October 2013 – Page 2 – derrickjknight

We Only Wanted Egg And Chips

Violent rain and strong, swirling, gusts of wind ripped reluctant leaves from the garden trees this morning, sending them bouncing across the lawns until flopping there or becoming lodged in the last remaining pot plants by our kitchen door, just waiting for Sisyphus to begin his endless autumn task tomorrow. Broken twigs covered the lanes through the forest as Jackie drove us to Ringwood for shopping and banking.

We began by transferring money to my French account so that I can pay for the final building works when I go to Sigoules next Monday. After this I collected a pair of shoes from AJR Shoe Repairs. Their work is the best I have ever benefited from. The leather soles were neatly and firmly stitched onto welts that had become detatched.

Later this afternoon Jackie received an e-mail from Mo and John who are staying at No 6 rue St Jacques, to say that the work should be finished on Thursday, and attaching some photographs so that we could see the progress. They are most positive about what has been achieved.

From Ringwood, we proceeded to Hampshire’s Downton to have a look at the outside of The Old Post House which is for sale. It looks very impressive and is possibly affordable, albeit at the very top end of our price range, only because the A337 passes the front gate.

On the corner of a nearby crossroads stands The Royal Oak pub where we had an interesting lunch experience. Serving drinks of Ringwood’s Best and Stella, one of the two friendly and attentive waiters gave us ‘five minutes’ to study the menu and returned to take our order. When we arrived we were the only customers. Three other couples entered at varying intervals afterwards. The order from one of these was taken before ours, although we did immediately afterwards ask for cheese omelette and chips for Jackie, and ham, egg and chips for me. It gradually dawned on us that all the other couples were chomping away whilst we were still trying to dream up stimulating conversation. In truth that isn’t actually difficult for us, which is probably the reason I, at least, hadn’t initially realised everyone else was eating.

After about twenty minutes I left my seat and went walkabout around the large open-plan seating area. The barman asked me ‘[was] everything all right sir?’. ‘Yes’, I replied. ‘I’m just having a look at the pictures’. Many of these were black and white prints of the area in the 1960s, all having been given the sepia treatment to suggest antiquity. That had me reflecting that all the photographs I posted yesterday had been taken in that same twentieth century decade. Well, I suppose not much of me is still of my pristine hue.

This provided Jackie and me with a conversation piece for a while, but after forty minutes, and other customers contemplating coffee and desserts, I rose to my feet again. The unfortunate barman repeated his early question. ‘No, it isn’t’, was my updated response. ‘Everyone else is eating and we only wanted egg and chips really’.

Our meals appeared in about three more minutes and were first rate. In that respect alone, The Royal Oak resembled Mitcham’s Raj. Here, one couldn’t fault the ambience or the waiting staff. Something did, however, get lost in translation over the bread. A side dish on the menu was ‘Crusty Bread and Butter’, which is always a good accompaniment to a fry-up, unless, of course, plastic sliced is on offer. I did think it a bit strange that the waiter asked me if I wanted it as a starter, especially as he had repeated the ‘crusty bread’ bit of the order, although, in fairness, he didn’t mention butter. I said I would like it all to come together. He thought that a good idea, otherwise it would rather hold things up. What actually arrived was a long platter heaped with a variety of very fresh breads, a marinade of balsamic olive oil, and a bowl of moist olives in a similar lubrication. These were excellent, but hardly right for egg and chips, and how I pined for good crusty bread and butter.

Having exhausted my Victor Meldrew possibilities for the day, we just ate the bread, dipped it in the oil, and skewered the olives. Then came my biggest mistake. I did not check the bill. Mind you, this was probably because whilst waiting for our food we were plied with drinks. At the second offer of a refill I had said it was becoming like a very slow Indian restaurant where you are filled up with Kingfisher before your food arrives. I have a feeling I was being a little too subtle here.

