You almost never know when is the last time you will do something. Visiting Whitsand Bay in South East Cornwall is a case in point for us. A spectacular 8 km sandy beach about half an hour from home. To visit takes a fairly determined beach goer as access is down a steep path but the rewards certainly outweigh the 10 minute descent. I suspect life got in the way of our family visits. There was a period of life when I had two children under 7 and two terminally ill parents who lived 300 miles away.
Quite why I allowed life to stop us visiting I don’t know. Life pressures and commitments have a way of limiting freedom and choice, almost imperceptibly but, brutally. So 30 years have passed and the small children who last struggled down the hill with me have children of their own.
This is not the sort of place to ignore for 30 years and a beach this beautiful that allows dogs year round should have been back on my radar as soon as we got Hugo 10 years ago.
Better late than never, life is too short to let a place like this slip through my fingers again.
Blue Monday is a strange concept in a World Pandemic where, to use the same colour qualities, the United Kingdom is currently in deepest Navy Blue.
Our hours exercise took us to a quiet beach where I got three pictures of an annonymous surfer. There was a bit of blue to carry on the colour theme . Hopefully, with the arrival of a vaccine, we can all ride a wave of recovery.
As well as he does.
This is not a perfect surfers beach however . The skill shown in these pictures is all the more impressive when some of the harder geographical features of the same beach are revealed.
A fine Blue Monday metaphor for the current situation.
My apologies for the late arrival of today’s blog. After months of insomnia I was able to sleep last night. The usual time for tweaking and posting the next days blog was used for sleeping.
This morning was always going to be busy with good things. An early morning dog walk followed by a swim in the sea. The dog walk gave me this revised blog title.
Our local nature reserve is having a second hay harvest only a couple of weeks since the last.Today was always about making the best of things. We’ve had a sad old week which I’m sure I will touch on in various future blogs. So our is a metaphorical ‘ Making Hay While The Sun Shines’ kind of day. It turns out that is is also an actual Hay Making day.
The early dog walk was planned to facilitate an early swim with some old friends, pre 9am at Cawsand Beach. We found a quiet, almost Mediterranean corner of the beach to swim from.
The access to the sea was easy but very definitely more Cornish than Mediterranean, as was the sea temperature.
We had a fabulous swim, completely life enhancing and happiness creating. Followed by coffee and breakfast in our little cove. Emerging from our quiet spot there was very quickly signs of things to come!
The beach ahead of us was crowded even at 10 am.
Trying to get home involved an almost 10 mile traffic jam or a half hour drive to a ferry with a half hour wait.
Obviously from the picture you can see we chose the ferry.
This was a difficult decision for all @theold mortuary. A much loved family member was killed on the road to Torpoint and we’ve not ever travelled that road since. Some tears were shed.
South East Cornwall is full to the brim with people and traffic. Time to get back to part of today’s original blog.
The only link I can find is friendship.
Apparently government guidelines suggest that gatherings of 30 people are acceptable, with appropriate social distancing. Even with new additions I’m not sure I could gather 30 friends together and certainly not 30 family members. So once again I am unable to comply with new government guidelines. Meeting with a lower number of people suits us just fine. 30 seems giddyingly too many.
Just before lockdown I met two women. One at an art gallery and the other at a gym. Lockdown created a unique time and space to grow new friendships at a distance, we have also rekindled our old friendship with our swimming friends and nurtured existing friendships with the gift of more time. I’m not sure quite why the pandemic promoted the ability to speed up the cementing of really solid and valuable friendships both old and new, it’s a lovely positive in puzzling times.
I suppose that is something to ponder on!
The pictures below are lovely gifts that arrived this week from the Art Gallery friend and the Gym friend.
Lovely bursts of colour from flowers and crocheted bunting.
The pandemic has taught us to value friends and family and everything closer to home. It is a lovely feeling.
Unadulterated Coffee Porn. With the occasional tea.
