#1282 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn 2026, art, Family, Firestone Bay, Scrag End of Summer, Summer1 Comment
© theoldmortuary

One week left of August and I feel the itch and anticipation of the arrival of September. Although I have never formally worked in education I always feel the 1st of September is a far more significant New Years Day than the dreariness of the 1st of January. The summer months, especially the summer months of 2026 have imbued a more relaxed feeling to life in general and to my art based creative life. September 1st will be the time to galvanise and gird my arty loins.

Girding your loins means to prepare yourself physically, mentally, or emotionally for a difficult task, a hard challenge, or a conflict. It functions like saying “brace yourself” or “roll up your sleeves”.

The last of my, summer, arty play dates with granddaughters occurred this week.

She sailed off to France yesterday taking us from 3 arty workshop girls down to none.

I don’t buy any special, inferior, art materials for them . They use what I use. I fret a bit about my  fancy brushes but not much else. I do catch them diving into my store cupboard for stuff I haven’t laid out for them but so far we have not had any arty drama’s beyond the normal drama that 3 girls can create in any situation.

Official Summer 2026 has sailed. We are in the liminal space that I think of as the ‘scrag end of summer’

Scrag end is an inexpensive cut of meat from the neck of a lamb or mutton. It contains a lot of bone and connective tissue, but it is very flavorful and becomes tender when cooked slowly.

I very much enjoy the ‘scrag end’ of summer. It is more tender and a little slower, more relaxed and less pressured. Poignent because it is an end but enjoyable because, for now, the actual end is unknown and unexpected pleasures will occur before that happens.

#1281 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Hybrid Printmaking, Scrag End of Summer, SerendipityLeave a comment

Does bright yellow signify the beginning of the ‘Scrag end of Summer’.

We have had a most unusual summer, 5 heatwaves have rendered our back yard almost unusable because of  excessive heat. Evenings being the only time we could comfortably sit out, or tinker with our plants.

Nearly a week since the last heatwave left the area, the later part of sitting in the yard last evening required rugs.

So heatwaves apart, we are now in an entirely normal late summer pattern. Mentally we extend summer into the whole of September. Optimistic that Autumn will only descend on the 1st of October with a crescendo of pumpkins.

A very interesting question in light of the 5 heatwaves + 1 more scheduled for September, is what will the 2026 Pumpkin season look like? 1st World Problems.

Painting pumpkins is one of my favourite fruit and Vegetable art moments.

Which leads me somewhat circuitously to the the art drama of my past week. Two hybrid prints featuring the moon were sent off for a test print. One came back looking  good the other did not.  So back to the drawing board in the literal and actual sense.

For my image I wanted the moon to look soft and mythical, exactly like cream cheese.

The Moon is made of green cheese” is a statement referring to a fanciful belief that the Moon is composed of cheese. In its original formulation as a proverb and metaphor for credulity with roots in fable, this refers to the perception of a simpleton who sees a reflection of the Moon in water and mistakes it for a round cheese wheel. It is widespread as a folkloric motif among many of the world’s cultures, and the notion has also found its way into children’s folklore and modern popular culture.


Queso fresco (“fresh cheese”), a green cheese, with typical white, round appearance resembling a full moon.
The phrase “green cheese” in the common version of this proverb (sometimes “cream cheese” is used),[1] may refer to a young, unripe cheese[2][3][4][5] or to cheese with a greenish tint.[6]

My first attempt , which I was entirely happy with until the test print, did in fact look very much like a green and slightly misshapen cheese. I wanted gentle swirls of Philadelphia.

Cream Cheese Moon 🎬2

Cream Cheese moon, created by swirling wet Posca pens with my finger has successfully been inserted into my original image and the nasty green moon banished. Another first world problem to ponder on a Sunday evening in a yard which is, for the first time this summer pleasantly warm rather than roasting.

Crossing the Bar 2 ©theoldmortuary

#1280 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog)1 Comment

What’s a cultural tradition from your country that you love?

The need to make or buy a hot drink to smooth, ease or improve any situation. When I was young the drink of choice was almost exclusively tea but in the late sixties coffee took the pressure off tea a bit in Britain. The responsibility for making British people hydrated in nearly all circumstances could be shared a bit. Not that tea or coffee are as good at hydrating as plain water. Water is much more prevalent now but there is virtually no ritual to serving water. The preparation of a hot drink by one person for another adds something intangible to the interaction. Also there can be appreciation or opprobrium thrown in. Hot drinks are commented on in a way that cold or alcoholic ones are not so much.

Speaking ill of the dead, my recently demised mother-in-law was not a good hot drink maker. Her coffee was deplorable and her tea was never more than average. But to her credit she always offered a chocolate digestive biscuit with either. Not complete reputational rehabilitation by any means, but possibly recognition of her shortcomings.

