June 2013 – Page 3 – derrickjknight

The Traditional English Tea

We stayed in this morning for a visit from the owner of the flat upstairs and a technician sent by her insurance company. On 2nd March I described a leak from number 9 that had dribbled through our ceiling. Christine, in residence, is the tenant. Sarah, the owner, had been told by the insurer that, in order fully to investigate the cause of the intermittent penetration of our ceiling, it was necessary to aim a device at our plasterwork from inside our flat; the electronic gadget, allegedly capable of its own painless penetration, would be able to diagnose what was wrong with the bath. Apparently looking directly under the bath was not an option.

This rather mystified us, but we had no objection. It rather surprised the technician too. He had no such instrument, and had no idea how he was supposed to diagnose the leak from a bath nestling on the floor of a room about twelve feet above the soles of his shoes, and through ceiling, joists, and floorboards. After some quite lengthy and helpful discussion about the building, estate agents, and owners, Sarah and the young man repaired to number nine. When he had left after completing his work, she kindly came to tell us that he had indeed taken off the side cover of the bath and found what was wrong; apparently an overflow and something to do with damp plaster, possibly from showering.

We were thus delayed in partaking of our brunch which was to sustain us until the visit, for a traditional English tea, of Helen and Bill and their German friends Hilda and her great nephew Simon. This meant that we did not have time for checking out two prospective properties for which we have been idly surfing the net. Or is it browsing the web?

Actually, we would have had time for two had we not got lost. Property-wise we have rather a dilemma. We are very pleased with the wonderful flat in its idyllic setting that we occupy. But we do have to pay rent, and by the end of the year, we may just have enough money to buy somewhere. Not, unfortunately, in the rather expensive New Forest. So, we have been having a look on the property websites, but not actually at any houses themselves. Today we decided to at least reconnoitre the areas of a couple of places that could not be more different. The first a pretty cottage in a pretty lane in a pretty village; the second a large ground floor flat in an Edwardian Manor pretty much like what we have at the moment, possibly even grander.

We found Fyfield Cottage in Everton with no trouble, and had a wander around. It is more extensive than it looks from the very narrow West Lane, and has a lovely garden with a new shed and parking space for three cars. I have my doubts about whether the ceilings would be high enough. Every home in the lane was attractive, and I was particularly taken by the happy juxtaposition of honeysuckle and actinidia in the hedge opposite. Just window shopping.

It was the second possibility that proved elusive. This was Ossemsley Manor near Bashley. We knew exactly where it was. But how to get to it? Had my driver not turned right too soon we may well have been congratulating ourselves. But she did. As the track began to peter out, we came alongside a teenage girl on a horse accompanied by an older woman on foot. The girl claimed not to be any good at directions and left her companion to set us on our way. The young lady had said we needed to go straight ahead, but wouldn’t be able to get through the gate in front of us. We followed the other’s directions, and after we had detoured for a good mile or so, our paths crossed again. Our informants had only travelled about a hundred yards, or metres. This was after the car’s suspension had been sorely tested by invisible speed bumps set in a badly made up road. I was convinced we were going in the wrong direction so we turned around, returned to a proper road, and set off back to Minstead to be in time for our German guests. In the process we drove the reverse of a long stretch I had walked on 27th February. I was then able to see where we should have gone. Had I only realised where we were or remembered the name of the common where I had seen the chicken cross the road, we may have had better luck. As it was, we had to put off that little recce.

Our guests arrived on time and were treated to a traditional English tea. The kind that no-one ever eats today, unless on holiday in the West Country. Which I suppose they were. A bit like the Full English breakfast only being consumed when staying at a B. & B. And since everyone except Simon, who preferred sparkling water, drank coffee, it wasn’t quite authentic. Nevertheless the excellent spread included the traditional cucumber sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam, strawberries, two different cakes, and even biscuits with an assortment of cheeses and pickles, and was consequently enjoyed. It was a more than adequate evening meal for us.

After the repast we all watched an old sixteen millimetre film starring Helen, Jackie, and a little later, Shelly, taken by their Dad, Don Rivett, about sixty years ago. The format, after several reincarnations over the years, is now DVD. Guest appearances are by their paternal grandparents, mother and father, and cousins Adrian and Christopher Barlow. Although the sisters have seen these films often, the memories came flooding back. Since it was silent, it probably gave poor Simon a rest from listening to spoken English.

