#1447 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Van Life1 Comment
Old hotel, soon to be apartments, Quiberon

I love a dilapidated building and one with such a charming ghost sign is always going to be a winner.

A Sunday with just one plan. To be out and about before most tourists and at the supermarket before a noon closing time. Both achieved but with unplanned complexities,not of our own making. There was a fundraising  race throughout the centre of the town between 11 and 5 closing many streets and footpaths.

Meanwhile there was also a Classic Car event  on roads that circled the town.

A complexity of our own making was the purchase of a heavy set of boules for  family games in the summer.

Gaudy and heavy boule.

In 30 degrees this was quite a shopping undertaking. But we managed to escape the route of the charity event to leave me, Lola and the boule by the roadside to be picked up on our way out of town. But Serendipity was having a laugh at our expense. Moments after I was picked up,we pulled out into a stream of classic vehicles. And so without ever registering as a Classic Vehicle we paraded through the streets of a town high on road racing and Classic cars. There were many places where both events could be viewed almost simultaneously.

It would have been churlish not to wave and unlike many vehicles, in this extraordinary heat,we did not break down.

So on a Sunday, not without a little drama, but also some very cute ghost signs.

Just below the old hotel is a fish sculpture.

Tranquility in a very busy town.

#1446 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Holidays, Serendipity, Van LifeLeave a comment

Quite the unplanned day today. Up early to use a beachside outdoor laundrette. Staggeringly high tech. We loaded our washing and were instructed that a text message would tell us when our washing was done. With a little over an hour to wait we walked to an empty beach, found a bench and read our books.

Not a bad way to get the laundry done and make a plan for the day, hundreds of tourists descended on Quiberon while the washing was doing its thing, we decided to find some calm. We chose the Mediaeval town of Auray for our first destination. High tech to Mediaeval in just over an hour. Auray was virtually empty. Unplanned Auray for tomorrow. Not one but two Saints, one freshly minted in 2025.

#1445 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends, Serendipity1 Comment
Lamore Plage

Where do old friendships go when life creates a wrinkle in time and place?

Old friendships just wait quietly in the head and heart until another wrinkle pulls the whole thing back together. 

Wrinkles, it seems,are quite the thing. We have both collected some along the way. 36 years since Angela and I met in person,and many years with little contact because life happens, but then the internet happened and reconnections and natterings can begin again.

We trained at the same time in London, lived our twenties in Brighton, a city that was as much fun as any city can be and then life washed us both into the port city of Plymouth. Being used to fun we sought it out, or more likely created it until the tides, or wrinkles, of life set us on the path of a 36 year gap.

Finding the fun in Plymouth.

You know nothing has changed when the same daft stuff makes you laugh.

This gorgeous little wooden boat was built by Angela’s Obstetrician. His hands crafted this boat, but she last saw them wielding a pair of forceps between her knees. Both activities with great outcomes and exactly the sort of thing we would find funny. 36 years apart blinked away by laughter.

#1444 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Holidays, saints1 Comment

How do you plan the perfect road trip?

Writing this from a road trip seems the ideal location to ponder perfection.

In many respects this will be an anti-perfection ponder. A road trip needs just enough planning to provide a scaffold of ideas that serendipity can build upon. I realise that many people need certainty but we are not those people.

This was the sunset last night at a location we had not expected to visit this year. The Ice Saints brought inclement weather so we headed further south a little earlier than anticipated.

Before this road trip I was unaware of Ice Saints. More on them below.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/may/10/weatherwatch-cold-may-ice-saints?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

My rural childhood had a clothing/weather saying.

” Ne’re cast a clout, ’til May is out”

Don’t get rid of any clothing layers until June.

Last night in a moment of folklore defiance I gave up my socks for camping sleeping. Nothing bad happened.

And that is why perfection on a road trip is not about planning but a lot about Serendipity.

