked by the guest appearance of Hedgehog Stormzy an old friend from their South London days.

This morning it is quite a different story.

Lola back in her own Hibernacula

Advent#33

On By theoldmortuary.designIn AdventLeave a comment

De-rig day. The cables of Christmas. The trees are down and currently the fairy lights are orderly, boxed away ready for next year.

December 2020, in theory, will see them brought out of their boxes ready to be unwound onto the trees of the next decade effortlessly. In my dreams. In truth inside their boxes squirming will occur, serpiginous and tricksy they will weave knots of such complexity that several hours of sorting out will be required. There will be swearing.

Baubles on the other hand are well behaved. Boxed up and away in the cupboard nothing changes over the next eleven months.

Meanwhile the dogs adopted their favourite pose of disinterest. Chasing baubles is exhilarating but the hoovering of the resulting damage is dull, better to sleep and pretend nothing happened.

Advent#3

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent, Home Towns, Memorial Benches

December Sunset at Churchtown Farm. This works in two ways , it is a brilliant December image for Advent and the location fits nicely into the Memorial Bench category. This bench is not the one that inspired my memorial bench writings but it is the one that I see the most often as it’s on my regular dog walk. It often gets a mention on the Churchtown Farm Facebook page, because people get such peace and solace from perching here. It is placed overlooking a beautifully peaceful stretch of the River Lynher. Jupiter Point, part of HMS Raleigh is the silver twinkles at the far left of this image. Beyond the Navy the water here is pretty quiet, troubled only by sailing boats and the occasional gig from Caradon Pilot Gig Club based in Saltash.A17EB3BB-A74D-4FD2-8A4D-713A9B76BE6C

This bench is unusual because it is so solid and the commemoration is carved into the wood, it’s solidity increases the sense of its permanence in the landscape. The location is so beautiful and the seat so comfy it’s hard to walk past . Not necessarily efficient dog walking but perfect for pondering. It’s what3words location is react.sometime.breeze

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