Last night the bobbers celebrated their first Full Moonie. A naked swim at high-tide under a full moon, from a favourite, more secluded bay between two very busy bays.
I had to shift the moon a bit, in the picture above, to line it up with the bobbers but it was magnificent.
And just like that one women’s bucket list tick for her 60th birthday becomes a regular monthly habit for the intrepid bobbers.
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?
There is nothing sophisticated about the lyrics of this 1970’s rock ballad.
Hold your head up.
By Argent an English Rock Band.
And if it’s bad
Don’t let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don’t let them see you cry, you can make it
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let it change a thing that you’re doing
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up,oh
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head up, woman
Hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let it change a thing that you’re doing
Hold your head up, woman
The tune is a hugely masculine feeling composition of the era, the testosterone bounces out of every note, but it was a supportive battle cry for the emerging Womens Liberation Movement.
I have found it immensely useful to just have in my head during tricksy moments. But it would never be my Karaoke tune of choice I just don’t have enough testosterone to carry it off.
Normally by this time of year I am a little art exhibition weary. But at the beginning of this year I decided to pause my art group membership and not exhibit for a whole year. Giving me a year to faff about doing what comes to mind rather than creating art to fit an exhibition brief or title.
I miss the buzz of exhibiting, and the sales but I have also enjoyed the freedom.
My yesterday’s art output was this doodle on some black paper and it was a very deliberate doodle. I needed it to superimpose it over a digital image I created last year that lacked pzazz or any real personality.
By adding a doodle the whole thing is a little more vivid and useful.
Useful because I need to call the bobbers to an evening swim later in the week. We are planning a swim under the full moon.
To be honest I am still making a few sales of art without the pressure of exhibiting . The other plan for this year was to do a stock take and maybe take a stall at an art fair. Selling from a stall means I get to meet the people who are buying my pictures.
Two July pictures from past years have had different fates .
Fig. 1 went off to a new home from an exhibition in Tavistock. I have no idea where it is now.
This portrait was promised to the biker who posed for me in a cafe. We made a loose arrangement to meet in the same cafe but the cafe closed within weeks. I have not seen him since.
Once an image is finished they have a life of their own.
Just looking at them now I can see little improvements I could make. For their own sake they are better off away from me and not tinkered with in perpetuity. Just like children really.
Saturday was always going to be heavy on domestic admin and chores. But the rewards were a live music event and some swimming. It was only when we were well into the admin and chores that we realised we had already missed the live music event by 24 hours. Thank goodness some of the chores were charming.
I had a futile trip into a hot city for an eye test I didn’t need. An appointment booked because of an automatically generated email sent in error. It was quite a relief really as there were no frames I fancied if a new prescription was required. A dip in the sea after a hot and sticky but pointless afternoon trip was possibly undeserved but I took it anyway.
There were still more chores and admin to be done. But a swim requires a post-swim cup of tea. And a cup of tea on a Saturday requires a newspaper. The fashion pages were full of Polka dots.
My dress of choice for the day was this one. Me dressed for the occasion at a Yayoi Kusama exhibition.
Me and my domestic admin/chores completely on trend. A well spotted Saturday.
What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?
8 summery bobbers met yesterday for our regular weekly swim. About half of the number of registered bobbers who turn out at Firestone Bay in all weathers to swim, chat and eat cake.
If there was anything positive to come out of the Covid era this group of acquired aquatic friends is my favourite thing.
There is nothing good about my swimming. I am not fast, strong or stylish. But during the Covid years I learnt that being in the sea, bobbing about was something that I loved doing.
Before the Covid era I was not someone who made promises to myself. I was fortunate, a boomer, a post-war child born into an optimistic era. Too young to understand the threats of the Cold war. Covid was the first time I felt threatened in a way that was beyond the control of myself, society or the world. I promised myself I would keep swimming with the bobbers and keep writing a daily blog.
Faced with a Global Pandemic those were the only two intentions I had to battle an invisible enemy. Written down that looks quite pathetic. Also as promises go they are hardly earth shattering.
But history will probably call us the Covid Generation. The big stuff will be researched and discussed at conferences and academic institutions. But the little stuff is what we all had to do to get through.I do little stuff.
5 years ago we were just emerging from Covid restrictions. We attended a wedding. The blog I wrote on that day is below.
My promises to myself may well be a bit inconsequential but so far I have stuck with them and that is good enough for now.
Reflecting on this I realise there were two pivotal moments that made both blogging and swimming both possible and promisable.
In early Covid I was recalled back to work in London. At the time I was living in Cornwall. Even in normal times that would be a near impossible commute. Had that happened there would be no sea swimming.
In early 2020 I had been accepted to train as a theatre critic, barely had the email landed when Covid arrived stamping its big gnarly foot on training or aspiration of any sort. Had the Theatre Critic thing happened there would be no blogging.
My tiny promises were created by a massive global crisis.
If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?
This is slightly cheating but I would ask AI to write a novel where the male protagonist was exactly like my father. I would then edit out the glitches and inaccuracies, print out a small run of the books and then invite the character, that would, in truth, be him. Then I would invite him for dinner and natter away. He was the steadier half of my gene pool and would reliably turn up. My mum would be almost as interesting to meet up with but might at the last minute find something better to do.
He and his wisdom have been deceased for more than 30 years . The same for my mum. The conversation would not be all one way. I have five more years of life experience than them. They might want advice on retirement or travel and grandchildren. Something they had briefly but were never really well enough to enjoy. I, for certain, would be taken to task for living a life as an artist and designer, when they skipped off this earth I had a sensible career. One they pushed me towards to protect me from the giddiness of life as an impoverished creative.