‘I’m Not An Olympic Cyclist’

Before lunch, which consisted of a vast amount of yesterday’s food with the addition of more cold meats, pies, and cheeses, Jackie drove Don and me to Bank where we sampled the beers and sussed out the food, which looked very tempting, in The Oak Inn. The beamed pub was very full and catered for numerous families. Don and I drank Gale’s Seafarers Ale and Jackie had Staropramen. This naturally led to a rather soporific afternoon until Don returned to Bungay early in the evening.

I had to rather force myself to walk the Shave Wood loop after this, but it was a beautifully clear evening, which was encouraging.

Jackie was talking recently about escapees from Victorian gardens, which is her term for the ubiquitous purple variety of rhododendron. In the past week I have learned that there are far more varieties of this Chinese import in the gardens of The New Forest than I had previously imagined to exist (see those featured in posts of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of this month). Those loose in the forest all seem to be standard sized and shaped purple. Apparently they have periodically to be culled because they take over and ruin the ecology. Some years ago notices were put up whilst the work was going on, in order to explain to dismayed visitors why this was necessary. Stapleford Woods near Newark had an even greater problem with this invader. It is fascinating how one’s attitude towards nature varies according to one’s perspective. Town dwellers encourage the foxes that countryfolk regard as a menace. Everyone knows that squirrels, deer, and rabbits are sweet little creatures. Until they begin to steal your bird food or devastate your flowers and vegetables. Jackie battles against the first of these and does her best to keep the others away. Suddenly they are not so endearing after all.

Cycling families were out in force this evening. As I walked up the road from Football Green to Shave Wood a couple of young teenagers pedalled past me from behind, chatting away. A short while afterwards, I turned at the squeak of a brake and the slap of a foot upon the tarmac. A middle-aged man, silhouetted against the background of sunlit trees, white hair glowing, looked behind him, as if waiting for someone. I continued on my way. He then called ‘put some effort into it’. I continued without turning round. Soon he came past me, followed in his wake by a little older teenager who, as she struggled to catch up, said ‘I’m so glad I’m not an Olympic cyclist’. It seemed to me that she may have benefitted from a bike that was big enough for her. Further on, the other two stopped and waited for the man and girl to catch up. The last I saw was tail end Charlie wobbling into the sunshine.

Don had, this morning, identified for me the cry of a buzzard which circled over our garden. He had been familiar with this from his Gaeddren years in North Wales. In the forest I looked up as I heard the same sound and watched one of these raptors swoop across the clear sky, settle for a while at the top a tall oak tree, and take off in the opposite direction. I heard others I did not see.

A Ring Of Truth

Early this morning Jackie, Don and I shopped in Acres Down Farm shop and went on to All Saints Church, first described on 24th December last year. While Jackie diverted to Minstead Village Shop, Don and I wandered around the churchyard in bright sunshine, before we all three explored the inside.

Particularly interesting to our friend was the ‘blasted’ yew, a seven hundred year old tree that fell apart some years ago and regenerated itself. The wild flowers now in evidence include clover , dandelions, daisies, and buttercups.

When we returned, I decided to tackle the problem of a rejected e-mail password. This time I got BT’s representative on the telephone to reset a completely new code. As usual, Jackie being the primary account holder, he needed to speak to her first. Unfortunately he got the wrong end of the stick and changed her password. This required putting right and involved a box filled with ‘funny writing I can’t read’. All this took time and I had to interpret the ‘funny writing’, fortunately getting it right. The man kept having to put us on hold and check with his supervisor. Eventually he returned to me and reset the replacement password. It worked. For about an hour. Then the new one was rejected. I have now come to the conclusion that my BT Yahoo account has been well and truly hacked. I can’t face it any more at the moment. So don’t send me any e-mails.

My head still full of the computer problem, I sat in the garden watching the birds with Don, whilst Jackie prepared the evening’s barbecue. The company and avian interest helped calm me. Don is one of three friends I have who are pretty knowledgable about birds. He helped me distinguish between the various tits who visit the feeder. I observed that it was becoming possible to identify birds some distance away on the lawn by their outline shape, their posture, their gait, and how they hold their tail-feathers. Apart from the pied wagtails, the blackbirds brought me to this conclusion.