#1279 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, Stonehouse, Summer, WordsLeave a comment
Firestone Bay

Heatwave 5/2026 has left Firestone Bay. Leaving the Bay and surrounding area with normal, unpredictable  August Summer Weather. This was the scene yesterday and the day before. The crowds of swimmers anxious to cool down have left the area. I had the water to myself for twenty minutes or so. Other bathers had just left and a few arrived as I left.

In a normal English Summer the bay would still be buzzing on a day like this. But 5 Heatwaves have made normal seem mediocre, lacklustre even.

More mediocrity.

Mediocre is not a word that is used often. It is one of those words that my synaesthetic brain loves.

Meaning neither good nor bad. It feels judgmental and not in a good way.

There are many things that I am pretty poor at doing. Doing them to a mediocre standard would be a considerable improvement. But if I were judged to have become mediocre that would not seem like a positive.

Good Enough is a phrase that feels similarly down beat when actually, for a lot of things , good enough is good enough.

Yesterday was  a little lacklustre, mediocre even, but good enough in its own way.

Who wouldn’t want a bay to themselves for a lunchtime swim.

#1278 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Firestone Bay, Hybrid Printmaking, SerendipityLeave a comment
Partial Eclipse 2026, work in progress.© theoldmortuary

It is just over a week since I bobbed during the partial eclipse with 9 other bobbers. At the time the experience was both peculiar and beautiful.  Peculiar because we swam for virtually the whole of the eclipse experience. Quite often with special Eclipse glasses which gave us a completely safe experience to view the eclipse in real time, but our vision  was limited to black and red vision of the black moon obscuring most of an orange sun . While our bodies were experiencing the sensations of the sea and our ears were hearing the happiness and exclamations of a bay, full of happy swimmers.

When we didn’t have the glasses on we were experiencing ever changing highly saturated colours that slowly darkened and changed as the moon crossed the sun. One of my Eclipse glasses visions was of sparks of light like golden diamond twinkles firing off the perimeter of the sun. I think caused by drops of sea water on my eyelashes or on the plastic lens of the eclipse glasses.

I knew I wanted to create an image of the experience, but which one?

Until I decided to throw caution to the wind and put all my recollections into one image. Not as mad as you might think for someone who worked in medical imaging. For example a CT scan image is made of many amalgamated pictures taken from lots of different angles at slightly different times.

My hybrid printmaking technique with photography and painted or mono printed images uses exactly that technique, modified a little.

Yesterday I had to get a bit of a wiggle on to get this image off to a printer for a test run Giclee print. It is still not the finished article but I will need to see how a print looks.

So that’s where the image is currently but what about my personal recollection?

Really one of the loveliest things I have done in a really familiar home environment. I still haven’t quite found the words to describe the experience. But I have found the many layers of a half decent picture.

#1277 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Film, Hugo and Lola1 Comment
First Love

What’s the last movie that made you cry?

Not the last movie that I watched that made me cry, but the most significant.

Purely because the whole cinema experience, done well, rips off a skin layer or two of my stoicism and protective emotional guard. The most insignificant scene in a well made film can make me silently blub at its beauty, musicality, prose, costumes, acting, scene setting or some hidden, to others , personal connection. I am a regular cinema sniffer and silent weeper.

Marley and Me.

I had just left my canine first love, Mr Hugo, with his grandmother on his first holiday with her, and my first time of leaving him.  On the flight the person next to me was watching Marley and Me. I was reading a book but every time I looked up I could see the scenes being played out before me in absolute silence.

My book is unmemorable but often enough when I glanced at the film on my neighbours screen, my eyes pricked with emotion, nothing to do with the book. I knew how the film would end and I didn’t want to witness how the love of a dog plays out  before I experienced it for myself.

Marley and Hugo had the same lifespan.Similar life events happened, Hugo was not exactly expelled from puppy school, but we didn’t stay the course. As with many pets,difficult  life decisions were made, not only the final one. Age is as unkind to dogs as it can be with humans.

I have never actually watched the film with the dialogue. I am almost certain I never will. But if I had watched it an hour ago, a week ago or any time span it would be the film where uncontrollable sobbing would occur, probably the whole way through. Nobody needs that as entertainment.

#1276 theoldmortuary

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, domestica, Serendipity1 Comment
Current work in Progress

26 years ago I started my journey towards taking a degree in Fine Art. Something I actually wanted to do at 18. Suddenly art began to create a bigger need for stuff. Evening classes and short courses prior to this moment tended to provide materials so art stuff had not left a big footprint in my storage. The next 26 years have been significantly different. Two homes have had actual art studio spaces. Two have not, and currently I have a hybrid space that requires me to be more sensible about what I keep and what I don’t. However the garage at our current home housed 26 years of my creative left overs. Like a snail I moved arty stuff around the country physically and in my mind. As an art gear archive the garage was pretty poor, it had been packed by our removers and there was no logic to it.I also never imposed logic on it, choosing to pick bags at random when I needed something For some inexplicable reason on the last day of the fifth heatwave the time had come to sort  and clear 26 years of stuff that might come in useful in a creative way. Sorting and going through it all showed my artistic journey. I can see the same decisions made on something created 8 years ago and in the work in progress illustrating this blog. But the truth is I can make those decisions without filling a space with the odds and ends of 26 years of creating. Time for stuff to be gone.

