derrickjknight

Parting Gifts

One of Martin’s tasks this morning was to plant

this gift from our Grandfamily into place in the Pond Bed immediately opposite our dining table.

He also transported the Gingko from that bed up to the Weeping Birch Bed pending our decision exactly where to position it.

This rhododendron blooming in the Palm Bed was just coming into bud when I last photographed it.

Flo and Dillon also gave us a frame of memorable photographs.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy chicken jalfrezi with pilau rice and vegetable samosas.

Posting A Pivotal Week, Part Two

23rd t0 30th April 2024

Having had a left eye cataract surgery 30 years ago, and still never needed specs for reading, it was quite a blow to learn that I would need reading glasses after my current right eye’s procedure; the new lens is naturally age appropriate. This means that I have to wait until the end of May for a suitable prescription. During this week I have become adjusted to the extra brightness and my right eye vision is very good, meaning that long sighted views are better than ever.

I can now watch TV without specs, although the clarity could be improved; what I can’t do is read or see a computer screen properly. With Jackie’s helpful expertise and a pair of her cheap stall-bought reading glasses we have improvised to the extent that I have managed to return to WordPress: the left lens has been removed and I can read with the right one.

We have therefore managed a few trips in the car, with The Assistant Photographer stepping into the breach:

on 27th April we visited St Leonard’s barn where she pictured a couple of cows accompanying our usual troop of ponies;

water buttercups peeping up from their now shallow pool;

donkeys and gulls sharing a spit on Beaulieu Pond;

and louring clouds over Hatchet Lane threatening the rain which was to follow us home.

Posting A Pivotal Week, Part One

23rd to 30th April 2024.

After cataract eye surgery and with a lingering cold I have been able neither to photograph nor to look at a screen for this period. How we have managed a way round it will be explained in Part 2.

The pivotal day was Thursday 25th, when, as we watched Flo, Dillon, and Ellie drive off to their new home,

Arbor Venture, symbolically, began to bring down the dead Weeping Birch tree. That process, Jackie was able to photograph.

Today, I produced these two pictures.

Update

My cold symptoms have returned, complicating matters a little.

Fortunately Jackie spent much of her working life as a professional carer for the elderly; now she has a chance to keep her hand in at home, in particular expertly applying my eyedrops four times a day.

Vision in the treated eye remains hazy and will of course take some time to clear.

I am unlikely to look at posts I follow for a while.

Other than this I have kept well away from the computer. I did manage to read a handful of pages of Kristin Lavransdatter, but one eye was not really up to the task.

This evening we all dined on tasty Ferndene bangers; creamy mashed potato; boiled cabbage and fried leeks; with tasty, crunchy carrots, and meaty gravy.

My New Lens

Yesterday afternoon I watched the Women’s Six Nations rugby matched between England and Ireland and between Scotland and Italy.

This morning Jackie drove me to SpaMedica for my cataract eyes surgery.

As, later, I reached for my normal distance spectacles to watch a recording of the rugby match between France and Wales, I realised they would not be much use to me, even if I could fit them on over my new lens shield. Never mind, I could see enough with my thirty year old lens replacement.

The surgeon was quite smart to engage me in a conversation about cricket while he was replacing the deteriorated lens with the new one, thus taking my mind off what he was doing – he knew that my earlier cataract was consequent on having been hit in the eye by a cricket ball as a teenager.

This evening we will all dine on Red Chilli takeaway meals. I shan’t put any more on this blog post because the screen is too bright for sore eyes.

Bluebells On Church Lane

Knowing that our favourite location for English bluebells would likely be in bloom today Jackie drove me out to Church Lane, Boldre.

Fortunately, I was well wrapped up against the bitter, biting, North wind that belied the bright sunshine.

A mallard sunned itself on a tussock in Pilley lake.

A troop of ponies played chicken across the road to Beulieu.

Back at Boldre Jackie photographed a few somnolent donkeys.

This evening we all dined on more of Jackie’s penne Bolognese meal.

Waiting In The Wings

On a chilly, largely overcast morning, occasionally lifted by sunlight peeking over the sometimes fluffy cotton clouds, I wandered around with my camera enjoying the general views opened up by Martin’s dedicated winter’s work.

It was difficult to ignore the red Japanese maple,

even when the collection of trees featured both the doomed Weeping birch tree and its foreground gingko waiting in the wings.

The second image in the first gallery features the Brick Path.

Here is another, followed by

one of the Gazebo Path, from the far end of which

can be seen this view west.

Whichever way we look we benefit from Martin’s work.

These are from the Rose Garden.

This morning Jackie shopped at Ferndene Farm Shop where she enjoyed the Gloucester Old Spot piglets at their trough.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s spicy penne Bolognese with Parmesan cheese with which she and I drank more of the Tempranillo Rosado.

The Gingko

For the first time since I picked up a heavy cold, accompanied by a number of flying insects I took a walk round our garden with my camera.

A wasp basked on the leaf of a budding rhododendron; a bee climbed into yellow wallflowers; a fly took a rest on a golden euphorbia.

Other budding rhododendrons were closer to blooming,

which camellias have been doing for months, and still carpet paths.

A number of Japanese maples are in full leaf.

Honesty photobombs many pictures,

but cannot upstage these sunlit hydrangea leaves.

These cowslips share a bed with forget-me-nots and ajugas.

Libertia is spreading across the weeping birch bed which is due to come down on 25th, when

it will be replaced by this gingko, which filled a pot we inherited from our predecessors. It has split the pot and we have wondered what to do with it for the last ten years.

Finally I pictured this pieris, an antirrhinum and cinerarias, and some frilly tulips.

This evening I joined the others at the kitchen table for fish pie, ratatouille, carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli with which I drank Caliza Tempranillo Rosado La Mancha 2022.

My Ancestry Thoughts Confirmed

My DNA results have confirmed my thought that I probably have Viking Ancestry:

66% England and Northwestern Europe predominantly north – East Midlands, Yorkshire and North England – 12% Scotland, 10% Sweden and Denmark, 1% Norway are pretty convincing. The southwestern English elements would have come from my father.

I now have the added intrigue as I continue reading “Kristin Lavransdatter” of the possibility that my ancestors may have lived like those in the novel

This evening, with my appetite back, with the others in the kitchen, I enjoyed roast chicken, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and parsnips, cauliflower; still from a tray on my knees in the sitting room, and drank water.