#1349 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, StonehouseLeave a comment
Far from the tidal pool

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.

Middle distance from the tidal pool

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.

Closer to the tidal pool

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.

Clarity at the Tidal Pool

#1348 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hugo and LolaLeave a comment

On this day a year ago I was nattering on about the habit of doing the washing on a Monday.

#1347 theoldmortuary ponders.

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. 

Is this a smart move?

#1347 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club, Yardening1 Comment
Prepping for the Yarden Party

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.

#1346 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photography, art, Footling About, Hybrid Printmaking, learning, Meddled Photography X Watercolour, Medical imaging, Serendipity1 Comment

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

As a lifelong image maker the outdated technology I miss the most is the magic and alchemy of a photographic or radiographic darkroom. The basic skills of wet processing and later automated processing, that are enhanced by the knowledge and experience of knowing how to manipulate negative and positive images to create the best possible outcome. 

So many mental filing cabinets of know how have been stored in my brain gathering dust since the dawn of digital imaging. Until a February in Penzance when I had a lightbulb moment and decided to start using some of my old analogue knowledge alongside the digital knowledge of contemporary image making.

I am a time-hopping digital immigrant. Using skills taught to me by people called Sheila and Ron in the 70’s ,an era when a dark room technician could turn a disaster into an acceptable picture by clever thinking and the use of tricks and accuracy to make an image better.

This is the first successfully manipulated image created by overlaying three separate digital photographs to create one picture.

The feet below are my most recent  meddled image.

The others are just some of the picture journey. The acceptable part of the journey. Not the many many images that have ended up in the digital bin

#1345 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment
The Fridge Gallery

She Sells Selsey Seashells is the latest acquisition for the little known but hugely influential Fridge Gallery.  As the curator I gave it a bit of a tidy up yesterday. I am an appalling curator of the Fridge Gallery. I have given it very little thought.

She Sells Selsey Seashells  from Novium Museum Chichester, where there is a David McKee exhibition.

The Novium Home Page – The Novium Museum https://share.google/CtzQuzz1S1pVpQeol

David McKee was a local chap , growing up in Tavistock and attending Arts University Plymouth.

I am a little old to have enjoyed his books as a child but my mum used to make Elmeresque Elephants as gifts for friends’ children out of the scraps of gorgeous fabrics she had from her hobby of making theatrical and dance costumes.

I was not the recipient of an Elmer because I had moved on to Trolls at that point, but my trolls were exceedingly well dressed. My favourite troll ever was a Viking.

This plain blue tabard was recreated many times in gorgeous fabrics. The same patchwork skills she used for her Elmer creations. Although I always thought my troll was a femail Viking . Would Drag Queen Vikings have been a thing in the 60’s and early 70’s?

I had completely forgotten this detail of my 8 year old self until now. Which is why I should pay more attention to the Fridge Gallery!

Oh how I love that cute little troll face. Now to hunt for that exact troll …

#1344 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, Stonehouse Lawn Tennis ClubLeave a comment

Thursday night shenanigans at a tennis club.

The Marquee needed to be up and many hands and many bystanders made light work.

First  event in the Marquee was the July committee meeting.

Who could possibly have guessed that we had put the table on an ant nest.

The ants took a very dim view of being forced to attend a committee meeting. Smiles turned to squeals as the ants voted with their feet . Finding all the nooks and crannies of light summer clothing . The quickest committee meeting ever.

#1343 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Devils Point, Firestone Bay, Hybrid PrintmakingLeave a comment

My day was hijacked , first by a sound then an image and then later again by another image that just nagged away at me until I had sketched,painted and photographed it into existence. Until I was done.