Talking birds with Don, it was natural for me to mention my friend bo Beolens, who has written a number of bird books and who, as Fatbirder, runs an international birding website. This turns out to be one of Don’s favourites on his computer. I proudly brought the site up on screen and showed him the Lesser Antillean Bullfinch which illustrates bo’s Barbados page. The photograph was taken by me in Barbados in 2004, when I was there to see Sam arrive at the end of his Atlantic row.

Late in the afternoon Becky, Ian, and Flo arrived with Scooby and Oddie. We then enjoyed the various sausages, chicken tikka masala and array of salads Jackie had produced in the kitchen. That seems to me to be the sensible way of preparing a barbecue.

On 28th March I described how Matthew’s dog, Oddie, always dives into my chair whenever he has the chance. Because Mat and Tess are on their way to visit Sam and Holly and their children in Croatia, Becky is looking after Oddie and therefore brought him with them today. Would you believe it? Even in the garden he nicks my seat.

It was natural that with Becky and Don together, we should tell some Lindum House stories. One of today’s was of the intruder. One balmy evening as we sat in the snug watching television, about twenty years ago, we heard someone coming down the stairs. As usual in the summer, we had left open the double doors at the front of the house. A young man was then seen to walk past the window, making his way to the bottom of the garden. I set off in pursuit. He started running. So did I. After him. He began to climb the fence between us and the Parletts in Lindum Street. I grabbed him, pulled him down, and frogmarched him into the house. Calling out to Jessica to telephone the police, I sat on him at the foot of the stairs.

I soon realised he was drunk. He kept going on about a fishing contest with the Working Men’s Club. After the event, he and his friends from Grimsby had gone off drinking in Newark. He was making his way back to the Club. His team coach was parked outside in the road. It dawned on me that all this had a ring of truth. It would be easy enough for me to take him out to check on the coach. I asked Jessica to cancel the emergency call. She attempted to do so, but it was not possible. It stands to reason, really. The uninvited guest could have been standing with a gun to my head. Actually he was lying between the bottom step and my embrace. For the whole forty five minutes it took for the officers to arrive.

As, after satisfactory explanations, I took him up the drive to the open gates, down the path towards us walked about five of his mates. They had made the same mistake. And sure enough, there, on the road between us and the Club, was a coach. Lindum House, you see, was a Victorian reproduction of the former grand Georgian house next door that now hosted social activities of the town’s working men.

The Bird Feeder

The squirrel has won the latest battle in the baffle wars. What he managed to do this morning was to shin up the pole until level with the edge of the concave dome. He now realises that climbing any further up the pole is counter-productive and anyway gives him a sore head. Whilst clinging to the pole by his back legs he one-handedly grasped the baffle’s rim, then reached out and grabbed the bottom of the green suet ball holder with his other arm, using which he pulled himself onto the table. A raging tigress shooed him away and chased him across the lawn. She then raised the bottom of the suet feeder in an attempt to place it out of reach of this creature who is able change his shape and extend it like a Disney cartoon character. For simplicity this tale is being told as if there were only one bushy-tailed invader. Our suspicions that there are two were confirmed later when there was a face-off on the lawn. The jury is out on which has the brains.

Oblivious of the frustrating conflict for the rodents, the birds, such as the great tits, carry on regardless, and one unusual duck, surely out of its element, alighted in the dish as Jackie was preparing dinner.

As the day began to brighten after a morning’s steady, heavy, rain, I walked the Bull Lane/Trusty Servant loop. The more pampered relatives of the sturdy forest ponies, who are left to their own devices, throughout the long cold wet months of winter have, as my readers will know, been covered with warm jackets. Although they neither read books nor inhabit tents, these more delicate creatures are given further protection in warmer weather in the form of fly sheets worn to repel winged pests. On the fence surrounding a paddock in the village, a pair was hanging out to dry.

Sunshine and rain vied with each other for ascendancy throughout the afternoon.

Our great friend Don, having spent five and a half hours driving from Bungay, arrived this evening and shared our meal of roast pork smeared with mustard and topped off with roasted almonds accompanied by perfectly timed vegetables followed by bread and butter pudding. Don and I drank Chateauneuf diu Pape with this, while Jackie had her Hoegaarden. We talked about a lot, reminisced a lot, and drank a little more. I’m past elaborating.