After we returned home, Jackie Googled the establishment and learned that it had, last year, been taken over by a local woman who placed the focus on ‘good honest food’. The food was certainly good and not knowingly prone to mendacity. Jackie also accessed the menu and price list where she learned that my ‘crusty bread and butter’ had metamorphosed into a ‘sharing starter’ of ‘artisan bread with a marinade of olive oil’. This was priced at £8.95 whereas her large and tasty omelette made with mature cheddar and she thought about five eggs, and chips was a rather more reasonable £7.40. And to think next week, in Le Code Bar, as much complimentary crusty French bread as may be required will be provided as I sit down. Should we become Downton residents we will patronise the pub again, but possibly be more alert.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s vegetable soup perked up with porcini mushrooms which provide a delicate yet nutty flavour. This was served with good, honest, crusty bread and butter.

Fred

This morning I made a start on reading Voltaire’s ‘Micromegas’.

The later plan was that I would walk for the first hour and a quarter of the trip to Shelly and Ron’s at Walkford where we were to lunch with them and Helen and Bill. As I donned my walking shoes and opened the back door a deluge poured from the skies and did not desist until we arrived at our destination. It is one thing to walk in the rain when you can come home afterwards and dry off. It is quite another to flop into the passenger seat dripping all over your patient driver and arrive soaking for a family afternoon elsewhere. I sat down and got on with my book.

The spectacular rainfall reported throughout last winter and spring was again upon us. Roadside guttering was swollen, and pools throwing up waves from all the familiar spots were spreading across the tarmac and gravelled roads. At lunchtime all the car headlights were switched on.

After a leisurely drink and pleasant talk whilst Shelly prepared the meal, we dined on tender roast lamb with a multitude of vegetables including roast potatoes and parsnips all crisp and cooked to perfection. Helen provided two desserts: a delicate sponge containing sultanas served with custard, and an exotic Charlotte Royale with cream. A variety of red and white wines were consumed.

Afterwards we were entertained by Ron’s video recording of the wedding of John and Stephanie on 6th October. There must be a curse on Ron and his son Neil who was best man. Just as Neil had been thwarted by his overhead projection from his laptop failing to work during his speech, Ron’s recorder battery chose more or less the same moment to run out of juice. Never mind, we were able to relive the event with pleasure.

Just as, when with my siblings we reminisce about our past days, when the three sisters and their menfolk get together stories of their childhood and parents are recounted. It has been very gratifying for me to return to a family which had accepted me more recently just as they did so many years ago.

Many of the tales told on these occasions occurred during the almost four decades that I was out of contact with them. However, I knew the late Mum and Dad Rivett so well for seven years that even the later stories have meaning for me. I have warm memories of the couple I was proud to call my in-laws. Mum was an excellent and genuinely kind carer and Dad a talented and amusing entertainer. When in March 1968 Jackie and I went to Ockley for our four day honeymoon, it was this couple who cared for my son Michael. I found it difficult to leave him for the first time, but knew he would be in very good hands.

There were lots of examples today of Don Rivett’s jokes. I wonder if any of the others remember ‘Fred’. You never knew what he would dream up next. This flowerpot man just appeared in the garden of their home at Westbrook one day in May 1967.

Holly

A peaceful-looking baby rabbit was found dead on the lawn a few hours after it had been seen gambolling there this morning. There was speculation about poison, which may be awkward for the resident dogs. I wouldn’t like to think anyone here would have put down anything lethal; and would a poisoned creature look so sublime? I removed it from the public gaze, particularly those of canine eyes.

This afternoon I read H.T. Mason’s general introduction to the Oxford University Press 1971 edition of Voltaire’s ‘Zadig’ and other stories, and the specific one pertaining to ‘Micromegas’, which is the first of the collection.

A considerable amount of retouching was required to remove blemishes from picture number 28 of the ‘through the ages’ series. Elizabeth had already improved on the original print, and sent it to me in a memory stick. After I’d spent about an hour on it the image vanished, unsaved, from my screen. I could only recover the unimproved version. So I had to do it all again. I settled for something a little less meticulous the second time round.

This photograph takes us back to 1945, and by association, beyond. It is a depiction of a street party celebrating Victory in Europe at the end of that sphere of World War Two. For anyone below the age of about 75 to imagine the jubilation of that heady, optimistic, summer is virtually impossible. Chris and I are in the centre of the front row. My chubby little brother, then not yet two, looks, as would any other toddler, as if he had no idea what was going on or why he was there. If one dressed up his grandson, James Arrondelle, in a similar outfit; took a black and white photograph of the result; and substituted it into this shot, one would hardly tell the difference.

