#1522 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment
Domestica in a Heatwave

Heatwaves certainly focus the mind. Chores, domestica and essential tasks are done as early in the mornings, as soon as they can be achieved.

Our little corner of the world had a reprieve yesterday . A sea mist shrouded us in greige for the first couple of hours.

Postcard from the Edge

The greige stayed with us until midday but the temperature gradually rose until we were fully in the hot zone. The Bobbers had a Friday date with a high tide.  No more freezing our tits off (twice) as we did on the longest day only 5 days before.

4pm yesterday, after 3 days of an official heatwave, we hit peak pleasure at our watery home.

We do not swim in the tropical waters of Plymouth Hoe West. We swim west of there. There is a commercial port between us and the Tropic of West Hoe.

At the time we were not aware that we were being so short changed by the Sea Temperature Mermaid Goddess.

©Kim and Anne Bobber

But really the Bobbers were not the big story of the day. Bobbers bob together for safety. The delightful and multi-faceted friendships are a perfect and wonderful side effect. Safety is enhanced by Coach Andy.

Wet legs for Coach on Solstice Sunday

Coach keeps an eye on our stuff and on us. He has had a really big week bobbingwise, not only did he join us in the water for the Solstice. Only to mid thigh, you have to keep special equipment dry, his phone. Thank goodness for phone probity, yesterday his phone was used for its first ever call to the coastguards.

A passing, off duty, coastguard saw some paddle boarders, perhaps in trouble, being taken beyond the island. But he was not prepared for sea based drama, he had forgotten his phone. Luckily Coach has his phone in pocket and for the first time it was used for dramatic and safety reasons. Completely unbobber related.

#1521 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Summer, Storms, 20261 Comment
Another Postcard from the edge.

Another day another heatwave. Lola and I were up early, to achieve plenty of cooler weather walking and domestica. Freeing up the hotter hours for chatter and chilling. A meeting in the morning required not one but two iced coffees. Then there was an art attack. Not of the Coronary variety. ( I may be from Essex, but I do not drop my aitches, although curiously we do pronounce aitch as haitch)

An actual art attack, when a piece of original art fell off the wall and landed noisily between myself and my gentleman companion. Cool, even in a heatwave we did not skip a beat. Exchanging funny anecdotes is not the time for drama of the arty sort.

Swimming was the antidote to both the heat and art attacks.

Firestone Bay

Less people than the day before, so no need to create a postcard image to protect the identity of beach goers. No big boats to watch. Just a really fast lifeboat. So fast I missed it twice.

And a cute sailing boat, the sailing boat did, however, need the postcard effect because the photo was so bad.

To create the postcard I used the colours of the rocks of Firestone Bay to fill in all the detail lost by very bright sunlight.

The rock of Firestone Bay through Polaroid Sunglasses

Et Voilà

Sailing in Firestone Bay

Not all heatwave days are the same even in the exact same location. Unexpected things always add a different texture to a day.

The bonus of yesterday, was meeting so many people, unexpectedly, for random conversations whilst we were all dodging the effects of overheating.

Overnight we had huge electric storms. The heatwave may be over, we are back to greige, how very drear!

#1520 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Beach LifeLeave a comment
Sunshine, caught in a rockpool.

What do you do in a blistering heatwave?

Not very much as it turns out. Keep doors closed and blinds down. Write the blog at 4 a.m in the yard, drinking tea.

Yesterday’s planned social dog walk turned into four women sat on a hillside trying to catch a breeze with our feet in a childrens paddling pool. There was a romantic view over recently cut hay fields towards a river estuary. Romantic until a farmer, working at the peak of the day, started to turn the hay to dry. Dirt, dust and a plague of horseflies sent us scattering, wet- foot to our respective homes. Grateful that we were not that poor farmer. My afternoon of sweaty domestica was rewarded by a swim in the sea. Hundreds of people had found their way to our usually quiet beaches.

Warships, Ferries, landing craft, commercial shipping and Police boats  all passed the swimmers by. More people doing their normal jobs in the relentless heat.