Jackie’s Post

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“The only time I can hear birdsong is when I’m sitting on the loo”.

When Jackie, delivering this sentence yesterday to her sisters in Milford’s Polly’s Pantry, became aware that she had raised her voice – as she told me this morning – she had hoped other customers had not heard this taken out of context. Having been beset by building works on one side of our garden and hedge-cutting on the other, that, opening statement was indeed true. This is because baby sparrows in the nest in our extractor fan are currently clamouring for the food parents are bringing home. Even while the fan is operating, a clunk, as the meals on wings arrive, is followed by intense tweets that would put Mr Trump to shame. Two adults proceed in non-stop convoy throughout the day.

When we first arrived here four years ago the front garden trellis bore quite weedy specimens of pink and red rambling roses, clematises and honeysuckle. Heavy pruning and nurturing has resulted in a splendid floral wall. The roses, in particular, shelter the entrance to the nest from view.

As always, the birds do not fly straight to the nest, but perch somewhere nearby to recce the surroundings before diving in. Our foraging parents choose first to alight on the trellis foliage. This morning, Jackie watched the proceedings through the hall window and photographed the birds transporting wriggling beakfuls of juicy breakfast.

Now, I may have put all this together and added my twopenn’orth, but this is quite clearly Jackie’s post.

This evening we dined on beef burgers, onions, carrots, cabbage, and mashed potato with tasty gravy.

A Different Mother Each Day

After Jackie delivered me to Southampton Parkway for my trip to visit Norman, my train journey was almost uneventful. No doubt taking the Quiet zone notices literally, a taciturn young man opposite me, sporting an attenuated Mohican that had recently been mown, said nothing and did not take his eyes off the screen of his DELL laptop, even when I asked him to allow me to place my book on the table. Spread all over the surface, he drew the device about two centimetres towards himself. For form’s sake, and in order not to lose face, I positioned my book half way on to the table’s edge under the forward-leaning p.c.’s seemingly invertebrate lid, and read a page or two before shifting my seat from the aisle to the window where there was no-one opposite. I was not being difficult sitting opposite the man. I don’t have leg room on the inside seats if someone does come and sit opposite, whereas, as long as I pull them in when someone passes I can stick them in the gangway. Of the three laptop users sharing the table on the return journey, two were asleep before we reached Winchester, and the other’s DELL was not spineless.

From the terminal station, keeping an Eye on Big Ben, I crossed Waterloo Bridge, skirted Covent Garden, and wandered into Bloomsbury, passing James Smith’s magnificent umbrella shop where I had bought the brolly stolen from the stairs of our flat in Horse & Dolphin Yard mentioned on 9th February this year.

Incidentally, Becky, who has many memories of that Soho residence, on 30th June 2008 sent me a photograph of Flo taken beneath the yard’s street sign during a nostalgic visit.

From Bloomsbury I returned via Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Street, the New version of which I had crossed, and weaved in and out among the whole world’s populace to Bond Street tube station where I boarded a train to Neasden. The main difference between Westminster Bridge and Oxford Street, in terms of the crush of people, is that Westminster Bridge is shorter. Perhaps that is the better route after all.

Shortly before I reached Neasden, as an elderly man wearing a cross put his bible away in preparation for departure, a young woman, carrying a comatose child dangling from a sling like a puppet on a string, walked the length of the carriage placing a printed notice on each of the many vacant seats. She then retraced her steps in a not very enthusiastic effort to collect the money the message claimed she needed. Empty handed, she gathered up all her slips of paper and moved on to the next compartment. My fellow passenger, clearly a kind man, said how difficult it was to determine genuine need. I offered the observation that the infant was probably not hers, but agreed that it was very problematic and not a very comfortable way for the woman to make a living. This, however, is a scam I have seen so much of in the London Underground that I have become sadly cynical. I also experience some guilt when I do not offer help. Finsbury Park’s station entrance described in my post of 14th June 2012 was notorious when I frequented it in the ’80s and ’90s. The apparently sleeping three year old flopping in a buggy had a different mother each day.