I, on the other hand, seem to be harbouring particularly pleasant thoughts that I am not sure I ought to have. Jackie is convinced that the little girl happily holding my hand provided an early Maureen Potter experience. She smiles broadly. I try to suppress my glee.

Mum, as she always did, would have made our outfits from scratch. She continued to do this until she could afford not to. Our first Wimbledon College blazer badges were embroidered by her own hand.

It wasn’t until secondary school that most boys in those days gravitated to long trousers. (I proudly wore my first pair up to the common and ripped them whilst climbing a fence. That must have been a pecuniary disaster.) Shorts worn with long grey socks were the norm. The hose were held up by elasticated garters. One or two of those in the picture have slipped a bit. The older members of the group could probably share their parents immense relief that they were able to celebrate the end of six long years of war. That the people were able to dress up at all, albeit in a sometimes strangely fitting assortment of clothes, is a tribute to their fortitude. Garments continued to be rationed until well into the 1950s. Every consumer item we now take for granted, from food to furniture; from suits to sweets; from butter to Brylcreem; was in such short supply that each household was issued with books of stamps, and even if the money were available, if you had insufficient specific stamps there could be no purchase. As can be clearly seen here, designer clothes and trainers were a thing of the far distant future. But look at the shine on the boots and shoes.

This party took place in Carshalton, then in Surrey but now part of Greater London, in the street of Mum’s cousin Ivy Wilson, whose two children, Audrey, third from left in the back row, and Roy, second from left of the middle row, were present. These two are the link with the first Holly in our extended family.

( On 30th April 2020 I received this register copy in an e-mail from Gwen Wilson

of residents of Shaftesbury Road, Carshalton, in which James and Ivy Wilson are listed. It is possible that some of the other people listed are relatives of children in the picture.)

John Richard Evans was the brother of Annie Hunter, nee Evans, my maternal grandmother. He was therefore my great uncle, and the grandfather of Audrey and Roy.

As a high wire and trapeze artist, John adopted the stage name Jack Riskit. Among the countries graced by his presence was Australia, where he met and married a young woman who was to join his act. This was Holly King, my great aunt by marriage. They were famous for a particular bit of daredevilry. I am not sure to which part of Holly’s anatomy the strong wire that she hung from was attached, but the other end was firmly held in Jack’s teeth high above the ring.

September 1925: Trapeze artists Jack and Betty Riskit perform a gymnastic feat. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

This photograph from Getty Images states that it is of Jack and Betty Riskit, so perhaps Betty was Holly’s stage name.

(This message received from my cousin, Yvonne clarifies the point, with some important additional information: ‘Holly had 2 children before they came to England and they both died. Aunty Ivy was born here but Holly disappeared (presume died but can’t find) not long after. Betty was his second wife. They bought my Dad an engraved christening cup in 1921. I still have it. I also have a pic of Jack, Holly and Betty. Apparently he got hurt at some stage and bought a small theatre which he eventually had to sell before he died. I don’t have immediately to hand but have pics. Best wishes for the New Year to you all….Yvonne)

Following the exchange with Sarah Birnie in the comments below, Yvonne has sent me the photographs; these and further information now appear on “The Dental Riskits” post.

Maybe purely by coincidence, Holly and Jack Riskit’s great great nephew, my son Sam, is now married to an Australian, Holly Knight, nee O’Neill, and living with her and their two children, Malachi and Orlaith, in Perth. My daughter-in-law strikes me as rather athletic, but I trust she will keep her feet firmly on the ground.

For our meal this evening Jackie produced perky spicy pork with peppers and mushrooms; swede mash, crisp cauliflower, and tender green beans, followed by sticky toffee pudding and custard. With mine I imbibed Kumala Winemakers’ Release pinotage merlot 2012.

Sam’s Dad

This morning I finished reading Henri Troyaut’s novel ‘Grandeur Nature’, which I understand, not quite literally, to mean ‘Real Life’.

It is the story of how a son’s success in a similar field to his less talented father destroys what is otherwise a loving family of three. Despite Antoine Vautier’s unsuccessful struggle to land suitable acting roles, his wife Jeanne is most attentive to him. Their teenage son Christian is then persuaded to appear in a film and is an overnight sensation. Antoine becomes imbued with jealousy. Jeanne, having thoughts only for their son forgets her husband. He has a brief affair. Christian has a bad review and becomes ill. The remorseful husband returns home. Although old family routines continue, nothing will ever be the same again.

