What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
Unsurprisingly as an only child, in a family with only one other child, who was seriously disabled, I was completely obsessed with becoming an adult. The power balance was completely out of whack in my extended family and life experience. Childrens T.V or radio was projected at children by more adults and nursery education did not exist. I was five before I met any more than a handful of children.
I don’t think any of this was particularly negative, I was just fascinated by the adults around me, who lived lives that seemed vivid beyond the boundaries of my small existence. After 5 there was a realisation that real life was not as I had always known it.
Most people remember their first day at school. Mine was memorable because for the first time in my life there were more children than adults in the room.
Now my childish obsession seems rather tame. Just becoming an adult would have happened naturally.
Pirate Weekend in Plymouth. A weekend to celebrate a time when Plymouth was Queen Elizabeth I’s Pirate or Privateer major port for repurposing, recycling and most importantly reusing stolen goods from the high seas.
This year, Pirate weekend was enhanced by 2 days of warm sunshine and large crowds. My photographs were a bit rubbish due to sharp shadows and crowds. But the vibe was brilliant.
Bold bosoms oozing out of basques, laced tight, were de rigueur for lady pirates . While tricorn hats and eyeliner were what any self respecting pirate chap started the day with. What all pirates of any persuasion ended the day with was sunburn and a lot less doubloons in their pouches.
A huge cruise ship moored just off Drakes Island. With guests being brought into the Barbican by small boats.
From thisTo this.
Not quite a regular day trip to Plymouth in 2026. But things might have looked a bit similar in 1566. But then again maybe not.
What’s the most interesting local custom you’ve encountered?
I am interested in local customs and the human need to touch the legacy of previous generations, by doing something that has been done many times in the past. Let’s be honest, some local customs are barbaric, inhuman and fueled by fear. I am intrigued by the little ones that cause no harm. Like nailing a hot cross bun to a pub ceiling every Easter or Maypole dancing in May.
Maypole dancing was my first ever experience of a custom. Normal games classes were suspended late in April at my primary school, for us to be taught to dance round a tall mast with ribbons hanging full length from the top. We were encouraged to skip and dance around the mast, weaving a never ending plait of colour down the length of the pole. Nobody ever explained why we were doing it and as soon as the first blush of May was past, the mast was taken down and games lessons became tuition for the summer game of Rounders, far preferable to me. As an adult I know it is some sort of fertility ritual connected with Spring. But until today I have considered it no further.
Time to head off to Googleland.
I have never photographed a Maypole event , so did a quick little sketch with my travelling art pack.
With the accuracy of an Art App and Ai on my smart phone the header image was produced. One of the dancers even looks like 5 year old me taking the whole thing very seriously. But not hanging on tight enough to my ribbon.
Which gives me great hope for my quick summer , plein air drawings.
They usually sit in the sketch books, only a few ever become a real piece of art. Maypole dancing has shown me a new way of using them. May fertility of the creative mind.
May 2018 Mist and Sunlight reflected off a train going somewhere else
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If you had to describe your ideal life, what would it look like?
What is an ideal life, would be my next question. Human nature would suggest that I should aspire to something better.
I can’t imagine anyone describing a life that was less good as ideal.But wishing for better might not be better. A micro ideal that would not rock the boat too much if it turned out to be less than ideal, sounds ideal.
But I have hundreds if not thousands of those.
Brake discs basking in the sunshine.
Sometimes wishing for better is the enemy of good.
Putting the brakes on better, might well reveal that now is ideal.
May mornings are a gorgeous wake up. I am always a little obsessed by birdsong in May. If I need to get up early I like a few minutes in the yard just listening to the chitter chatter of birds starting their day. Just hearing the dawn chorus has always been enough but a curious family connection has brought me a new Birdsong Identification App on my phone. It was developed by Cornell University, there is a tissue thin family connection which makes my ears prick up when Cornell pops up when I listen to nerdy things on the radio. The Merlin Bird App was mentioned on the radio a while ago, I downloaded it and now I know who is chattering to me with my cup of tea.
Of course bird listening is no longer confined to the morning cup of tea ritual. I walked back from the tidal pool 2 days ago and caught 6 birds, all unseen, nattering away.
Any person walking the same path 400 years ago would have heard a similar mix.
The European Herring Gull is the most bombastic. Has to make its conversation the least interesting and loudest. If a European Herring Gull was at a party I would certainly avoid her.
” Oh dear Herring Gull has arrived, nobody else will get a word in edgeways”
” Far too fond of her own voice, and her kids have already swiped all the pasties”
” No wonder her husband spends all his time at sea”
I have no idea if this character assassination is ornithologically correct, and the whole party idea is fairly flawed. But give a woman a new app and who knows where her mind will take her.
Early morning dog walk for voting. So early that I had to wait for the coffee shop to open.
I rewarded myself with the laminations of a croissant.
I have a habit of voting early, having missed the vote once when I lived in Lambeth. I had left for work before the Polling Stations had opened and due to the unpredictability of working in Cardiac Cath labs arrived at the Polling Station with only a half an hour to go. Almost the minute I got off my train there was a strange vibration in the air. The Polling station was less than five minutes from the train station. There were outside broadcast camera operators and journalists and an enormous queue. Some sort of drama had occured and there were record numbers of voters. There was no way that everyone in the queue would get to vote and no chance that anyone joining the queue, like me, would get the chance. To queue, to make a point or not to queue. Either way I was denied my constitutional right.