A display on South Bank for the amusement of those crossing the bridge enabled me to pay lip service to the week’s gardening theme. A roof was being swept by a woman in curlers and a rather short hoodie, seemingly created from grass cuttings. A winding string of coloured wheelbarrows containing floral baskets could been seen below.

For lunch Norman provided duck in plum sauce followed by bread and butter pudding. We shared a bottle of excellent Rioja.

I finished reading John Guy’s ‘The Tudor Age’ section of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, and began John S. Morrill’s ‘The Stuarts’ before arriving back at Southampton where my driver was waiting.

Furzey Gardens

Early this morning I walked down to the village shop, returning via the church footpath and The Splash. The snowdrops, crocuses, and daffodils have made way in the churchyard for cow parsley.

On my return I had a chat with Gladys and Dave in the garden. John, otherwise known as Sisyphus (see 19th March post), was just arriving for his day’s gardening. Nodding in the direction of Jackie who was sitting outside our kitchen door, Dave said she was about to be upset because John would start the day’s lawn mowing. ‘Oh no’, said I, ‘she loves it. We are going to Furzey Gardens this afternoon. She cannot go out in the morning he visits because she gives him coffee at eleven o’clock’. Gladys responded that she provides his one o’clock cup of tea. ‘He also brings his own flask’, added Dave. I was still laughing when I returned to our flat and told Jackie this. She quipped that he was like Six Dinner Sid. Sid is a cat, the hero of a story told by Inga Moore (2004). He visits six homes in turn, all of which provide him with a dinner.

It is just as well there are no cats, either resident or visiting, in our building, because we are really getting to know our nuthatch family. Dad has been visiting the feeding station for some time now; having a scoff and a few words with Jackie; then, sated, flying off with some food in his beak. Now he just feeds himself. Mum has presumably been sitting on a nest somewhere nearby, but definitely not in the tree to which Dad has been flying as a decoy. The eggs must have hatched and the juveniles grown up a bit, for she has now emerged and taken her place on the finial of the pole, surveying her offspring’s fearless adventures.

The younger bird has not learned to be afraid, and consequently skips around beneath our feet. He nipped up the steps as Jackie stood watching amazed, and, skirting her trainers, explored the stonework, no doubt seeking insects.

In order for John to prune the hedges around Jackie’s hanging baskets and bird feeders, she has had to move them inside for the day. The fliers zooming in for nosh were somewhat confused by this. They swooped, they saw, they scarpered. ‘Where’, you could see them thinking, ‘has it gone? I know I left it here’.

The trip to Furzey Gardens was the culmination of three consecutive days of horticultural feasting. Aviemore provided breathtaking beauty in a compact, packed, area; MacPenny’s offered maturity in a large space; Furzey is endlessly stunning in acres of rolling woodland. Berry had told me this was the time to come because of the rhododendrons. We have magnificent species in our garden, but nothing could have prepared me for this dazzling array set off at its best on a gloriously sunny day.

Created in 1922 the house and garden remained in the Dalrymple family until the 1960s when it was bought by the charity that now runs it in partnership with the Minstead Training project.

Numerous paths take the visitor on a magical tour of shrubberies filled with the most unusual bushes, trees, and plants, collected from all over the world. There are thatched buildings dotted about, many of which have liitle doors set for fairies. A child’s note accompanied by a wilting bunch of wild flowers lay on a spar of wood. A play area contains climbing structures, swings, and even a disused rowing boat that looks as if it had been stranded when the waters of the winter subsided. A number of plants such as the enormous gunnera or the abundant, healthy, candelabra primulas, provide evidence of the boggy nature of some of the forest soil. There is a substantial pond. A wisteria Elizabeth would be proud of, festoons a rustic pergola and seat. The alpacas featured on the 30th March can be seen in the distance in a meadow of wild flowers accessible only to staff and students. There is still much to be done to restore parts of this amazing treasure to its former glory, and inroads are definitely being made. I am not sure how much of the uncultivated area is to remain wild, but I hope a reasonable amount. The original house is now a place of retreat.

At Chelsea in 2012, the Minstead Training Project carried off gold for the Show Garden. It is in the process of being brought back to its roots in Furzey Gardens.

This evening we dined on belly of pork roasted long and slow by Jackie. I drank half a bottle of the Blason des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape 2011, a really excellent wine she bought me for Christmas.