The author has a beautifully flowing style and an ability to bring characterisation to life with detailed description of simple things, like Jeanne’s laying out Antoine’ s cigarettes and other requirements on the table for his return home. The contents of rooms, the nature of accommodation, or the style and condition of clothing are all revealing. I first encountered such skill when I was a teenager reading Chaucer. Troyaut is equally at home when writing of thoughts and feelings.

What really destroys poor Antoine is that he has become, to reviewers, nothing more than the father of the young star. All his acquaintances wish to hear about is the latest news of the boy.

The day in March 2004 when Sam rowed into Port St Charles, Barbados, was the day I became Sam’s Dad. Rather than be destroyed by it, I basked in parental pride and satisfaction in his achievement. During the two weeks Jessica, Louisa, and I were there, before and after the arrival, powerful rum punches were administered each evening, and after the delighted Kenneth Crutchlow, founder of the Ocean Rowing Society, and the race organiser, had had a few, he would lapse into cries of ‘Who named that boy (Samson)?.

Ken had been at the quayside to join in the family photo. That was the moment a Nottingham radio station chose to ring me for an update. I was on air.

The plan this afternoon for our trip to Hare Lane, New Milton, to look at a house, was that I would leave on foot a bit ahead of Jackie, and she would follow on and pick me up in the car. If I reached Swan Green before she arrived, I would turn and retrace my steps. There is a fork in the road just above ‘The Splash’. As I arrived at that point first I had to make a choice. Left or right. Now Jackie always takes the right fork, but she knows I always take the left one. If I took the wrong fork she could well arrive in Forest Road before me. I decided that because she knew which one I normally took, she would do the same. As I approached the main road to Emery Down I half expected to see her sailing past. She didn’t, but as I continued in the direction of that village, she drove along the road towards me. She had, of course, decided I would take the right fork because I knew that was the one she normally took. I must confess she had wondered how on earth I could have reached Swan Green, where she dutifully turned around, in the time available.

‘Leathers’ in Hare Lane had, apart from its size, and the fact that it backs onto fields, nothing to attract us. I wandered into one of the fields. There was enough equine excreta to suggest that horses were kept there, but it was only a pair of deer that high-stepped away from my intrusion.

We went on to ‘The Cottage by the Green’ in Pennington. The location is attractive and the house characterful, if rather small.

September Cottage in Brockenhurst has a garden which is completely concreted over. The building itself looks interesting. To the side of it lies Brockenhurst College and the bus station. Opposite is a pub car park. We arrived at the optimum possible time to savour the thriving ambience of hoards of teenage students streaming from their daily confinement. Many poured on foot through the car park, skilfully avoiding their fellow escapees who sped past in their motors. A scooter and motor cycle enclosure was rapidly emptying whilst a whole garage of buses was filling up.

We went home for dinner, which, after Jackie had cooked it superbly (I have to say that in order to persuade her to like my link), consisted of roast lamb followed by New Forest ice cream – in her case strawberry, and in mine rum and raisin. I drank Wolf Blass Winemakers’ Cabernet Sauvignon 2012. Jackie had been quite rightly encouraged to buy this after Luci had served a wine from this vintner’s on 21st September. I had not sampled it before.

The Workhouse

We enjoyed another beautifully balmy Indian summer day for our trip to Christchurch’s Red House Museum.

Operated by volunteers there are sections devoted to learning about The Victorians and the twentieth century; and archeological finds going back to neolithic times. A small garden is as informative as the rooms inside. In particular we are told the benefits provided by various plants to the ecology. There is a plentifully stocked herb garden and another for roses.

The teenage tyrant Noah Claypole, in Charles Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist’, named the eponymous hero ‘Work’us’, because the boy had spent his first nine years in a workhouse. Oliver would no doubt have recognised this 1764 Georgian building in its original incarnation, for it was built as a workhouse:

The separate women’s section of this building is no longer in existence. The rose garden is planted where it stood. Some of the roses were still in bloom this afternoon, as were a fine crop of nerines.