Normally I like to photograph Firestone Bay looking interesting but largely uninhabited. Yesterday was not normal. The area was heaving with people. Normal photography wasn’t very pretty. Too much sunshine, too many people, just too busy.

A Postcard from the Edge

Simplifying an over busy photograph to the style of a 20th Century postcard  makes the whole scene more calm. At a highish tide every possible sitting space on these cliffs was filled with people. Many with lap tops and headphones ‘ Working from home’

Today is going to be another record breaking day. More postcards from the edge , I think.

#1519 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale1 Comment
Firestone Sea Pool ©theoldmortuary

Three weeks of an artyfarty anxious wait. I received a commission to create a piece of art for a newly installed kitchen. Not a big ask you might think for someone whose job is creating images. But the commission was to recreate one of my own original images in Portrait format instead of Landscape and then to make the image suitable to be turned into a kitchen splashback. There always has to be trust and flexibility between an artist and their clients during the commissioning process. That was the easy bit. For framing and reproduction of my paintings I always use local independent companies. People I can go and talk too. But reproducing an image on very expensive safety glass was organised locally but created elsewhere. All information shared digitally as you would expect.  This was the harder bit and I fretted like a mother duck who had lost a duckling. Just concerned really that I had done everything correctly for a new to me process.

I had made one particular pink my worry point, it needed to be slightly translucent, more like a blush than actual colour.I need not have worried. The company doing the glass printing was brilliant. Every colour was exactly as I wanted it.

First sight with Tim

The glass arrived two weeks ahead of schedule.

Yesterday I went to see it for the first time. I am so impressed with what the glass company has achieved.

But now I look at my own , rather dull  splash back and think…

What if ?

Splashbacks For Kitchens UK | Union Glass Centres https://share.google/GVK2prfYpE6bOmEuP

#1518 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, YardeningLeave a comment

Summer’s here and I have become The Grumpy Urban Cat Abhorring Lady.

Oh how I dislike the urban cat. The Shitter in my plant pots. The Pisser on my garden chairs. The ever present observation from high places. The disupters of my dog. The fragrance of your ever available testosterone- boosted tom cat urine.

Small blog, big feelings.

  • Why do I find urban cats abhorrent? Because we are trying to teach a three year old not to use the word hate. I am  being creative with my use of words.

#1517 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity4 Comments

The term ‘intangible cultural heritage’ was new to me recently. It describes:-

Oral traditions and expressions: Includes language, stories, legends, proverbs, and songs passed on by word of mouth.



Performing arts: Covers music, dance, theater, and other forms of artistic expression.



Social practices, rituals, and festive events: Encompasses community habits, rites of passage, holiday celebrations, and religious or secular ceremonies.



Knowledge and practices concerning nature: Traditional ecological knowledge, herbal medicine, and practices related to the universe.



Traditional craftsmanship: The skills and techniques required to make traditional clothing, pottery, instruments, and other handmade objects.

These all seem entirely tangible to me.

The whole concept of culture being intangible is a mystery to me. Made all the more puzzling at a live music gig that I went to this weekend.

Looking at Devon from Cornwall

Held in an old chapel overlooking farmland and the River Tamar.

My attendance was entirely accidental, a spare ticket landed in my lap because of life/work exhaustion and toothache.

The gig was held in Calstock, a village oozing with cultural heritage, where even the shelter at the train station is beautiful.

Tangible or intangible there is a lot of cultural heritage in this one picture.

I realise this is just me pondering an idea and the use  of words but cultural heritage is not something whimsical or disposable.

I was in Calstock to hear Cara Dillon a contemporary folk singer from Ireland. By chance the man sitting next to me was of Irish heritage. He took pleasure in the performance in an entirely different way to me. He felt the music and inhabited it. There was so much joy in him, generated entirely by his innate and experienced cultural heritage. Vibrating through him when both he and the singer were so far from home. He was having an entirely tangible experience.

Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman

It is funny the things that bother me overnight. Calstock is a village where I have participated in so many varied experiences that are certainly worthy of the title ‘Cultural Heritage’ I am enriched by experiencing  the things that have enhanced the lives of other humans throughout history. 5 years ago, 50 years ago or 500 years ago. All worth preserving I feel.  Overnight pondering took me down the internet rabbit hole. Luckily I landed on another WordPress Blog. Far more erudite and knowledgeable than my ponderings, I will share it below.

