Does my blog affect my art. I wonder if it does? The map above is the map of a very regular walk. Today I am not so sure if my art and my walk are in some way linked. I have never noticed this map before. It could be new. I was rather charmed by the little footsteps as they reflect my regular circular walk.
The walk this morning was fabulously colourful.
Domestic admin/yardening followed the walk, planting roses and garlic, but later I put some finishing touches to an ongoing painting.
I can’t help feeling that the centres of my final fantasy flowers look a little like footsteps.
And my choice of colours are pretty similar to the boats I chose to photograph.
Yesterday, I managed to tackle all admin work while Hugo enjoyed a longer walk without him needing pain relief. It was a productive day with a refreshing sea breeze as I balanced work and caring for Hugo. This was my working-from-home location during one of his rest periods.
I suspect Hugo is loving the attention of the last week since he hurt his back. My route yesterday around the harbours of Plymouth is one of his favourites because there are many cafes that he approves of. Yesterday we chose a cafe themed towards bikers with engines.
Predictably their dog biscuit offering is fairly butch. Far too challenging for fluffs with small mouths, but the industrial concrete floor soon turned a bulldog style biscuit into something a poodle could nibble at.
The slower pace of this week’s walks gave me a moment of contradiction yesterday. Despite walking past and walking into this old building on the edge of Sutton Harbour, many times, I had never read the blue plaque.
The Custom House was built in 1586 or round about. The time when Plymouth was at its zenith as a Pirate port.
Usually when I see old doors I like to romanticise about the people who have passed through them but certainly I cannot imagine too many pirates saying,
” Have you seen the new Customs House, we must pop in there on our way to the bars and whore houses, when we dock”
” I just cannot enjoy myself and really let go until my Import Tax is up to date”
That must have been quite the job to have in Elizabethan Plymouth. Everyone strolling right past pretending they haven’t seen your open door and welcoming toothless smile.
No playing Wordle in a quiet moment.
Just lots of quiet moments.
It is somewhat ironic that these two information boards are just a few paces from the old custom house.
The things I get to ponder on restorative, slow, dog walk days.
Playing the parking lotto got me a big win yesterday. But I have to play against my better judgement. Normally I am an early bird shopper, but if I need to park in the old part of the city the parking charges work against me. Arrival before 9 pm and the meters are still on the overnight tariff. Rather expensive. Arrive soon after 9, and everyone is in a parking mood. The best plan is to arrive mid-morning after the first wave of early birds is done. I am an early bird, leaving things until mid-morning is not my thing.
Yesterday at 11 am I got a two hour, FREE, parking space next to the printers who were printing my C*****mas cards. Two hours free for a five minute job is a fabulous achievement. I was giddy with excitement. Even better I had done all the domestic admin prior to my arrival. What a gift.Time on my hands with no ticking meter. The sun was out and the dogs needed a walk.
Which took me to a Plymouth institution for lunch. Cap’n Jasper’s and their famous 1970’s smoked glass mugs.
The mugs disappeared for so long after Covid, I worried that they had been replaced forever by something less iconic. A twenty pence deposit is returned when you take the mug back. Albert gave me a look and the 20 pence was not returned to my pocket.
Tea finished.
And it was time for the main event. A bacon butty with fried onions.
An unexpected lunch out and still an hour of free parking left. I figured I could walk to my next planned destination, an art materials shop and the library. The sun was out, it was a bit of a walk, but both of the destination tasks were quick.
Back to the car with five minutes to spare…
The parking spot was only actually free for an hour. Who’s the idiot now.
But I had not been caught.
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! * I chortled in my joy.
I had saved £3.60 and spent £20, 2 hours of unexpected pleasure in the sun. A lovely bit of old boat on the way.
And still some afternoon printing achieved.
* words of celebration from Jabberwocky by Lewis Carol.
And another day of rain! Thankfully I had to go and replace some spotlights at the art exhibition so I could at least see some sunshine in paintings as I worked.
This picture has everything, sunshine, maskless faces, and a crowd. Spotlights fixed, I had hoped to take a walk around the Industrial Heritage, old mine workings, around Gunnislake, but the weather chased me into the car and back home to domestic admin. Finally just before sunset the rain stopped and the sun popped its head out for 30 minutes of golden moments.
The harbours captured the best images of the turbulent clouds.
This was our usual walk around Sutton Harbour, Cattedown and The Barbican, the sun put in only the briefest of appearances. Luckily one of the entries at the art exhibition shows the Plymouth Gin Distillery in a better light than we saw it last night.
We didn’t actually attempt loving our local gin. Its not a good midweek habit on a school night.
Another Friday swim day with the Bobbers. A tiny Whats app group of 5 people has expanded to 12 regular swimmers and one land based Andy who keeps an eye on everything on land and in the sea. The swimming is the primary function of Bobbers but also loud natterings on any subject. Some of the natterings would make a nun blush, especially as we base ourselves below the perimeter wall of a convent.