A fly basked on a catalpa leaf. Perhaps it had just checked out of the bug hotel in the woodland walk..

Elsewhere in the garden one or two cartwheels that have seen better days are distributed for rustic effect.

As one wanders from room to room of this imaginatively laid out, not terribly extensive, town garden, various glimpses of the Priory Church can be had through the sometimes decorative foliage.

A small figure of St Francis of Assisi stands in a niche in the rear entrance archway.

Once inside, we were warmly welcomed; informed, as I took out my wallet, that the tour was free; and given a brief explanation of the layout. Donations were invited, but not until we had been satisfied.

The Meet the Victorians exhibition uses modern materials and artwork to take us through different aspects of the life of that era. Original objects are on display with a timeline of a typical workhouse day.

Arthur Romney Green was a local craftsman making furniture in the 1930s. The 1935 room contains model figures with real pieces of his work in a setting typical of the time. I imagine this family were better off than many. Note the Clarice Cliff tea set.

One can only make a selection of the artefacts and other items on display. I have chosen one or two that have some meaning for me.

Being confronted by the huge box mangle I experienced a sense of relief that it hadn’t been in our mother’s kitchen when I experimented on Chris’s finger. When we were very young Mum had no washing machine, and so washed everything by hand. She did, however, have a wooden mangle. Sheets, in particular, were placed between two rollers, and you turned a handle in order to squeeze and therefore rinse them. One day Chris left his finger in as I turned the handle. Fortunately his bones must have been still soft enough to be re-inflated. The museum exhibit looked a bit more heavy duty than our version.

The model tram on a window sill reminded me of those I travelled on as a child down Wimbledon Broadway. After trams and trolleybuses, it was the Routemaster, a model of one of which lay in a cabinet, that became London Transport’s bus of choice from 1954 until the last one was taken out of service in 2005. In our more safety-conscious age, it is no longer considered appropriate to have an open doorway, from which the tardy or the daring can jump on or off a public service vehicle. I discovered that you can still hire out a Routemaster for special events on 31st August, when Anne’s car was blocked in by a pair of them that had been hired for a wedding party.

It is probably well known that one task given to adult workhouse residents was the very painful one of picking oakum. Much smaller, more flexible, fingers were needed to make fusee chains for clocks and watches. Young girls had that job. Most of them consequently suffered from damaged eyesight.

A neighbouring case to the one that held the chain contained early writing implements. The steel-nibbed pens reminded me of those with which I had learned to write at primary school. Desks had notches for ink wells into which we dipped our pens. One summer I injured my right hand. I don’t remember how, but I most certainly do remember being made to write with my left hand until the other one recovered. I am of course not alone in having, during that era, had to go through that particular form of educational torture. Nor of the others mentioned on 1st November last year, when I attempted to entertain with tales of my primary school years.

The Southwell Workhouse museum is in stark contrast to the one we visited today. Opened by the National Trust earlier this century, it is the most complete workhouse in existence. The buildings and exercise yards are intact and, with one exception, completely bare and unfurnished. Visitors are given a dramatised audio commentary with which to absorb the ambience of the housing of the poor in times gone by. It is very effective. The exception is the floor that was used as a women’s refuge in the 1970s. That is furnished as it was then with objects that had been provided by various charities, and largely consisted of other people’s cast offs. I well remember an identical kitchen cabinet with a drop-down shelf to that that had been my mother’s pride and joy in the 1950s.

The rows of cast iron single bedsteads were rather depressing, especially when reflecting on why the residents lived there.

Fish and chips, mushy peas, and Stelle d’Italia Prosecco provided our evening sustenance.

A Question Of Parentage

Yesterday evening, whilst waiting for Elizabeth before our curry date, Jackie and I had, as usual, a delightful discussion with Danni. We swapped house hunting stories. We also reminisced. It was pleasing to learn that so many of my niece’s childhood memories feature summers in Newark, in particular the fun she and Louisa had over the Chinese restaurant story.

