Tag: Roses

#1394 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Film, Yardening1 Comment
Crepuscule in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’

Crepuscule is a bare root rose that I planted last year. I thought the name was clunky and ugly until I learned that Crepuscule was a French word for sunset. 

While I was away in December my bare root rose decided to put out her first ever flower.

I was both thrilled and concerned. What is beautifully acceptable in the early summer in Sydney is not the norm in a wintery Stonehouse. She also has a very high standard set by her Australian Cousin.

A new found love of growing roses brings with it some tough decisions. My bare root rose should be concentrating on growing roots not blooms. The secateurs were deployed to Crepuscules first efforts at budding and blooming. A Tragedy, some might say.

Which leads me tortuously to last nights outing to see the film Hamnet. On the day that awards and accolades have started tumbling in from the Red Carpet Film and T.V Awards Season.

I don’t often go to films of books that I have read that don’t seem to naturally lend themselves to a Screenplay. Hamnet was just such a book. Deeply enjoyable and dense but a bit of a tricksy read in parts. I couldn’t quite see how a screenplay could replicate my reading experience.

I shouldn’t have worried, Chloe Zhao the screenwriter and Maggie O’Farrell the original author and now co-screen writer did a brilliant job . Pruning and distilling the original text into something that worked brilliantly for me on screen.

Most times I put books and films of books into different filing systems.

Hamnet joins Perfume by Patrick Suskind as a film that I regard as accomplished as the original Novel. I imagine it works just as well for those who have not read the book.

Pruning and distilling at its best.

#1303 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walksLeave a comment
Colour drenched.

Yesterday I was back to winter habits, dog walking in the rain and trying to guess the moments when I would get less wet.  I am a very poor predictor of rainfall and was drenched on three occasions. The most memorable when we were in the Memorial Garden of a local park.

Colour drenched

I wish Memorial Gardens would attach QR codes to the memorial plaques. The chosen biography of unknown people would be so much more enjoyable than just their name and dates of birth, and death. Why were these people loved so greatly and missed by so many?

People are so much more than the ash that feeds these blooms.

But the raindrop tears on droopong petals were beautiful yesterday.

#357 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and FamilyLeave a comment

Currently we are working with a fine ratio of grown ups to new baby. 3:1. Even with that ratio things get a little blurry. Gentle pink roses are a fabulous illustration to a dark tale of gender neutral toilets in a maternity unit.

Gender neutral toilets in a maternity unit reception certainly save space but the reality of sharing such a facility with men who are faced with imminent fatherhood is hardly a fragrant pleasure. The dark miasma of many male anxiety poos is as good a reason as any for some locations having gender specific facilities.

Just saying……..

Pandemic Pondering #179

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

September 13th often gives us the gift of sunshine. It was Hannah’s mums birthday and we were always able to plan a birthday picnic for her, safe in the knowledge that the sun would shine.

This morning we started the day with a sunshine yellow breakfast. Sweetcorn fritters, bacon and egg.

A morning spent doing Sunday stuff, including clearing up fragile, ageing, yellow roses.

Then a trip to Union Street for a Street Party, more about that later in the week.

Sunflowers bought on Union Street replaced the discarded roses.

Then an evening spent swimming at Devils Point!

Dog bottoms in the Sunset…

Pandemic Pondering #79

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FriendsLeave a comment

Easing out of lockdown. Not so long ago conversations with people other than those that share the same home was a bit random or coincidental. We may have been deprived of hugs or the normal interactions with friends but our local to @theoldmortuary life has had some amazing revelations. We now know all of our near neighbours, and have had time to talk at length with many of them. We’ve made some new friends from distant places, distant in lockdown is not so far as it used to be. Being coincidentally in the same place at the same time made Coronafriendships. Social distance garden meetings have been lovely with our more longstanding friends.Today was a bit of a novelty, we had two meetings with two different pairs of friends . It felt novel and a little bit exciting . Giddy even.The morning started with a summer playlist . The stand out track was Peaches by The Stranglers . Such is my weird pandemic head that without thinking I chose these two garments to wear today, and the curious meandering that is Pandemic Pondering #79 formed itself.Back to The Stranglers. Peaches is one of those pieces of music that everyone is familiar with because bits of it are sampled in TV shows and other music. It was considered to be a seminal punk song in 1977 when it was released.
Listen to Peaches (BBC In Concert 23/04/77) by The Stranglers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/the-stranglers/peaches-bbc-in-concert-23-04Enough of the Peaches, back to the nattering. This morning’s meeting was with people I’ve known for around 30 years, there have been some gaps, but now we see each other regularly and laugh about ridiculous stuff. The talk is non stop. After three hours we had jaw ache. A brief break and we were off to nattering session 2 this time with someone we met a couple of weeks before lockdown , more nattering and laughing at preposterous things . We completely forgot to mention Book Club which had been the plan. More jaw ache.Laughter is an amazing thing , it jiggles your belly and burnishes your mind.With my mind burnished and my belly jiggled it’s back to peaches. I’ve had a trawl through the photo archive and plucked out some peach images and had a look in the colour theory books. The photo file was a richer source of peachy stuff than the books. Peach seems a little overlooked in colour theory world.Peach represents immortality in Chinese culture. It is named for the interior flesh colour of the white Peach. It is a range of soft colours between pink and orange. It was first mentioned in literature in 1588.Art Deco in the 1920’s and 30’s used a lot of peach.With the randomness of the internet I can also share a code , which I accidentally wore today. In the gay community a ‘ bear’ who wants to hook up with other ‘bears’ wears a peach bandana. Exactly my choice for the new government guidance of face covering for public transport.Peaches from the archive.Last year’s Cafe Au Lait Dahlias.Close ups of a peachy rose.Autumn foliage in the garden.A tiny shell on a beach in Cuba.A peach trumpeted daffodilFriends , peaches and The Stranglers, that was a curious blog, sometimes they just write themselves.Have a peachy weekend.