Tag: Sunset

#1346 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Summer, Sunday Vibes1 Comment

I make no apology for nattering on about the spectacular sunset we were able to watch, from our van on Friday night. The serendipitous luck of making a late decision to overnight camp in a carpark, overlooking a beach that we usually only ever visit in the Winter and Spring. Just to be close to Truro for Saturday morning. I am not sure what the correct words are, but being able to sit and read our books and glance up every now and then to watch the day melt into dusk and then finally put on a spectacular finale as the sun dived below the horizon was such a glorious experience. Other people ebbed and flowed around us as the day shapeshifted. We arrived to a full carpark at the moment when young families need to leave the beach and start the nighttime routine and beach bar dwellers are not quite ready to start the night. Half an hour sitting in the van with an ugly view of the toilet block was rewarded with the perfect spot becoming available,overlooking the whole beach with a direct view of a small stream running to the sea.

After an hour or so I began to wonder if we might be in the prime spot for the sun setting. Our evening was filled with dog walks and a bar visit. The car park filled up again with older families. Truculent early teenagers and their weary parents attempting a family holiday and much older teenagers driving their first cars. All ages of people anxious to see the sunset from the beach. Zimmer frames and walking sticks replacing pushchairs and gentle hand holding on the sand. ‘Children’ in their sixties clutching the arms of frail elderly people needing to do a sunset with much loved people who are closer to their own sunset than anyone wants to think about.

The sun did not let anyone down.

Least of all us,who had hoped for a stream of fire, and got it.

But how to depict the whole cycle of the past 4 hours.

Three photos stuck together and a pencil sketch.

Happy Sunday.

#1064 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Words, Yardening1 Comment
Sunset over Arcadia

A classic ponder for a Friday. Covid has darkened our doors this week with 50% of the human household out of action sequentially. 100% in total. So not a huge amount of out and aboutage for us. I have chosen  not to walk the dogs locally as it is impossible not to meet someone to talk to. I have not been alone, an autobiography of Adrian Edmondson and a biography of Alexander McQueen have kept me occupied. Both creative. interesting and somewhat troubled men at times. On a brighter note the David Austin Rose catalogue popped into my email, this is the inspiration for todays blog.

I chose a climbing rose for the yard and have ordered a bare root to be delivered in November. I chose it on sight and smell. The name in my opinion is rather ugly.

©David Austin

Unknown to me Crepuscule means sunset in French. Living in the west of England I have learned to love a good sunset. Where I grew up in the flat East of England sunsets were something that happened elsewhere.

Sunset over Plymouth Sound.

Just a little googling found an even uglier word for something quite so lovely.

Sunnansetlgong was the term for sunset in Old English while the word sunset meant West.

Both perfectly understandable. In looking this up I got the usual targeted online advert. My answer would be

” I give a crap, words are important”

Sunset over Wembury Bay

#455 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Firestone BayLeave a comment
Three Forms- 1970- Dame Barbara Hepworth

The sunlight has high jacked another days blog. Imagine walking upstairs at your place of work and seeing this. Just spellbinding in every sense of the word. Then the evening dog walk, for five beautiful minutes gives this clear and crisp sunset. Not all guns blazing just quietly contemplative and comforting. The Northern Hemisphere is slowly grabbing the light back.

#140 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Debs Bobber

The bobbers have effortlessly slipped back into the usual routine of three dips, into the sea, a week after a period of very stormy weather . Right now the water is 10 degrees but the outside temperature is only 4 degrees. This is a strange combination to get our heads around, but right now it is almost worse for Andy our regular coach/safety man. He stands on the shore keeping an eye out for Spearmint the seal or anything else untoward. It is really cold just standing still and watching. Last nights bob had three other non swimming onlookers so they all kept each other warm by chattering. Spearmint kept away, so the chatting was not interrupted by safety issues.

The sunset last night was rather gorgeous. The sun sent out an evening sunbeam to slightly warm us up, post swim.

©Debs Bobber

Before slipping away into a golden dusk.

©Debs Bobber

Something three bobbers celebrated with tea in bone china cups.

#90 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing2 Comments

Yesterday started and ended with the sea.

My morning walk, at dawn, was a chilly experience. I was wrapped up snuggly but the wintery wind nibbled, coldly, at my fingers and ears. From this picture you can see that there were already hardy types out swimming. I was so grateful to be warm inside layers of winter clothing. My mind was elsewhere as I also knew that I had plans to be swimming at sunset. Nothing seems quite so contrary as knowing that a well and appropriately dressed walk is pretty cold and yet there are plans afoot to take a swim later in the day

My first day back at the museum, post Christmas, was the usual lovely mix of talking to visitors and catching up with colleagues. With all afternoon breaks covered and a last loooooooong conversation with a visitor it was time to rush home for a quick dog walk and a slow enrobement of my winter swimming wet suit. My legs and feet, tired from a day of many steps in museum galleries just wanted a cup of tea and ten minutes on the sofa. Instead they were forced into constraining neoprene and forced to walk again, this time to the beach.

There were only three bobbers available for the sunset swim. We were the lucky ones, the sea was as calm as a mill pond and the light was quite magical. The tide was coming in, everything conspired towards a very succesful bob. While swimming we didn’t particularly notice the water temperature of 11 degrees and had longer in the water than we would usually do at this time of year. Getting out was a bit of a shock, our feet were all a bit useless at walking on dry land and the dressing process was hampered by fingers that felt like ice cold silky sausages. No words can describe just how good it feels once our clothes are back on and we have warm drinks to hand. Looking out over the bay, as we nattered, made a January evening look gorgeous.