#1443 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn saints, SerendipityLeave a comment

A holiday with only small things to be achieved, in a timely way can be very liberating . Two catch ups with friends and a midpoint Airbnb are all we have. Except a trip to a fortified city that has featured in an enjoyed Netflix series. It was the anchor to our first week, Concarneau was our tick box. A little tricky as there was a sea mist making everything a little grey but exploring the fortified city was very atmospheric. Not quite as Netflix has depicted it, but hugely enjoyable. Cinematographers can do wonders with lighting and the hard work of scenery professionals. Except the hard work should actually have been done at home because the filming was actually done in  Saint Malo!

Google is a wonderful thing.

So Saint Malo goes on the list for another time and a location, Saint Cado, gets elevated to this current trip. Not only for the Netflix error but also to escape inclement weather.

So far it has worked, better weather and another Saint to ponder. Saint Cado allegedly fought with Satan over the rebuilding of a bridge between two fishing communities and then hoodwinked him by giving him the soul of a cat. The contractual price for the bridge rebuilding was the soul of the first living thing to cross the bridge. Anticipated to be a human it turned out to be a cat. Obviously St Cado’s saints tale has the tissue thin plausibility of many a saints origin story. The bridge however exists and we crossed it today. Nobody lost a soul.

#1442 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Holidays, Van Life1 Comment

What’s a simple pleasure in life that brings you joy?

We are on a two week camper van adventure. All the pleasures are simple. All are bringing joy. Except, perhaps, the weather. The sun hats are getting no use.

But the wet weather gear and our winter thermals are having a seasonal extension to duties. There is no such thing as bad weather for a holiday just the wrong clothes and we have the right clothes.

Books, Scrabble and my travelling art stuff are having more moments than anticipated. But things could change any minute.

Bright shafts of sunlight are fighting their way through the left over storm clouds of last night. So anything could happen today. Simple Pleasures in Sunshine perhaps.

#1441 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Holidays, SerendipityLeave a comment

A day of textures, travels with LeClerc  and consolidation.

Brittany is fish, I love everything about fish. But fish does not love me and that breaks my heart because even fish in a supermarket here screams eat me, cook me simply and enjoy. So rather than eat fish I must devour with my eyes.

The weather was not with us today and the towns we visited were quiet. Fortunately we could reprovision using a Hypermarket.

Sleepy towns and inclement weather could be a recipe for disaster but slow  walks in unknown places are one of the great pleasures of life.

A cottage garden in Loctudy

A bit of street art and the real thing.

Phare La Perdrix at Loctudy

We wandered in old graveyards and found moss like a world map and barely there inscriptions.

And the sadness of a World War 1 military graveyard where young men gave their lives for France. Not something we ever read on  British War graves as we are not a Republic. In Britain lives were given for King and Country. I prefer the directness of the French wording.

Young men who would have done useful jobs like transporting wine if they had not been fighting in a pointless war

Women were represented on our little texture hunt by cast iron fixings for shutters.

A Breton flag and Breton jumpers.

And just look at this, freshly caught crabs at our destination of three days time.

Gauthier’s Haul

Life is full of texture today. Especially lovely when we found a tea shop open.

#1439 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment
Brittany Poppies

How do you stay motivated when learning something new?

I am lucky that being semi-retired and having stepped away from a full time career, learning something new is pretty much my choice, so I learn with great enthusiasm. But what I have realised is that having to learn things that may not have fully engaged my happy head spaces in the past has given me a bit of a super power of just diligently getting on with it. Recently I had to learn, at speed, the rules and advice for communal space vegetable plot gardening. Not exactly allotments but definitely strip horticulture, something medieval people knew about. I found it fascinating and like a lot of things it is a lot less about the fruit and vegetables and a great deal more about managing people.

So I would say finding fascination is the motivation for learning new things and just being diligent.

#1438 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Coincidence is a wonderful thing to enhance a tiny ponder. Moments before seeing this rocky outcrop on the coast of Brittany we saw a field with two Percheron horses grazing.

©Pinterest

Moments later we were reading about the evocative rocky outcrops of the area. Evocative I would say of a very large horse poo.

The beach at Menaham, Côte de Legends

Maybe it was just a time and a place thing? Maybe not