Cock Of The Walk

The Scrabble controversy featured on 29th May continues apace. A multinational petition has been embarked upon on Facebook. Old stagers are leaving in droves. The UK’s Daily Mail has even taken up the cause. Mattel don’t seem to be able to sell their advertising space, because the only ads that do currently feature are those inviting players to ‘play without interruption’ by buying ad-free packages. How cynical can you get?

For some time now Jackie has been feeding not only the garden’s bird population, but also a fattening bushy tailed rodent. Consequently she has placed a squirrel baffle on the feeder post. The idea is that he shins up the post, bangs his head on the concave perspex dome, drops down again, staggers to his feet, shakes his head like a silent movie character, and shoots across the garden to his refuge in a distant silver birch. This morning he did seem somewhat confused as he sat on the doorstep scratching his head and eyeing his chomping rivals with the longing expression of a Tiny Tim gazing into a butcher’s shop window at Christmastime; his empty paws then going through the motions of clutching at the food.

MacPenny’s garden nursery in Bransgore has a much longer history than that of Aviemore which I featured yesterday. The small outlet bought from Marcia Ashley-Corbett by Douglas Lowndes in 1934 has been developed and stayed in his family ever since. The exhausted gravel pit added in 1951 has become a magnificent eight acre mature garden, dubbed by Jackie ‘a garden down a hole’. With eight acres and a team of staff you can do so much more than in Aviemore, and the Lowndes have. The rhododendron and Azelia season was a good time to visit. Numerous other plants abounded and many trees towered above us on our trip today. Shade-loving varieties were in their element. Rustic footpaths and steps made out of logs take visitors through what is another National Gardens Scheme attraction, this one open all the year round. No doubt the prolific plant nursery that hosts this feature has a reciprocal arrangement with the reclaimed gravel pit. The stock looked good enough to have possibly supplied Aviemore.

A couple of gardeners working in the lower level shrubberies, pruning and resetting edging, told us that during the winter we would have been up to our waists in water. The area still looked magnificent, with more, in the shape of normally marginal yellow irises, to come. The soaking they must have had was clearly beneficial.

On our departure those leaving the car park were treated to a strutting performance by the resident faverolles cockerel as he led his harem across the gravel, past the potted plants, to the safety of a scratching area.

He made sure his hens had a clear passage as he signalled to all visitors to keep their distance. He must have known what we were having for dinner.

Jackie produced chicken jalfrezi and a milder curried chicken with savoury rice followed by sticky toffee pudding for our evening meal. I finished the Chateauneuf du Pape.

Aviemore

Beside many cattle grids are placed small pedestrian gates, for ease of crossing. Most people seem to either drive or walk over the grids. Mat’s little Jack Russell, Oddie, simply trips across them. Flo’s Scooby, on the other hand, managed to slip and hurt his foot on one. Our lower drive gate is so seldom used that the latch grows moss.

Today’s walk, starting by crossing the grid, was to Fritham where Jackie met me at The Royal Oak for a ploughman’s lunch and a pint of beer, and drove me back afterwards.

The sheep in the field alongside Furzey Gardens road were looking very shaggy this morning. All but one unfortunate, who appeared to be masquerading as the sheepdog in the Specsavers advertisement, and consequently retained straggly bits of fleece. Or maybe the shepherd, having somewhat unsuccessfully sheered just one, had decided to have his eyes tested.

There were still some boggy patches across the heath on the North side of the A31. So maybe sandals wasn’t a good idea. But the ponies usually find a way through, and they know it is much more fun to ford a gravelly stream than to squelch through a soggy quagmire. At one point I disturbed a dear little doe who scutted away from the gorse bushes before I had seen her. Had she just lain doggo I would have missed her altogether. But then, she didn’t know that.

Taking a short cut across the heath near Fritham, and hearing the drone of a single propeller airplane, I looked aloft in time to see it disappear into the fleecy clouds. Possibly the plane confused me, for it was soon after that that I realised the short cut wasn’t. This required the unnecessary circumperambulation of several farms and contributed to my being slightly late for our rendezvous. Had I not taken this minor diversion I possibly would not have met the smallest foal I have ever see. He will no doubt grow up to be a Thelwell pony like his Mum. A little later I was rather chuffed to be able unerringly to direct a car driver to the pub.