In Eastern Nights I had complimented the very efficient, friendly, and humorous, ‘front of house man’, on possessing just these qualities. I also said he was not intrusive. It must be a fine line between being over-friendly and unobtrusive for restaurateurs to tread. It is probably the experience of the proprietress of what was allegedly Newark’s finest Chinese restaurant that makes me sensitive to this. One evening in the early 1990s, Elizabeth, Rob, Jessica and I visited this establishment for the first time with our children. This woman stood by our round table for virtually the whole meal, saying what a beautiful little girl Louisa was. She just would not go away. All smiles, she decided, the child’s parents must be Jessica and Rob. Elizabeth and I were not exactly chuffed by this, but at least she hadn’t committed the faux pas of James Bird, the young teenager who lived next door when we moved to Lindum House in 1987. He assumed I was my daughter’s grandfather.

For the rest of that 1990s weekend my children called me Uncle Rob, his two called me Dad, and vice versa. I now suspect the two little girls were behind this. We never returned to the restaurant.

Photograph number 95 from the ‘through the ages’ series was taken a little earlier, in 1988, probably by Elizabeth. It gives the flavour of Danni’s memories, and can be dated from the wallpaper, which Michael and James painted over that year. I appear to have been reading a story.

Max Gate is a far cry from the birthplace of the man who designed it. This was Thomas Hardy, famous novelist and poet, trained as an architect. Not at all ostentatious, it is definitely a wealthy middle-class home with a garden to match. Brian, the National Trust volunteer to whom I am indebted for some of my facts, pointed out that with a house built by his father and brother Henry, both master masons, he had probably been able to improve on normal specifications. I observed to Brian that even the first, most humble, of Hardy’s studies, in which we were standing, was very different from that of his father in the boy Thomas’s childhood home.

It was Brian who told me that, following increasing estrangement in the marriage, Hardy’s first wife Emma moved up to the two rooms that she called her boudoir on the second floor. Apparently for the sake of appearances she made what must have been her painful way down a steep set of attic stairs to dine daily with her husband. She was suffering with a failing heart and gallstones that finally killed her. My informant speculated that otherwise she only seldom left her rooms because servants would have attended to her requirements. Despite his apparent neglect Hardy was distraught at her demise and wrote a series of poems based on their early love. He soon married again, his secretary Florence, 39 years his junior, who was equally distressed at his death in 1928.

Hardy extended a dormer window for his first wife, but this did not prevent me from regarding her rooms as a prison without bars. It seemed to me that she was only marginally better off than Bertha Mason the mad wife of Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester, who was kept locked in an attic.

Only comparatively recently opened by the National Trust who previously let the house to a tenant, much work has been carried out to stock it with suitable furniture and mementoes; and in caring for the garden, which has the richest compost heaps I have ever seen. The author’s sister Kate, after her brother’s death, bought the house at auction and eventually bequeathed it to the Trust. Florence, the second wife, had insisted on the contents being sold off separately.

As evidenced by the gentleman reading in the kitchen, we were invited to sit anywhere. When informed of this I observed, ‘there [was] not a teasel in sight.’ Teasels are discretely placed on National Trust chairs you are not meant to occupy.

It was Jackie who observed that the fitted bedroom carpets and telephone points were probably evidence of the tenacy.

Hardy, we are told, had three studies. Not all at the same time. He spent his last twenty-odd years in the third, and most comfortable. Today, in this room, a poetry group met to read the writer’s poems. We were invited to enter; look around; listen; and, if so inclined, join in.

Having driven us home, Jackie produced scrumptious pork paprika, green beans, and mushroom rice, followed by apple and blackberry crumble, with which I drank more of the Berberana.

A Friend Of Sir Edwin

A clear nattier blue sky beamed down on us this morning. Dew on our lawn glittered, and, as Jackie drove us to Pennington, the sun’s shafts radiated on the road ahead. It was a marvellous day on which to explore yet another beautiful corner of our chosen area, and the outside of a house situated there.

Middle Common Lane belongs in a picture book, and King’s Huts in an architectural history.

The so-called huts are a horseshoe-shaped group of three pairs of semi-detatched Edwardian Estate cottages set in mature gardens with plenty of space between them. The original gate leading to a brick path taking you to the individual houses has recently been renewed.

It is number 1 that is for sale. Just outside is a makeshift notice pleading for careful driving because a deaf cat crosses the road. The house itself is so well secluded, that it is impossible to see it all from the roadside. Peering through the hedgerow or over the back gate shows you nothing. The estate agent produced a clear enough set of photographs from inside, and one of the other houses was more clearly visible from inside the general gate. Much of the garden has been given over to a garage and workshop, and an attractive summer house, thus increasing the amount of accommodation provided. There is, however, plenty more to cultivate and enjoy, as can be glimpsed over the side gate.