#54 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment
Gratuitous sunset shot

When I was a teenager growing up in North East Essex, absolutely not the ‘cool’ or ‘trashy’ Essex of modern urban myths, I thought I lived in the Boondocks.

© dictionary.cambridge.org

With only a few people of my own age,and even fewer of them that I actually knew, I imagined I was having the dullest adolescence ever. My internal imaginary life was vivid and full of colour, teenage passion and adventure. Real life not so much.

Travel, maturity, and now a lived experience of a Killer Pandemic, has made me recalibrate my thoughts on my adolescence and life in general. Some of my travel has taken me to actual Boondocks, making me realise my teenage years were actually giddy with opportunity. Only a few of which I took.

During the Pandemic many of us have lived a bit of a Boondocky existence, for various periods of local or national lockdowns.Venturing out only to take exercise or undertake essential tasks. People who actually live a Boondock life have possibly been the least affected.

© Spitalfieldslife – The Gentle Author

Writing a daily blog since November 2019 has stretched my mind in all sorts of curious ways. If I were ever to find myself in an actual boondock or when I find myself in a mental boondock, I am obliged, to myself,to find something to ponder, this has been a valuable and enriching experience. Not one I am keen to give up any time soon.

Detail from stained glass window. Plymouth Synagogue

1st of December 2021, welcome December. Who knows quite how you will shape up pandemicwise or in general, something to ponder on, I’m sure.

Pandemic Pondering #529

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Moving HouseLeave a comment

Yesterday was designated as a tech sorting out day. I haven’t hooked up my printer in the new studio. Just a case of finding a lead and signing in to the new wifi. In the process my camera battery was reunited with its charger. It has been a long time since they have been together Maybe 2 years since they were both in the same place at the same time. The Pandemic and the numerous lockdowns meant that I have not particularly needed a camera better than my phone in those two years. In the scrabble for leads I managed to not sort out the printer but to find the camera battery charger. The printer stubbornly resisted linking to the new wifi and needs a different lead to any in our large collection! The only tech victory of the day was the unplanned one of the camera The last picture on the camera was taken in Greece 23 months ago, the last time we travelled abroad. Yesterday the battery was charged in time to do the last dog walk of the day.

A proper camera did a good job of sorting out the clouds at dusk, and a very fine job of catching a dark sunset.

The conundrum of the printer remains. I suspect thick walls and the wrong type of lead are the problem. For now I will take the minor victory of a fully charged camera. Todays quest will be to find the camera instruction leaflet …

Pandemic Pondering #516

On By theoldmortuary.designIn dog walks, Drawn to the Valley, Home Towns, SerendipityLeave a comment

Hot on the heels of yesterdays morning blog is an evening blog of the same day, and two pictures from the exact same position with only a dog walk between them. Between yesterdays blog and this one lies the path of a day taken up by stuff, complicated by maintainance work on a local bridge. A normal 20 minute journey swelled to fill an hour and I missed an appointment. Rebooked for two hours later I filled my time with delivering brochures for an upcoming Open Studios event.

And took a trip to the supermarket. The appointment required me not to drive for two hours after so I was ‘forced’ to enjoy a late lunch in a friends garden and soak up the sun whilst my eyes returned to a normal, not blurry, way of life. Time then to head for home and get all the day jobs done. Before heading out for the evening dog walk which provided the two pictures that top and tail this blog. Since moving, our evening dog walk always takes in the area around the Royal William Yard, especially since the evenings have started to get darker. Royal William Yard is a collection of Military Buildings in Plymouth.

https://www.visitplymouth.co.uk/explore/areas-to-visit/royal-william-yard

Between the two photos we walked up to a meadow and the dogs chased each other inside the old, second world war gun emplacements of Devils Point.

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/world-war-two-defences-you-2750611

I’m sure the longer we live here the more the history will soak into our bones but right now every slab of concrete is a complete mystery to us.

Returning to our original position, night was properly upon us.Time to turn our twelve feet for home.

Pandemic Pondering #386

On By theoldmortuary.designIn FamilyLeave a comment

Last night we needed a decent length dog walk, and luckily our Waterside destination pulled out all the stops for visual pleasure.

Our 23 year old cat, George, made a one way trip to the vets yesterday. She had had a remarkable life. Early years in a Naval town were followed by rural bliss with special responsibilities for laying in the sun , extravagantly posed on a War Memorial when not hunting mice and rats. On one occasion she failed to completely kill a rat but dragged it indoors through the cat flap spurting arterial blood from its ravaged neck. 10 years as an urban cat in South London sharing her patch with urban foxes gave her an attitude on top of her already well formed personality. Returning to her rural home when she was twenty she opted for a quiet life and spent her days chasing patches of sunlight around the garden. She was in that process yesterday before her appointment for a tooth extraction. George always had robustly good physical health, her mental health was more precarious. She had periods of very precise over grooming taking the fur off exactly a quarter of her body, other periods when she would live under a bed for months at a time. All of her life she was the cat version of Eeyore. She loved only one woman and it wasnt someone she lived with, but our friend Steph for whom she always turned on the charm.

Part of the responsibility of loving and caring for pets can be making the difficult decisions. Her poorly tooth turned out to also be a tumour, her life would never again been one of sunbeam hunting and casual grumpiness. Sometimes death is not the worst option.

A good long walk on a sad evening was exactly what we needed to put things into perspective.

Pandemic Pondering #292

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

Some winter days start with promise and just keep giving. Today was a day for harvesting vitamin D.

Either end of the day were gloriously golden . The middle bit was filled with a happy Zoom meeting and some packing up and planning for our future fake Christmas. Date currently unknown. The freezer holds all sorts of festive foods and decorations are packed away, not for the usual year but for a shorter period.

As our days begin to stretch slightly at either end the sunshine is a great bonus.