#1373 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn history, Holidays1 Comment
S.S. Great Britain

83 days ago we were in Melbourne, Australia. Yesterday we were in Bristol Historic Docks, gazing at the S.S Great Britain.

This is a tiny snippet of a blog built on  a coincidence. Had we travelled on the inaugural S.S Great Britain trip to Melbourne we would have only just arrived. The journey was scheduled to take 60 days which would not have worked for our coincidence. 60 days non-stop became 83 days because there had been a miscalculation in the amount of coal required for the steam engine. So an unplanned visit to Cape Town, South Africa, occurred and many of the passengers took the opportunity of climbing Table Mountain.

Our flight arrived about ten minutes ahead of schedule, no mountains involved and we were fragrant enough to hug our friends on arrival. I suspect the greeting would have been more at arms length, or further, if we had been travelling 83 days and thrown in a casual mountain climb in a hot climate.

#1372 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

I am not someone who habitually says ‘no’ to things that interfere with my goals.

Primarily because I am not hugely rewarded by goals being achieved in a pure and prescribed way.

Of course, goals, targets or intentions need to be achieved most days, But I am a lover of the serendipitous outcome generally being better than a perfectly planned one.

I like to allow chance a chance to improve calculated outcomes. The word ‘no’ may well be useful to hit goals reliably . Predictability is, for many people more than enough. But predictability with the embellishment of just a little jeopardy can bring the most astonishing and interesting results. Always have an open mind.

Getting from A to B with even a tiny detour is so much more interesting. Sometimes a moved goal, caused by serendipity turns out to be a much better goal in the long run. And a missed one can be much the best outcome.

#1371 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, SerendipityLeave a comment

Lola is in the midst of her busiest family gathering as the only dog in the family.

Lola sleeping

Ordinarily at family gatherings she and Hugo worked the room together. Him all showbiz, a confident white male, shmoozing  people with his glamour and eccentricity.

But Hugo left the building in December. Leaving Lola the enormous responsibility of  attending their human Great Grandmothers funeral alone. Where normally she just requisitioned cuddles, she has been obliged to both Schmooz and Cuddle.

With an age range of 3 to 95 she has had her work cut out. Cuddles remain her priority but also gratefully accepting smuggled snacks from the mourners who attended the Funeral After-Party on the day. And then helping the family to eat left over After-Party food for the next 24 hours.

Her world has been primarily consoling and accepting compliments. The very mature mourners from her Great Grandmothers Dance clubs obviously waited to share kindly words with family members before they left the After-Party but Lola had her own queue of departing well-wishers.

As her minder I spent a lot of time saying farewell to peoples knees while keeping lola on her very best behaviour with quiet tickles.

Saying goodbye to people predominantly from the knee down was an illuminating experience for me Women who are over 80 and still dancing have not given up their heels in the same way many other women have. Shoes that would not look out of place on the dance floor queued patiently to say farewell to the great grand dog.

No rest for the only dog, the next day her closer family set off to the depth of the New Forest for some Forest Bathing. A long walk in bright sunshine amongst massive trees.

Which is why this morning she is very determinedly sleeping.

#1370 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment

What do you wish you could do more every day?

I like being a busy woman but I am a great procrastinator. I choose to be busy to keep procratinarion at bay.  At least I always thought I was a procrastinator until I looked the word up for this blog.

Absolutely none of the given reasons are the causes of what I consider my procrastination habit.

I delay tasks because experience has taught me that doing a task too early or at an inopportune time often results in a re-do  or a less good result.

Procrastination suited me because it is just one word. Now I am left with a great word salad. Thinking, Planning, inspiration, mulling. Timeliness

I prefer to do things/stuff when all my ducks are in a row.

Many ducks, many rows.

Sometimes all my deliberate delaying tactics are waiting for just a few things. Sponteneity, Serendipity and inspiration.

Picking the word procrastination apart I realise that I necessarily delay or postpone  some tasks because I know that doing something too soon can result in a less good outcome.

I love ticking off lists of things achieved but feel really disappointed in myself if I do something sub- optimally because it was rushed or completed just for the sake of  a tick on a life list.

So what do I wish I could do more every day?

Just a little more thinking and a little less doing.  It is a discipline thing because I have more time than I ever have ever had. But thinking time is undervalued as an achievement.

What will I be doing now I know that I am not a procrastinator but something else entirely that currently has no name. And if it has no name how can I possibly do it?

#1369 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family1 Comment

Heading East across Dartmoor on the Spring Equinox, for a day of family and a funeral. As it turned out you couldn’t really ask for a better  day for a funeral for a 95 year old who had , for the most part, lived life on her terms. The sun shone, our singing was shocking.

And for our, blended, extended family she is the last of that generation to slip off to another realm. No more pre-war generation.

The sun has finally set for them.

#1368 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Sunshine has arrived in Stonehouse and has decided to stick around. Sunshine dog walks without a coat two days running. We don’t know ourselves. Lots of social interaction.

Social interaction of a different sort also springs to mind. My new car responds to me talking to her. Unlike Alexa, in our house, the car likes good manners. A simple Yes or no is not enough. Please and thank you are required.  Alexa takes a dim view of good manners . She is puzzled and confused when I am polite rather than assertive. I prefer interacting with the car.