With less than a mile to go I found my way barred. A cow had adopted the standard New Forest stance of head in hedge. She stirred herself sufficiently to extract her tagged ears and fix me with a stony stare. This necessitated a little rear negotiation on my part. I shifted a bit sharpish as she twitched her tail and tap-danced her back legs. She may have also moved her front legs, but I wasn’t looking at those.

It is just possible that my ‘poof redders’ may be tempted to inform me that you won’t find either ‘scutting’ or ‘circumperambulation’ in a dictionary. As far as ‘scutting’ is concerned it seemed to me to be a perfectly good way of describing the bobbing of a deer’s scut, or rear end, as it romps away. And why not describe a circular walk as a ‘circumperambulation’? After all, sailors get away with circumnavigation. I’m hoping the Oxford Dictionary scouts spotted that one when I first used it on 20th July last year.

This afternoon, having slumped a bit after our lunch, we stirred ourselves to visit a National Gardens Scheme open garden in Bartley. We were so pleased we did because we could not have anticipated the breathtaking display that greeted us in this comparatively small establishment in a village street.

Having been planted with expert knowledge and care it is clear that this garden has been planned for all-year-round colour, with an eye for texture and shape. So varied is the fare that I could identify only a fraction of the menu. Trees have been carefully pruned; when one plant is over for the year, up pops its neighbour, like the poppy by the pond; variegated leaf adds to the palette; and all kinds of artefact are used as containers. Butler sinks are filled with succulents and alpines. One of these lies atop an old mangle. Mata Hari lounges in a corner by the stream that flows through the bottom of the back garden. A chair has faced the front garden pond long enough to harbour plentiful lichen. Almost every tree or trellis has a resident clematis or other climber. Raised beds have been constructed for vegetables.

A tasteful, artistic, and skilled hand has planned the optimum use of the whole plot, a modest one that can be viewed on an epic scale. I remember my surprise when I first saw the originals of some of William Blake’s engravings and realised how small were these monumental works. Aviemore is not dissimilar.

I could go on and on about this home of Sandy and Alex Robinson and their eldest son, Gavin. Perhaps the attached photographs may be more eloquent.

Helen and Bill’s champagne, Etienne Dumont 2012, was a slightly incongruous, but nevertheless delightful, accompaniment to our evening meal of fish and chips, mushy peas, pickled onions, gherkins, sliced bread and butter, and tomato sauce.

The Shredder

A little cooler than yesterday, we nevertheless had a bright, clear day with intermittent clouds scudding across the sky.

Helen and Bill visited this morning bearing champagne and pinks in celebration of the birthday on which Jackie has reached her official extended retirement age.

Late in the afternoon I walked to Imperial China. Not the real one, Ian will be relieved to know. The restaurant in Lyndhurst where I was to meet Jackie for her birthday meal.

Daisies are now seriously rivalling the taller buttercups in the fields and verges of Minstead; and, whichever you plump for, the blossom or the month, May is out.

I took the route up Mill Lane and via Pikes Hill. An aged oak that bears a warning sign about the depth of the Mill lake must, if not already plotted, be a candidate for The Woodland Trust Ancient Tree registration.

As I walked the lanes and tracks in the splendid light, I reflected on the fact that it is almost 48 years since Jackie and I first met. As we embark upon old age together we have an inestimable blessing in that, despite having been reunited comparatively recently after spending most of our lives apart, we have memories of our early years together. Unlike most people who come together later in life, we have no need to imagine the younger versions of each other. We knew them.

In the restaurant we shared a joke with the waitress who assumed that the T’sing tao beer would be mine and the sauvignon blanc Jackie’s. Next to us were a silent couple, a generation apart in age. In what seemed to me a role reversal the woman in her eighties spent the whole time reading from a mobile device, while the younger man we assumed to be her son ate his meal without a word.

A rowdy birthday party group more than made up for this. Why is it that such crowds always seem to have imbibed a good few drinks before they arrive, and always bring along at least one cackling chicken and a couple of laughing hyenas?

We have noticed before that it is very easy to miss the shredding of the duck, done at your table and with a sleight of hand that would qualify the prestidigitator for The Magic Circle. Even being prepared for this performance, I only just got my camera out in time.

We did of course enjoy the meal and the company.