We know how fortunate we are @theoldmortuary. The trivial nature of these pandemic blogs is just a small moment of inconsequential pondering amidst a sea of serious stuff. Things come and go in the ponderings one of them is tiny obsessions with something we can’t have. In truth of course we can easily have a coffee, or tea, and a piece of cake at home. But it’s not the same. Coffee and Cake is our guilty pleasure, artisanal, independent, skilful, visually beautiful and quirky are the basic requirements.Shallow, pretentiousness, maybe twatty , yes all of those things but supporting local businesses and taking pleasure in something simple is no bad thing.I popped the word coffee into the search bar of my image archive. I had not expected it to serve quite so much…This blog will be longer. than I thought and I’ve only chosen the best pictures.April was always going to be tricksy in our coffee world. Hutong Cafe,just outside Royal William Yard in Plymouth, our most regular coffee house is closed for refurbishment.
Column Bakehouse who run the cafe at Ocean Studios also have a great cafe at their Bakery, coincidentally another Old Mortuary. At Devonport Guildhall.
Other great coffee places happen in Plymouth, I just don’t have photographic evidence.Good Coffee HQ in Ebrington Street is one.Black Sheep Brew in nearby Tavistock sells the mythical Monmouth Coffee from London’s Borough Market.
Let’s be honest Plymouth is also the home of some shocking coffee, not all sold by chains, although they do account for a lot of crimes against the bean.South East Cornwall is not a friend to great coffee. My only happy coffee photo comes from The Canteen at Maker.
Coffee at Canteen at Maker
Liberty Coffee at Launceston is well worth the trip when world wakes up again.
Liberty Coffee , Launceston
Coffee Porn @theoldmortuary is off on a little travelogue now. As luck would have it there is a great cup of coffee as we leave the SouthWest.Otter Valley Ice Cream on the A30 does a lot more than Ice Cream.
Lola at Otter Valley Ice Cream
Lynnwood Coffee in Lechlade features heavily, not only because they do great coffee but our friends love to send us Coffee Porn from there. A lot of Coffee Porn.
Many Coffees and comestibles at Lynwood
Further afield in England we found this gem in Bury-St-Edmunds in Suffolk. Paddy and Scott’s
Paddy and Scotts
A regular favourite in London, even though it has become quite a big chain is Gail’s Dulwich Village. Cheese straws by which all others are judged.
Gail’s, Dulwich Village
Finally a curious place for coffee, a butchers shop in Southampton, famed quite rightly for their breakfasts the coffee was great too.http://www.uptonsbutchers.co.uk/
Upton’s of Bassett
In no particular order here is a tiny world tour of coffee houses we have loved.
Uncle Sam’s Pancakes
Breakfast in South Korea, we stayed in an Airbnb in an untouristy suburb of Seoul, Yongsun-gu. Uncle Sam’s Pancake was our closest cafe. This next image was my birthday breakfast also in Yongsun-Gu.
Anonymous in Seoul
Havana in Cuba gave great everything, it is a wonderful country.Coffee here is represented by art. A sculpture made from old and damaged Stove-top Espresso pots.
Coffee Pot Sculpture, Havana
Toronto in Canada gave us a lot of coffee action. I had a bad knee injury and we were ‘forced’ to rest often in coffee shops.https://www.hotblack-coffee.com/
HotBlackCoffee
HotBlackCoffee Queen Street, Toronto.
Kobrick, NY, NY
Kobrick Coffee, amazing vintage coffee house serving great coffee and wonderful Jazz in the Meatpacking District.https://www.kobricks.com/A reward after a blisteringly hot walk on The High-Line, my favourite park in the world.https://www.thehighline.org/Although it’s landscaping did cause the knee injury that forced so much coffee drinking in New York.It is only a tiny tour, bringing up the rear is Hong Kong. Birthplace of both Hannah and our lovely VV.
Coffee Academics , Hong Kong
Hong Kong also gave us two lovely coffee quotes. From the stools at Coffee Academics.
My last picture comes from Hoi An, I’ve used it before in blogs but it represents, for me, the current situation and a hope that nattering in coffee shops will become normal again.This pillow rests on a bench in a tea house , that also serves great coffee, where noise and conversation is discouraged always.
Christmas Day 2019 and the weather was very kind to us. It took extremely creative photography to make the beach seem as quiet and tranquil as this. There were hundreds of people and dogs taking in the sunshine .
theoldmortuary.design 