This headline popped up on my newsfeed last night. For us, in the South-West of England we have one more week until we see our last 8pm sunset. Our house lies in a perfect East/West position so sunrises are observed from the main bedroom and sunsets from the kitchen and studio. Both are easily viewed by walking the dogs at the right time of day. The sun rises over the sea and sets as we look up the river.
Yesterday was International Day of the Dog, and it is the dogs that have made me much more aware of sunrises, sunsets and all the natural changes that occur in landscape. Hugo arrived 11 years ago and with his arrival came the daily habit of walking the dog. A three times a day, wander for about twenty minutes minimum, wherever we happen to be. If I had never owned a dog I would never have known the pleasure of small changes and repetition. Before Hugo I would have said I was a keen walker, someone who liked to go for walks when I had the time, was on holiday or some other delightful reason. Before Hugo I probably had specific clothes and shoes that I knew were comfortable/ appropriate for walks. Now I never mention walking as a quasi hobby, I do it in whatever I happen to be wearing and I do it whenever it is needed. In all weathers.
Walking is the beginning and the end of my day. I had no idea what I was missing before I owned a dog.
I realise that I could easily do frequent daily walks without a dog . Just as I could write daily without a blog. But I doubt I would do either without a reason.
Hugo is on limited walking for a few days. He got over excited at a friend’s house and has tweaked his back. Just like a human with a bad back he needs rest, pain relief and moderate exercise.
I know which walk takes half an hour and because this blog prides itself on the repetition of normal life, I took some sunny photos on my circuit yesterday.
It is bin day and this is a fine example of how camouflage works.
Our morning walk often has military men, carrying weapons doing training runs. This is so normal that the dogs pay no attention. We are fortunate that we live near the barracks and the men running past are fragrant adverts for mens grooming products. Not so much if I catch them on the way back.
Low tide at the beach is not the most scenic shot.
But the next shot also shows how well camouflage works.
With my back to the sea we head down Hutong Lane towards the Royal William Yard and a series of harbours.
Then a quick left onto some grass and to the first harbour.
Then we follow a boardwalk on the edge of a second harbour back towards the entrance of the Royal William Yard.
Maybe at this point I should do a little catch up on my pondering.
Ponder #1The efficacy of Camouflage.
#2 is more complex. Some babies are born with a rare condition where their heart is not fully enclosed by their ribs.
The Hutong Cafe is outside the Royal William Yard which is a thriving mixed use commercial hub with many cafes and restaurants.
The Hutong used to be closed on Tuesdays which is when this ponder first took hold. On Tuesdays this regular walk felt incomplete. The small cafe outside the yard sets the tone for the entrance and experience of the very grand, Royal William Yard, RWY. Recently the Hutong opened on Tuesdays, making everything feel right 7 days a week. Which gave me a spontaneous moment of clarity. The beating heart of the Royal William Yard is actually just outside. Aha, my useless information brain kicked out.
Ectopia Cordis!
Which is what I think every time the cafe has loads of customers. Many fresh from sea swimming, some mamils/mammals (Middle-aged men in Lycra). People who still go into the office within the RWY. People having work meetings in the sun.
Ponder #2. Ectopia Cordis.
Ponder #3 came from my earlier work on our little yard and the guns carried by the men in camouflage. Guns are a very rare sight in England.
I have been following yard or container growing pages on Instagram. A contributor yesterday suggested improving security when there is a rear access point. I read the article with interest as the rear doors on our yard are definitely a project for the future. The simple plan was to increase the length of the screws holding the hinges of the door to the frame. All well and good I thought until the final sentence.
” A longer screw will give you additional time to arm yourself if someone tries to break in”
The contributor was from the U.S and, if I am honest, provided me with the most unusual yard/yardening advice I have ever read.
Ponder #3 I will stick with the shorter screws and offer a cup of tea , or run away.
And that concludes our very regular half an hour dog walk.
Sun rising on a different political landscape in the United Kingdom. Yesterday no political broadcasting was allowed until 10pm. Obviously broadcasters had to find a way to swerve those regulations #dogsatpollingstations on X and Instagram featured pictures of dogs waiting patiently for their humans to make their votes . All news programmes featured images of pets patiently waiting. Hugo and Lola were happy to pose. Not least because under normal circumstances they are not permitted in this churchyard.
