he died of a broken arm

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 1 October 2024].}

While reviewing photos to edit and share with you from my wander through the Bishop's Stortford Old Cemetery while sitting Betsy and Dudley a month ago, a new writing project idea struck.

Inspired by a combination of some of the inscriptions in the cemetery, personal memories and a conversation with a friend this evening about death. Specifically, euthanasia.

The words gently edging towards my fingertips aren't all about death, let alone euthanasia.

The ideas gently swirling aren't perhaps as melancholy as what I've written above may suggest (and how can you write about death without writing about life?)

But I'm probably feeling a bit too raw and tired (emotionally and physically) to pour those thoughts out in the wee hours of this particular morning.

So, instead, here's a photo I took of a grave I found paired with an irreverent title to lighten the mood.

Unrelated (maybe): have you heard the new single from The Cure, Alone?

I've listened to it a lot since it came out, but I only just properly listened while watching the lyric video (as I went to find the link for you) and took in the words and the visuals they've chosen, and I teared up for so many reasons.

And then the comments.

mamma

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 1 July 2024].}

to a beloved | qui riposa

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 18 June 2024].}

View fullsize

qui riposa

angelic youth

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 June 2024].}

quit you like men | i have fought a good fight

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 May 2024].}

After digging around on Google, I believe the inscriptions on either side of this grave for (I presume) brothers in Hitchin Cemetery are from Bible verses.

View fullsize

i have fought a good fight

From 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 and 2 Timothy 4:7-8 in the King James version specifically.

View fullsize

untitled #55 [hitchin cemetery, hitchin, hertfordshire, england, 2024]

A Wesleyan Minister and a World War I soldier buried alongside the wife of the Minister. I didn't check the other side, so there may also have been the wife of the soldier commemorated in this plot.

View fullsize

untitled #57 [hitchin cemetery, hitchin, hertfordshire, england, 2024]

This inscription style appeared a few times in the cemetery, although sometimes with different fonts.

past his bedtime

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 April 2024].}

One of the first graves I came across in the Glasgow Necropolis was that of poet William Miller, who "appears to have popularised a pre-existing nursery rhyme, [Wee Willie Winkie,] adding additional verses to make up a five stanza poem" and publishing the same in 1841.

I didn't know there was a monument to him there, and to be honest, I couldn't have named him, though I grew up learning at least the poem's first stanza. The monument stood out because of the detailed profile of him.

He died destitute, and his remains are interred in an unmarked grave in Tollcross Cemetery.

View fullsize

william miller [glasgow necropolis, glasgow, scotland, 2024]

Though I've read enough Irvine Welsh novels to understand a reasonable amount, I don't know enough Scots to understand Miller's original without the paraphrased version in English alongside it.

Despite that, I love reading it, and I share the complete poem below, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon,
Up stairs an' doon stairs in his nicht-gown,
Tirlin' at the window, crying at the lock,
"Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"

"Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye comin' ben?
The cat's singin grey thrums to the sleepin hen,
The dog's speldert on the floor and disna gie a cheep,
But here's a waukrife laddie, that wunna fa' asleep."

Onything but sleep, you rogue, glow'ring like the moon,
Rattlin' in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon,
Rumblin', tumblin' roon about, crawin' like a cock,
Skirlin like a kenna-what, waukenin' sleepin' fock.

"Hey Willie Winkie, the wean's in a creel,
Wamblin' aff a bodie's knee like a verra eel,
Ruggin' at the cat's lug and raveling a' her thrums-
Hey Willie Winkie – see there he comes."

Wearit is the mither that has a stoorie wean,
A wee, stumpie, stousie, that canna rin his lane,
That has a battle aye wi' sleep afore he'll close an e'e-
But a kiss frae aff his rosy lips gies strength anew to me.

great orme cemetery

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 April 2024].}

With all the to-ing and fro-ing between my trips to Llandudno, Delamere and Glasgow (and pet-sittings in between), I got ahead of myself by posting a photograph of St Peter's Church in Delamere last Sunday when I should have rounded out the week with a #SepulchralSunday entry for Llandudno first.

No harm done, though.

Here's one of my photographs of the Great Orme Cemetery Chapel. The cemetery sits just outside the churchyard walls of St Tudno's Church, down the hill from the summit.

she hath done what she could

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 6 March 2024].}<

Often, when I'm perusing my catalogue of unedited photos to share, one will pop out at me, and I just know it's right to share at this moment in time.

It may not always be the most eye-catching or aesthetically pleasing photograph.

But it captures where my mind or heart is right now.

Or it depicts a place, an object, a plant, etc., that - when I research it further - is relevant to something in my life at that moment and clicks.

This photograph I took in Cornubia Lutheran Cemetery, also known as Carbrook Lutheran Cemetery, did that for me today.

coaxing life from death

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 26 February 2024].}

strapped in

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 23 February 2024].}

hands clasped

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 February 2024].}

It's all in the cuffs.

View fullsize

it’s all in the cuffs

hedd, perffaith hedd

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 29 January 2024].}

untitled #186

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 14 January 2024].}

disappearing further into obscurity

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 January 2024].}

disappearing into obscurity

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 2 January 2024].}

View fullsize

untitled #116 [toowong cemetery, toowong, brisbane, queensland, australia, 2006]

View fullsize

untitled #120 [toowong cemetery, toowong, brisbane, queensland, australia, 2006]

5 weeks

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 28 December 2023].}

sunshine on wreath

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2023].}

tumbledown tree

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 20 December 2023].}

stale wolf-fart

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 December 2023].}

I took this photo of a puffed-out Lycoperdon last month in London Road Cemetery, Bromley.

The origin of the scientific name did give me a giggle.

From Wikipedia: The scientific name has been created with Greek words (lycos meaning wolf and perdon meaning to fart) and based on several European dialects in which the mushroom name sounds like wolf-farts.

I'm not sure this sounds appetising to the vegetarian palate: Most species are edible, ranging from mild to tasting distinctly of shrimp.

The puff holes remind me of cigarette burns.

a single perfect snowflake

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 December 2023].}