However if I stick to the rules I would go for a much more tricksy diner companion. John-Baptiste Grenouille from Patick Suskind’s 1985 novel. Perfume. Let me be honest the dinner date would scare my pants off. And not in a good way. He is the one character that really lives on in my head and Perfume is a book I re read more than any other. There is no accounting for this choice. I am not by nature a lover of literary horror. I don’t speak 17th century French or any other French for that matter. I can no more explain my choice to you than I can justify it to myself. He is just a character that slipped into a fissure in my brain and refuses to leave. Maybe, by confronting him over a meal I might get some insight into this curious decision. Maybe I would not even survive the meal.
Yesterday was a musing or mulling kind of day. Nothing serious, just a delicate or sensitive situation, tennis club based that needed good handling. I was extremely lucky to get a favourite swimming spot to myself so I could mull or muse uninterrupted.
A good overnight brought me some clarity for that problem. But then trivial ponderings made me wonder why I had not called my blog ‘theoldmortuary muses’ or ‘theoldmortuary mulls’
theoldmortuary ponders follows on from Pandemic Pondering. That title obviously had a time limit but on a writing course I was advised to leave the pandemic behind, before it left me behind. It was also suggested that I make my blog more personal. theoldmortuary is my creative space and although a pseudonym that feels pretty personal, not for a moment did I consider dropping the word pondering. Mull would never have been chosen but muses might have done.
I do wonder if I have rather devalued the essence of a ponder by pondering such trivial, benign, repetitive or quite frankly flimsy thoughts on a daily basis.
Muse does seem slightly more appropriate but for now, pondering will be the thought process. Leaving musing and mulling for more serious thought processes.
Back to to the swim where I mulled or mused a tricksy tennis problem. From my ridiculously elite swimming spot I swam to the very popular beach.
And then I swam back. This is a truly trivial,benign,repetitive and flimsy ponder.
But musing and mulling also occured.
What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of?
On reflection and with the clarity of distance one of the funniest misunderstandings was one of my last work place appraisals. It was also one of those excruciating appraisals where I was told why I had missed out on a recent promotion.
I had missed out because I was over 50, had not been given a list of the interview questions by the lead interviewer ( the favoured and ultimately successful candidate got that ) and did not partake of some of the party activities my younger colleagues enjoyed.
I had mellowed enough from my initial furious mindset to enjoy the utter tripe that was coming from my line managers mouth. Then he served me a golden ticket of a comment.
“I think” he said,
“You use kindness to manipulate people”
Now at that point my thought bubble was an expletive filled explosion of great unkindness to him and his successful candidate.
After that I have no recollection of how we passed the time appraising me for the next year of my career.
I remained fairly incandescent for some time. We never crossed intellects at an appraisal again. Curiously for reasons not unassociated with that meeting I chose to resign and move on without his weasel ways impacting me or my career.
I still don’t believe that kindness is a tool for manipulation. I just feel it is a better default than unkindness. But is kindness a bit of a super-power? If people believe it has the power to manipulate in a good way then perhaps it is. It is certainly way more useful than unkindness.
I find my recollection of that appraisal just hugely amusing.
The other gem that my appraiser chucked out, that day ,was that he wanted to rekindle our previously good relationship.
” How do we polish a turd” he asked.
” By being kind ” I might have said and really wished I had. Of course that comment came to me moments after the appraisal finished. I wasn’t on any stairs, but I might as well have been.
On this day a year ago I was nattering on about the habit of doing the washing on a Monday.
With such good weather our washing just gets done when there is a load waiting. Today is a day of low level domestica , a bit of Tennis Club stuff and a tiny bit of art material consumerism. And a bit of washing.
Lola and I did our early morning dog walk on the river bank adjacent to our local municipal tip. After a weekend of prepping for and hosting a garden party at the tennis club there was a fair amount of general waste to get rid of. Hardly exciting but definitely improved by being forced to drive past a store with easy parking and an excellent art department.
All entirely achievable before 9 am which became the start of a delivery window for an important parcel. I nearly threw my plans into disarray when the keys of the tennis club went missing. In a rare moment of good luck they had fallen into the first bag of rubbish that I had loaded into the car. Delightfully clean rubbish it was also the first bag I checked. How often would that happen?
Lola takes a dim view of low level domestica. She can never predict how long I will stay in one place. As a protest she took to my bed, stopping me in my tracks. But also stopping me adding the decorative pillows. I sense she may have made this a deliberate move she is not a fan of decorative pillows.
A day of two food based parties.The first, a breakfast party with friends in our yard. Apart from photo opportunities all food for the yarden party had to be stored up high and cooked on the garage roof. The garage is half subterranean. Stanley, a border terrier with a refined palate. Any food on offer he is willing to refine, was one of our guests. Oh, how I thought I was a genius cooking on the roof of our half underground garage. Oh, how stupid could I be. Stanley took an early swipe at a chocolate croissant. As I turned to have a very stern but polite word with Mr Stanley, Salty the Seagull swiped bacon from the grill. Salty was told, far more vigorously to clear off. I find swearing at seagulls does not offend . Swearing at a dog with an old chaps name just feels wrong, disrespectful even.
Party number two was a community garden party at the tennis club I help to run. A hugely joyful event with tea, cake, sunshine and wonderful live music.
No dogs allowed so food was safe in that regard. Plenty of seagulls but they were in a benign mood. All in all a hugely successful event enjoyed by everyone who attended. There was of course some moaning. The club, apparently is not the same as it used to be in some mythical past when others were more involved with the running of it. The moaners were, of course, treated with the same respect as Mr Stanley was given in the morning. But in truth a more vigorous response, as applied to the seagull stealing the morning bacon was deserved.
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