Lola and I were out walking early this morning , almost from the start we were followed by the slightly worrisome and slightly exciting sound of someone hurrying with a suitcase on wheels. At one point we were overtaken by a woman who had laden herself with everything she would need for a day on the beach. She was a woman on a mission. As she sped past me I grabbed a quick photo which I have altered to anonymise . There was no beach, we were both walking at exactly high tide. She was way ahead of us and as I looked over the wall she was patiently waiting for some beach to appear. By the time we passed again, on our way back, she had claimed her spot on a tiny ribbon of wet pebbles.

She had unloaded and set up a one woman encampment. Sun lounger, parasols, cooler box and books. She was oiled up like a sausage on a barbeque . She was not alone, the thin strip of pebbles had grown and she had neighbours, but none who had hauled quite so much stuff.  When I got home I decided to donate her my empty beach of yesterday.

It was the least I could do. I had an interesting afternoon sketching her arriving on an empty beach then watercoloured and did a pen and ink sketch before sticking them all together digitally.

The Early Firestoner ©theoldmortuary

Sometimes I just have to get an image out of my system. I hope she had a great day, she really deserved it.

#1342 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, StonehouseLeave a comment
©theoldmortuary

Wednesday is hump day. I have the hump, or the grumps with a side order of entitlement. This week has not been kind. What I needed was an early morning walk with Lola and a swim at high tide from any one of the three beaches near my home. Tough weeks require some head clearance and swimming is my place to do that. That is my entitlement in a nutshell.

All three beaches had large black dogs off their leads with no direct supervision from their swimming owners. Not to my taste or Lola’s. Both Lola and Hugo were attacked by the same large black dog on two different occasions. Lola has a long but not specific memory. She takes a very dim view of  all large black dogs, on her behalf I exercise caution around large black dogs off leads. To find one on each of the swimming areas was dispiriting to say the least.

I settled into the arches above the middle swimming spot and tried to enjoy a three day old Pain au Chocolat from Lidl. While they are delightful fresh from the Lidl oven they are like old boots 3 days later. The hump/grumps were not resolved.

Even worse the two women using the middle swim spot took forever to get in the water and their dog was all over the place. There is only a narrow entry way to the sea.

Me in happier, more privileged swim times

So I took my humpy grumpy self off to Tranquilty bay where the large, free- running dog had disappeared. I had a fabulous swim and Lola basked in the sun on my towel. Afterwards, as I walked past the middle swim zone the two women and their dog were just climbing the steps to leave. Without a backward glance Lola and I were down the steps and swim/ basking #2 happened.

Can you believe this? The last beach, as I walked past was completely empty. #3 swim/ bask occured.

The hump/grumps are not completely rinsed out of my system and nothing can rejuvenate a three day old Lidl Pain au Chocolat.

But with patience the black dogs will leave the area both metaphorically and in real life. I just have to give these things some time.

The black dogs were real. It is only as I wrote this that I realised that sadness can also be described as ‘ the black dog’

#1341 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing1 Comment
July Heatwave 2026

Sad news from our iddylic swimming/ bobbing spot. Over the weekend a local woman died from a heat related medical event at Tranquility Bay. Flowers from the swimming community absolutely reflect the vibrancy of the people who regularly swim here and who will be feeling her loss.

#1340 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Welcome to the Weekend Heatwave

Firestone Bay was popping this weekend. Early dog walks to avoid the heat. High tide swims to mitigate the heat. Evening dog walks to avoid the heat again. + A piece of outstanding good luck.

Early dog walks
Cooling off at High tide
An industrial style mirror.

On one of our walks we found this mirror in a yard give away. It was very hot to carry such a heavy thing home  so we hid it in a bobbing friends garden and drove around to collect it in the cool of the early morning. It is going to live on a wall in our yard.

For now it is propped at ground level but it will be mounted so that it reflects the Olive Tree.

The Olive tree is also planted in a pot that a neighbour gave away. Serendipitous finds.

Alongside the heat of the day a feisty wind sprung up this afternoon . My afternoon swim or dip was spent in a large rockpool. I only ever bother with it in the winter months usually . But today with the heat and waves pouring on it was like a salty jacuzzi.