After the clear out

The garage is clear now, two trips in the camper van did the job. A small amount of materials went into my current workspace.

I had thought a clear garage was just a long overdue project, but it turns out it is not just the garage that is clear. My head is significantly lighter. A good few hours of going through and getting rid of old paintings and the associated materials I gathered on the way has been astonishingly cathartic.

What a puzzling and delightful outcome.

#1275 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Devon, Serendipity, Stonehouse, Words1 Comment
Breakfast of figs, fresh from the tree. Strawberries were from a supermarket.

We seem to be on the backside of the fifth heatwave of 2026. We woke up to an entirely different feel this morning. More normal for an English summer, some overnight rain and cooler. Dull.

Since May my days have been planned around heat avoidance. Today there is no need to take Lola out for an early morning walk to avoid her getting over hot and her paws getting sore from baking pavements. Today all thoughts of sun drenched and over-saturated colours have faded to greige.

I walk past this sign almost every day of my Stonehouse life. It protects a car park of 11 spaces overlooking  one of the most interesting sea views in England.

Joy Sucking Car Park Sign

Every day I look at this sign and think. Surely this could be achieved in less dispiriting language and still deliver respectful and appropriate parking.

You can hear and feel the joy and colour being sucked out of peoples souls as they are confronted with this message in such a beautiful spot.

The Cafe itself does not suck joy. Drinks are served in ceramic mugs, the cheesy chips go down very well. Especially with fresh figs during a heatwave.

Their bacon butties ignite warmth in winter swimmers.

But that sign! Every day my heart slumps a little bit as I feel joy being extracted excruciatingly by words, harshly used, in a beautiful place.

#1274 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn WordsLeave a comment

How do you deal with uncertainty?

I have fairly firm, certain,views on uncertainty and am a little uncertain about the order I should write about uncertainty.

Uncertainty should play no part in certain aspects of life, for those parts of life you need to know what you are doing, have a plan,the skills and materials to turn uncertainty into certainty.

Uncertainty can be banished by confidence and training.

Intuition is a great tool against uncertainty.

Uncertainty can be allowed its own sweet time to resolve.

Uncertainty is not always a bad thing, particularly in the creative world or when dealing with other humans.

Personally I love the serendipity of uncertainty. I prefer people who embrace uncertainty but not to the point of being irritatingly whimsical. People who are forever certain are not my cup of tea.

This prompt arrived less than 12 hours after I deliberately avoided a fellow swimmer who I don’t really know. She is impossible to have a casual conversation because she is certain about everything, often wrong and talks in a series of statements. A little diffidence would benefit her social skills.

Life is just too short for so much certainty.

#1273 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, Serendipity1 Comment

The Sunday Ponder. 50% of the Weekend.

The news article below is really interesting. I had weekends until I was 14 or 15 then a Saturday job ate up half of my weekend and school holidays. This continued through school and college until I stepped into a career that required 24/7 staffing. Weekends were an occasional treat until I retired from a ‘proper’ job and weekends and some days off in the week became normal.

I became Russian 1929-40 for most of my life.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/aug/16/the-weekend-is-100-years-old-skiveday-fridays-and-hybrid-working-ruined-it?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It was my normal. On -call rotas do not respect weekends off. Reflecting back I realise why I have virtually no hobbies. Art could easily be squeezed into gaps in my schedule but I couldn’t commit to anything remotely team related. I dabbled in hobbies but nothing stuck. I wonder at people who are experts at a hobby or interest but realise I simply didn’t have the time or reliability.

Post retirement from a proper job, have I learnt to sail or joined a band as a sultry bass player. I have not. I do a lot more art, help to run a club and swim in the sea alone or with the Bobbers.On reflection would I give up weekends at 14, never to see them regularly again for 46 years? I would not, but it seems I may never have been a hobby or team kind of woman regardless of availability. Just two, water based, activities have featured regularly in my life but only after the age of 45 for gig rowing and 60  for sea swimming.

Sea swimmers and gig racing in the same frame.

Despite starting this blog early the day ran away with me. For some inexplicable reason we decided to clear the garage of stuff that we stored 5 years ago, when we moved in. Most of it was completely untouched in those 5 years. Most of it has suffered a bit from five years of storage, most of it will be going to the tip.

50% of a weekend well used.

Not all on a grubby job which is a virtuous thing in this heat.

Quite a lot of time was spent bobbing about in the sea.

We were not alone !