The Lamentations of a choice, no croissants involved. The cafes were all closed.
I like to find the edges of my city. In my case I am fortunate the edges are well marked. To the south is the sea, to the west the river Tamar and to the north Dartmoor. Only the eastern edge has the slightly blurry edges of urban sprawl but that is contained by Dartmoor running to the north and the sea to the south. So there is a fat ribbon of development to the east until that stops and agricultural land re-establishes itself.
I also love the centre of the city where I can find independent shops, a market and a museum and art gallery.
My least favourite part of my city are the burbs. Vast stretches of anonymous housing developments. I blame an obscure folk song from my childhood.
Little Boxes
Song by Malvina Reynolds
Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes made of ticky-tacky Little boxes on the hillside Little boxes all the same There’s a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same
And the people in the houses All went to the university Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same And there’s doctors and lawyers And business executives And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same
And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry And they all have pretty children And the children go to school And the children go to summer camp And then to the university Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same
And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family In boxes made of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same There’s a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same
I was only young when I heard these lyrics and I would not have known the word dystopian but I absolutely knew that this was not a future I fancied in any shape or form.
On the whole I have avoided anonymous suburbia. I know that it is hugely comforting and homely to millions of people. Funny really that my view of my city or indeed any city was shaped by a folk song.
What’s a mystery from your own life that you’ve never solved?
Now this is a question with a million answers. I am fairly certain the resolution of many of my mysteries will always be just out of reach. I have been the oldest family member in my known family for more than 30 years. Giving me a big bag of family mysteries. Then there are the workplace mysteries. Why did certain things go the way they did? Then there are the domestic mysteries, those are often the least interesting and yet the most pressing.
As an avid ponderer I think mysteries are either a superpower or the essential fuel of the craft of pondering.
If I eradicated all my mysteries what would I do all day?
I prefer the latin word for ponder.
Somehow it gives pondering, or indeed mystery solving more importance.
What a difference 24 hours make, yesterday I was writing about a sublime experience at a ballet performance. Today I may need to comment that unknown to me I was a little under the weather at the theatre. Unknown to me a 40 year old root canal was quietly and painlessly giving up the will to live in a tooth. What became very obvious later in the night was that not only was he in terminal decline but he had unfortunately affected and infected his neighbour. A tooth with a fully functioning nerve system!
Some emergency dental treatment is a wonderful thing. Ultimately I will have to lose both the teeth but for now they are at peace. Painkillers and antibiotics are wonderful things.
I have been very fortunate, 40 years ago I had my first experience of toothache and 24 hours ago was my second.
Despite being warned that root canal work might only provide a short term fix my little tooth hung in there, only changing colour very slightly recently. He endured through two pregnancies and orthodontic teeth straightening. All things that might have affected his longevity. He has endured periods of a busy life and an irrational fear of dentists, that stopped me attending once my adorable dentist retired.
Curiously my little tooth is a marker of time. 40 years ago I had two parents, and no children. Now I have two children, no parents. A wealth of life experience and changes.
The two pictures illustrating this blog have nothing to do with teeth. But they do both have colour sensations that are not too dissimilar with my experience of toothache. Especially when displayed in a tile format.
In the 1990’s I was a busy working mother of two, wishing that Plymouth was more like Brighton.
My Brighton life was mostly carefree. Plymouth was the settling of my new life,consolidating being a parent and doing a job that I didn’t care for to make parenting easier. The comparison was not kind to either city. In the 90’s two bands in particular kept me sane . The Verve, all dirgy, and melancholic and Daft Punk, Electronic Dance music with something extra
Plymouth was represented by the Verve.
Brighton got Daft Punk.
I love them both but Verve love is hollowed out . Daft Punk the love of escapism.
With tthe distance of time I can see that both loves have equal merit as do both cities
Which is a long preamble to natter about a contemporay ballet I was intoxicated by last night.
Two distinctly different choreographed ballets that might seem, and were unconnected . Maybe a pairing not for anyone but to me they made perfect sense. Both hugely expressive pieces using gorgeous, perfect human bodies to unfold a story or a feeling. The music of Part 1 was not at all Verve like but Androgynous dancers performing such mind blowing emotion took me to that hollowed out place that I felt as a newish parent in a strange place. I had no care for the gender of the dancers, just mesmerised by the places they were taking my head too. There should be more words for erotica and sensual.
Or maybe completely new words that describe sublime pleasure of being cocooned in the moment of contemplation by writhing human bodies who are just there to make you think, nothing sexual or intimate. Just thoughts.
Part two was so much closer to my 90’s Daft Punk vibe and similarly thought provoking. It was by its nature, bawdier,closer perhaps to sensual and erotic. With May Day vibes of flesh and lust sanitised by white drone like and sexless creatures. Just there doing their thing perfectly and simply to make us think.
Not knowing or caring what gender any individual dancer was, allowed for a huge amount of buttock envy. My goodness those dancers had the most amazing bottoms.
My head was quite properly blown. All that gorgeously stimulated thinking and some absolutely peachy bottoms. What a night out.
I am still thinking about it. Wondering at the ability to have my head completely taken over by movement and music. Loving the hollowed outness and the escapism in equal measure.
If only we could have two new words to express the joy of being made to think unexpected thoughts in a theatre by honed and expressive bodies.
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