#1352 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, blogging, BobbingLeave a comment
Summer Bobbers.

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.

Pandemic Pondering #487

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.

#1351 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
©theoldmortuary

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.

#1350 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Words1 Comment
A marvellous place to muse or mull. Or even ponder

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.

#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.