There was a fine show of tugs today.
Tug Spotting
This one sailed out just before we plunged into the somewhat chilly sea. Sometimes if the conditions are right you can feel the resonant thrum of moving tugs when you are in the water. Not the case today. This busy tug sailed out before we got in and then back in again pulling a Royal Navy Survey vessel after we got out.
The reward for swimming yesterday was a tiny chocolate biscuit shaped like a penguin. Another unexpected treat is a visit to the same beach today at extreme low tide to hunt for goggles which were lost during the talking phase of the swim. Not a phase usually shown in swimming events but one in which the ‘ Bobbers’ excel.
Later, on a regular dog walk we chanced upon a new import being brought into Plymouth Fish Market.
If only I had known you could buy this stuff. I’ve had many unavoidable colleagues and huge numbers of equally unavoidable patients who could have done with a big dose of this stuff. Humans with no discernible traces of charisma are all over the place. As soon as this product becomes available on the retail market, I’m getting a pocket spray , the use of which the pandemic has made entirely acceptable. I am assuming it has a similar transmission but without the fatality of Novichok. When I meet those all too frequent people who have no manners or any measurable social graces, a quick squirt, will sort them out, probably only briefly, but for as long as I am forced to endure them.
Once the pandemic is over we could even repurpose all the sanitizer dispensers and make all our lives a little easier when interacting with increasing numbers of other humans. Charisma dispensers would really make emerging into the post pandemic world a little easier.
In Pandemic Pondering #265 I mentioned that dog walks often inspire blogs.
China Fleet Club
The afternoon walk at the China Fleet Club was planned just for dogs, no real blogging interest. Great for sniffing out squirrels and getting very muddy but beyond good company and nattering it was just an hour or so of soaking up nature. The morning walk was different, there is always something to think about . It was our regular walk around Sutton Harbour but today we discovered it is a Heritage Trail. The link below takes you to the official website.
We always start and finish the Sutton Heritage Trail at a different location to the one suggested on this website.
Despite walking this route numerous times we have never discovered the descriptively named Marrowbone Slip. That is a pretty specific piece of architecture. The point of mentioning this walk again in a blog is the lovely pictures we got of old chopped off wooden piles this morning.
Not perhaps everyone’s cup of tea but they were looking very fine this morning. It also gives me the chance to share my favourite picture of piles.
Piles at Statton Island NY
Just be grateful I am no longer creating medical imaging, that could have been a whole different picture!
Just a little blog today. The subject has been covered in a couple of different ways in other blogs. A regular dog walk for us starts on Commercial Street in Plymouth and follows a circular walk around Sutton Harbour and the Barbican in Plymouth using the footbridge by the Marine Aquarium and then back via Sutton Wharf. Within Pandemic Ponderings we have only done it in daylight
Last night was our first walk this year in the dark. I hadn’t really planned a blog about it but two nice photos presented themselves and it seems a shame not to use them
The first was a flock of swans with the twinkly lights of The Barbican behind them.
The second was a lovely flat tide image of some fishing boats.
Either of these images would have charmed us if we were on holiday in Greece, but they are very close to home and it may well be the Pandemic that has made us appreciate , more fully, local scenes. The dogs , of course, never go to Greec e so have no idea why we keep stopping to take pictures on home territory. Quite possibly they are wondering why we are not making the effort to have a good sniff or do a little wee.
Being more appreciative of everything is a curious side effect of Covid-19. @theoldmortuary we plan on being better at appreciating everything more effectively. A hard way to learn a simple lesson.
Todays prompt word for the art group is ‘paint’ slightly tricksy for an art group that encompasses 3D and Makers for whom paint is not a part of their creative process.
I chose to illustrate how paint brightens our lived environment.
Plymouth was in fine form today, the sun was out and the sea and sky were blue.
Reflections on the first beer and other unplanned activities post lockdown.
Today’s walk was a familiar one to us, and to regular blog readers.
At weekends parking is free, in places, on Commercial Street. Giving the perfect opportunity for a circular walk. We do it so many times , and in particular in lockdown that it often gets a blog mention. Today, beyond the walk, we had no plans, we had VV with us so it was pretty much serendipity predicated by the whims of a 20 month old.
It was all the better for being unplanned. We carried on our walk, essential dog walking training is taking place.
Then serendipity struck again, Suphas, a Street Food Cafe also had a seat available out in the sun. Suphas has been on our radar for a while but time and a pandemic have made this our first chance for a visit.
Our drinks, snacks and the environment were vivid in every way.
One of life’s coincidences. Juice of the Day, Watermelon, exactly matched VV’s drinking bottle.
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