Inexplicably two days of sunshine have made me very busy indoors.

I need to get my priorities reset.

#1367 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging2 Comments

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

The prompts that sometimes fuel these blogs are set by my blog host and are generated for International bloggers.

I am British and have lived almost exclusively in London and the Southern parts of England. A cross-country trip in the  South of England has an enormous geographic problem . Every place in the South has roads that have prioritised getting to London. Public Transport follows that model. The only comfortable way to laterally cross-country would be in a camper van. Walking would also be possible using a combination of minor roads and footpaths. Walking would not be a safe prospect.

But what would motivate me to do such a journey? I suppose it would be the ability to visit towns and villages whose names are familiar because I drive past signposts that their names are on or stations that fast trains speed me through. 

To get the longest possible lateral journey I would need to drive north to Bideford on the North Coast of Devon and then proceed eastwards to Margate.

I think I could get the line straighter by avoiding Motorways and A roads. It is not quite the longest lateral journey available in Britain but it is the longest involving one country.

Two facts that I was oblivious to until I wrote this blog.

Neither journey is ever likely to be made by me but I have pondered what would motivate me to do such a thing.

* Late Spring/ Early Summer.

* Independent Coffee Shops and Farm shops with Cafes in beautiful locations.

*If money were no object then the ability to book the most luxurious Air Bnb’s along the route to spend a little longer exploring areas I have never visited before.

The thought intrigues me, no such thing really exits. The only Lateral path that exists is the Coast to Coast path established in the North of England.

Blogging…

It makes me think!

#1366 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Serendipity1 Comment

The weather took a very dim view of our Mothers Day Outing to the beach yesterday. As usual what cannot be seen is the biting wind. The project which kept us busy and warm was collecting  sea shells and sea glass to make a beach themed condolence card. A niche project for sure but one that was very effective at passing an hour in fairly dreadful weather.

With a stroke of luck I found a perfect illustration of Mothers Day in seaweed.

A mother seaweed with a small baby seaweed. Currently entwined and destined to travel the tides together . The pebble they were both attached to has been split by being thrown onto the beach with force during the rough weather.

At some point they may be torn apart by another storm or they may float closely together forever. Just like mothers and their children. Who knew seaweed could bring such emotional depth.

And Emotional Depth is exactly what the ‘romantic’ filter brings to some photographs.

#1365 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family1 Comment
A lucky mother has a lot of people behind her.

Mothers Day in the United Kingdom. I have now been Mothering longer than I was Mothered. Only an interesting milestone in my own head. There is only so much mothering wisdom that can be passed from mother to daughter if there is only a tiny crossover period. Which means for most of my mothering career I have been winging it.

Winging it, is hardly something to boast about. I would never have used that term during a professional interview with any expectation of getting the job. But as a parenting tool it appears to have worked rather well. Two well-rounded and much loved adult children who are now parents themselves,walk this earth, brought up by a woman who mostly makes it up as she goes along.

Because I am a magpie I have gathered useful tips and tricks along the way from friends, colleagues and books. Not, thank goodness the internet which surely is way too much information. Too much for me anyway.

It takes a village to raise a child.

It takes a village to support a mother.

I was lucky with my self-constructed village. It gave me all the support I needed to ‘ Wing It’. Or as a more interview friendly term would be.

“I used my transferable skills”

Either way appears to have worked.

#1364 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, SerendipityLeave a comment

Yesterdays blog was written using an old stored prompt, because we were having a busy day doing really dull jobs on industrial estates. So I just needed a little help getting motivated.

Link to yesterday’s blog below.

#1363 theoldmortuary ponders.

More about yesterday’s blog later. Because the Industrial Estate jobs were not without their moments.

We have been having a rocky patch car and campervan wise. Both have required a lot of attention recently hence the all too familiar trips to Industrial Estates.

Yesterday’s industrial Estate trip took us to the inner edges of Dartmoor, where traffic problems almost immediately take on a different meaning.

Somnolent sheep and prancing ponies are the biggest hold-ups to hitting a mechanic’s deadlines.

Even when they clearly have deadlines of their own.

We all know the feeling on a Friday afternoon when the last client/patient/customer does not arrive on time.

3pm said the man with a workshop on the edges of Dartmoor. We made it, but not without the anxiety of waiting for the sheep to shift, on their own somewhat slower schedule.

So that was why a slow day blog needed a bit of a prompt.

Anyway the daft idea that anyone could create a small list of things that were essential to life, must have irritated my sleep because I had a vivid dream of absolute panic that I had not included Christmas Cake and Mince Pies on my list.

Why on earth would my sleeping head think these two items would need to go on a list of just three things?

Having had a disturbed night of sleep, I can confidently say that the list of 3 would be unaltered.

Daffodils

Books

The Sea

However were I to compile the list of 300, I would certainly include Christmas Cake and Mince Pies.

P.s I used to commute diagonally across the whole of Dartmoor for work. The traffic jams were unimaginable…

Sometimes I was late.