Hugo even kept me company in my overnight vigil to watch the rolling coverage of our election results.
We are both a little tattered round the edges this morning. I bet he wishes he loved coffee.
Serendipity struck yesterday in a moment of parking misery. The peninsular we live on was very busy yesterday. The sun was up the ferries were busy and it was school sports day. I had left my home parking spot early in the morning and struggled to find one to return to at 9:30 in the morning.
The night before I had discovered this old chain dumped by a high tide on a small beach. It was much to heavy to carry home.
In all the parking shenanigans and with some anxiety, for others trying to park to catch a ferry, I decided just to reverse a little way down a slipway at the same beach to just remove myself from the melee. A lightbulb moment. I couldn’t carry the chain but I could gently load it into the car. A few links at a time.
This morning I have repurposed it to train my Wisteria along so that ultimately the plant will wend its way around the outdoor cooking area and onto the garage roof.
One teeny tiny Wisteria shoot has been introduced to the old chain.
I hope they like each other .
The main plant is flourishing after a few weeks of yardening turmoil. Some things did not survive a weeks neglect. Anythng that will provide cool green shade is on my wish list. One of the beach bars in Greece really raised our yardening goals last week.
Carefully planted trees in a courtyard, their trained branches minimally supported by a pergola and grape vines growing along the edges.
Yardening perfection.
We are a long way off but a work in progress is progress.
Meanwhile the middle aisle of Aldi has provided us with Solar festoon lights. Nature is at long last providing enough sun to light up the yard at night. Small victories suggesting that summer has arrived.
A day of transforming a yard from off-white to white turned out to be both extraordinarily colourful and a self-limiting occupation. The colour change can be seen just by the O of off-white. The early morning dog walk set the colour bar high when I noticed that the luminous cows had moved.
To make way for a very fancy shoe, advertising a Theatre show.
Nature also created wild flower paths between cows and shoe
Dog-walk over it was time to flip off the paint pot lid. With just a moment to tweak Pure Brilliant White into something a little more lively, with fingers still clean enough to touch my phone.
Radio at the ready and I was off.
6 hours later, I had not reached the end of the job but the end of the pot of paint was a most welcome sight.
So much for providing myself with many different audio treats, mucky fingers meant I was stuck with Radio 4 for the day. My ears and mind were taken to places I might not necessarily have chosen. Other people pondering the concept of unconditional love. Very thought provoking. I had some thoughts to add, but radio isn’t like that unless the show offers a phone-in and I would not have had clean enough hands for that sort of shenanigans. Rolling news reports. And some poetry, who could possibly have predicted gentle tears while painting.
Inadvertently we chose the first Sunday of May to banish mould and grot from the yard. If mould and grot are works of the devil with slugs and snails as devilish familiars then we did a good job. The yard is ready to welcome summer just as soon as Spring takes things seriously. In an entirely pragmatic way some beer traps have been set to encourage slugs and snails not to eat the new growth on our awakening plants.
We found this extraordinarily dense spider web in an unused plant pot.
A bit of digital tweaking and it becomes very beautiful.
And, as we live in the West Country I can pick out the face of the Devil/Winter retreating as the pot is cleaned and ready for planting up.
It is not often that the days ponder must wait until after the sun has started to set. Today this was always going to be the case. I was up early to buy croissants to fuel a morning of lively conversation with the bobbers. Straight after that a chat with some fellow Bookworms and then deep conversation with a one year old. My day was replete with gorgeous, gregarious women who all talk about anything and everything with wit and wisdom.
A chance encounter with a word perked up my day even more.
Some time ago the bobbers swam in a sea filled with Pilchards and White Bait. The seagulls thought all their Christmases had come at once, with a huge shoal seemingly trapped in Tranquility Bay. They swooped and dived as we bobbed and swam. Their disturbance causing millions of fish scales to be loose in the water. We emerged, twinkling like a troupe of exotic dancers. Fish scales stuck to our skin so tenaciously that even vigorous rubbing could not remove them until we used soap and hot water.
R.Morton Nance revealed a word precisely designed for this phenomenon which afflicts fishermen all the time.
