Yesterday’s observant readers will have noticed the post was earlier than usual. This is because I pressed ‘Publish’ rather than ‘Preview’ by mistake. Once today’s posts have been set in motion there is no turning back. Some of us, of course still use what is jocularly termed ‘snail mail’, where you write on paper, place the missive in an envelope, write an address and stick a stamp on that and place it in a red box. Until placed in the box there is plenty of time to rethink and even alter what you have written. Modern technology allows you endless painless revisions, but once you have pressed the button your message is metaphorically snatched out of your hands. There are no snails in cyber space. Mind you, the normal post, be it adminstered by the Royal Mail or its commercial rivals, is pretty quick. We can still expect first class letters to arrive the next day. Once it was even quicker. In my childhood there were two deliveries a day; in Victorian times even more. It was then possible to arrange an evening’s meeting through exchange of letters beginning that morning. There was no texting in those days.
The Penny Post was introduced by Sir Robert Peel in 1841. Originally horsepower was harnessed to carry the mail. Now huge vans cart them along our motorways and special locomotive vans transport them through the night. I once knew a man who worked on the mail trains. The vans were mobile sorting offices. Bags of mail were loaded onto the carriage, their contents removed and sorted, and unloaded at the other end of the country. The system required the bags to be upturned and thoroughly shaken, to ensure that no mail had been caught in the seams. One day he had adopted this procedure when a slim sheet of paper floated to the floor. It was a postcard sent some forty years earlier from Germany. Strenuous efforts were made to seek out the parents of the young man who had sent it during the war.
Soon after our dinner of Jackie’s liver and bacon casserole David Small arrived to replace the broken garage lock. The light was fading by the time he finished.
The casserole was served with crisp vegetables and sauteed potatoes enhanced by onion and garlic. It was rather a miracle that the spuds were not limp. These hang in a bag behind the kitchen door, so they won’t turn green if you leave them too long. Yesterday’s Murphies were wizened and bendy, displaying the creases you see in a new born baby’s skin. Much of their stuffing had been drawn out by the new shoots they were sprouting. But they weren’t green. Jackie had disguised this beautifully.
As we had promised ourselves, we took another trip to Ferndene Farm Shop, joined the throng and well and truly stocked up. I have never been to a Harrods sale, but I have seen pictures in newspapers of bargain-hunters frenziedly elbowing each other out of the way to get at the goodies on display. Some of the most frail-looking customers in what is really a food supermarket of excellent quality and reasonable prices, would not be out of place at a Harrods free-for-all.
Across the road from the shop lies Oak Tree Farm, a haven for red pillar and telephone box enthusiasts. 
The gravelled courtyard behind a securely locked pair of entrance gates are filled with these symbols of England. A black-painted Georgian wall-mounted letterbox is set in the establishment’s brick wall. The owner is a serious collector.
Anyone interested enough in the subject of red telephone boxes may also like to read my post of 15th October last year entitled ‘Kersall Telephone Box’.
On leaving the shop we went driveabout. New Milton’s main street was closed to traffic. This made it rather difficult to reach Milford-on-Sea, but we managed it in the end and walked along the sea front past Hurst Pond Nature reserve out to Hurst Point, and back to The Needles Eye cafe (see post of 10th January).
We happened to pass a house for sale in High Ridge Crescent that we had seen on the internet. It confirmed our interest.
As we left our car in the Hurst Road car park and I announced my intention to take photographs, a woman advised me to make sure the horizon was straight. I didn’t mention that it wouldn’t matter too much because I have an editing facility which can straighten images. 
My picture of a crow aiming for the point of an arrow that was the water’s edge, seemed to me to be enhanced by the angle of the skyline, so I didn’t change it.
A heron on the hunt in the pond did not move for the whole time it took us to walk to the spit and back.
The area is an intriguing nature reserve because it lies at a point where freshwater from the River Dane meets tidal water coming up the gully from the spit. 
The sight of the seabirds swooping, manoeuvring, and diving at an alarming rate along this channeled out watercourse reminded Jackie of the X-wings speeding along the tunnel during the famous Death Star battle in ‘Star Wars’.
Like much of the Dorset coast this area is subject to erosion. In an attempt to stay the inevitable action of the waves, huge rocks line the shore alongside the nature reserve, providing shelter for the Californian poppies clinging to the pebbled margins. 
These were imported from Norway, and today the quartz they contain glinted in the sunlight.
This evening’s meal was a tender and lean roast lamb dinner. Maipo reserva merlot 2012 was my wine.
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