If the UK is proud of its tangible cultural heritage, why not so when it comes to intangible heritage?  

The word ‘intangible’ really doesn’t touch the importance of such things!

The link to Calstock Arts, the venue I visited is below. Somewhere that does its very best to promote the intangible  culture that is so vital to us all.

Calstock Arts

Home – Calstock Arts : Calstock Arts https://share.google/1aOp1S20YIObzbN59

#1516 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment

Bright lights at the end of the longest day. Summer Solstice and Fathers Day.

Marked by the bobbers with swimming at sunrise and sunset. In between we celebrated Fathers Day with a Camper Van Adventure. We absolutely filled every minute of the longest day with activity. Most were planned but a trip to A and E was on nobody’s schedule. These things happen.Wrestling with a new Rock and Roll bed in a camper van is not an even fight. Van 1- Human 0

Curiously swimming at sunset was a good bit quieter than the sunrise swim and involved absolutely no nudity.

We have been doing this for 5 years. Blog from the first Solstice Bobbings below.

Pandemic Pondering#454

#1515 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, Serendipity1 Comment

04:20 on the Summer Solstice. All dressed up and somewhere to go.

The Bobbers have been swimming at sunrise and sunset on the Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice for 5 years. Of the two,

the summer one is by far the most pleasurable. This morning we were just four bobbers but the sea was alive with the sounds of swimmers.

5 years ago we were doing this to celebrate building a water based friendship group during the Covid years.

Pandemic Pondering #453

Did we really expect to still be doing it 5 years later. Probably not. But wherever Bobbers are in the world we all try to swim on the Solstices.

For me it is a celebration of being alive and still kicking. A ritual of gratitude and celebration with friends,most of whom were strangers 5 years ago. The Silver Lining of a Pandemic that forced us all to pause, change direction, and do things differently.

The Naked Swimmers

Maybe the Bobbers need to rethink our dress code next year…

#1514 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Gardens and gardening1 Comment

Another greige day dodging mist, low cloud and rain. All colour sucked from every viewpoint until we went into one of the local ‘ secret’ gardens for our evening walk. This one is really close to the sea but is protected by a very high wall. The mist is not obvious but must have filtered the light, making this quiet corner almost magically green.

So many threads of thoughts this morning and no clear path for today’s blog. Maybe I should just accept that this quiet green corner is the place to rest a while and contemplate nothing more complicated than a quiet green corner.

If the mist were not present this would be anything but a quiet corner.

The ‘secret’ garden is the setting of live music sessions on Friday evenings in the early summer. Last night’s session was moved indoors to an old and beautiful warehouse. The outdoor garden vibe completely switched on its head to a vivid indoor session of great music with intense colours and happy humans.

The intended location left as a quiet oasis of calm with just a scintilla of live music carried on the breeze.

Quiet corners are a good place to start the weekend. The other blogs will sort themselves out in their own good time.

#1513 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Coffee Hunters, SerendipityLeave a comment

I am not sure how long we have owned this coffee pot. It lives in the camper van and performs the morning ritual of coffee wherever the van is. It came into the house for the post holiday wash and has not returned, so yesterday it posed on a mirror for some sketching and water colour action.

I am a one cup of coffee a day woman. Unless the day, or I, am flagging. Or being social.

Yesterday I was social, two cups of coffee were enjoyed, one with cake. Which is almost certainly why there was no post-lunch slump and I felt the urge to paint a still life. I also pruned things in the yard and gave Lola an extra walk.

Caffeine is a wonderful thing! I have wanted to paint this little coffee pot for years. Inspired by a sculpture made entirely of these pots by Robert Fabelo.

Cafédral (detail) by Robert Cavelo

Cafédral is a shed sized building made entirely of old coffee pots. Since seeing Robert Caveo’s work I have had to resist rehoming coffee pots like this when I see them in charity shops. But yesterday I got such pleasure from painting our pot and his reflection I wonder if I might collect just a few for a bigger still life moment…