Gollowillians are fish scales incidentally attached to humans.
Now this may be the first time Gollowillians knocks tatterdemalion into second place in a blog. I had planned to natter on about things that are dilapidated but that will have to wait for another day. Because the sun has finally set.
I think it might be time to accept that autumn is in full swing and that summer and even an ‘ Indian Summer are behind us. These last couple of days have been liminal spaces with some spectacular sunshine but dropping temperatures.
This was the view two days ago,but last night our evening swim was a chilly, grey affair. The water temperature was a balmy 16 degrees while the air temp was 12 degrees. There was much talk about putting the heating on at home. Our winter swimming kit is slowly making an appearance and we didn’t linger on the street corner for an extended farewell natter. But moments later I did linger to take this picture of an autumnal leaf resting on a curb stone.
This gives me the chance to recount some second-hand Plymouth history.
As regular readers will know Plymouth was one of the worst harmed cities in Britain by the German bombing raids of World War II. I suppose this little historic ponder is about a small part of the clear up that followed.
So many of Plymouth’s historic streets were blown up,there had to be a very clear plan to salvage whatever could be reused when rebuilding began. I browsed an old book yesterday that described the aftermath as an ‘exploded’ city. The small detail of salvage included the collection of all curb stones from bomb damaged locations. Many of those curbstones carried scars from the devastation caused by shrapnel or hot molten metal from the fires that raged. As the city was rebuilt the salvaged curbstones were reused as streets were repaired and returned to normal use.
The location of this particular curbstone may or may not be its original location. It is an old cobbled street, now thinly covered with tarmac, very close to where there was some significant bomb damage. In the photograph above the autumn leaf has settled almost perfectly into the scar. A lovely visual analogy for nature healing the harm that humans cause.
Meet the neighbours. If our neighbours were in any way’normal’ I would not take photographs of the stuff I saw in their home. Our neighbours are the Royal Marines and we live exceedingly close to their actual and spiritual home. So close in fact that when their guests arrive by helicopter our house trembles a bit. As a significant military establishment the area is not open to the public and is guarded night and day by armed guards. Yesterday their neighbours were invited in for a tour. Three hours of fascinating facts and historic architecture. Since I love both those subjects I was fully engaged and could have listened and learned for many more hours. Rather than regurgitate all I learned I will share a link to two useful websites.
Leaving me to natter on about two things that we can all relate to. A chair and a sandwich.
I had no expectations of this visit beyond getting to look beyond the gates of something I walk past every day. We were very well informed and entertained by Charlie, an avuncular Royal Marine with many years service and much love for the organisation he represented. As a civilian I have always struggled with the military being a mirror reflection of the British class system. See below.
It will come as no surprise that the Officers Mess was a very grand building but it was here that we met a fairly normal chair. That once was the place where Napoleon Bonapart placed his bottom for three years of his incarceration. With its original upholstery.
It is said that Napolean died at the age of 51 from a gastric ailment. Oh the things that velvet may have had to endure.
Moving swiftly on,to the upper end of the gastrointestinal tract, we come to the 4th Earl of Sandwich. A man, who as First Lord of the Admiralty was not a fan of the many formal meals that Officers were obliged to attend and socialise at. Instead he liked to have working meal breaks and had cold meats, cheeses and bread brought to his office. Where he assembled what came to be known as a sandwich.
Here he is presiding over the grand dining room. Somewhere he avoided in favour of a humble sarni.
I’m English so talking about the, weather is a cultural necessity. My regular dog walks show me some pretty bizarre colours as storms arrive or leave in the bay. Yesterday was quite the day in the bay and the Tamar Valley. An expensive hair cut and style lasted about 10 minutes and all the curl taming products that had been lavished on my head became gorgeous rivulets down my neck and throat. The rain gave curl control in a much more basic way.
I should have known that an early hair appointment was a silly idea. It just allowed me to fill the day with a series of events in many locations. Each transition involved a downpour. The last one, involved flooded streets with inappropriate footwear and dogs who refused to walk.
Being in a constant state of dampness may have been inspirational. I did finally manage to depict the mist of a storm arriving in the bay. My hair however, is crazy. No pictures of that here.
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