The houses were built in 1908 for Mrs Powell King of Wainsford. They were clearly influenced by her friend Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, arguably the greatest ever British architect, who left his mark all over the world, and particularly in New Delhi. His essential contribution was the imaginative adaptation of traditional styles to the requirements of his era. It looks to me as if King’s Huts owed something to his earlier, Arts and Crafts, period.

Our return to Minstead was greeted by grunting Gloucester Old Spots outside the Hall. The most vociferous was doing its best to dislodge parasites from its coat. Maybe this is why wooden posts protecting vulnerably placed buildings from intrusive motor cars are occasionally in need of replacement.

The midday sun enhanced the glorious geraniums Jackie potted up in the spring, placed in the communal hall, and has nurtured ever since. She also wishes Helen to know that the chillies she grew from seed given her by her sister have borne fruit.

The weather was unchanged when, this afternoon, I walked to the Lyndhurst surgery for a check on the last wart procedure. This meant retracing the morning’s drive as far as Swan Green where I turned left.

As I kept a close eye on the pony chomping on the left of the narrow lane leading to ‘The Splash’, I narrowly avoided ruffling the rump of another directly in front of me. If ponies made half enough noise at the trough as the pigs, this would not have happened.

The lesion hasn’t quite disappeared from my left shoulder, so another bout of freezing was required. Prof Lyon-Maris had a student with him. She was permitted to administer the flu jab which was inflicted on me whilst they were at it.

Jackie met me outside the practice, and drove me to Elizabeth’s, from where Danni ferried us all to Eastern Nights and we enjoyed the usual excellent meal with Bangla, Cobra, and white wine.

We diverted to Sainsbury’s Homebase in Hedge End to buy an oil-filled radiator, since one of the electric heaters installed in our vast sitting room is not working, and we are tired of holding our breath waiting for Tracy, the estate agent’s representative, to get anything done about it.

From The Firs Jackie drove me back home.

Colt

This afternoon Jackie and I went on a house recce. Aiming for Sway Road, Bashley, we became diverted at Wootton, on the heath of which lies the horse trough previously mentioned.

Down a roughly made up road we discovered Trefusis.

For me, in particular, this timber-framed house in its tree-bound spot knocked the larger, more substantial, house in Bashley out of contention. However, having had a quick look at the wooden building and its location, we drove on to Bashley.

This was a possibly 1950s house with a great deal of room, but it did have close neighbours either side. From the agent’s pictures, we could live with the internal decor. We gave it a cursory glance and returned to Wootton Road. I had fallen for this stretch of the New Forest when I had walked along it on 27th February.

Then bright sunshine had enhanced beauty of the forest. On our outward visit today there had been no more that a feeble glimmer of sun glinting off the apples on the trees in the garden.

As we passed the numerous ponies surrounding the trough the sky cleared and the sun shone as strongly as it had on that brief interlude from a rain-filled winter and spring. As they had been then, the animals were strung out on the road near the house, and clustered on the forest verges. They looked fat and sleek and were clearly stoking themselves up for winter.

The garden of this empty house had recently received the attention of a lawn mower, but it occurred to me that one only had to open the gate in the picket fence for croppers to come and sate themselves to the owners’ advantage.

The right hand front corner post of the fence, being a tall oak complete with parasites including bracket fungus, is far older than the rest of it. The plot’s own spinney occupies the section between this tree and the house. There is, nevertheless, plenty of light around the dwelling.

Continuing past the house, we bumped and jolted down a pitted road, reflecting, as we had when visiting Ossemsley Manor, that we would need a 4X4 if we lived there. There were a number of houses, all with a great deal of land, of different periods. Some had their own, occupied, paddocks.

Colt have been building timber-framed houses with cedar shingle for almost 90 years. This find is billed as one of theirs. The oak frames are built on foundations complying with normal building standards and regulations. The firm offers advice, conversions, and refurbishment of existing buildings. There are a number of comments on the web from people who have been satisfied buyers of models from as far back as the ’60s.

Wherever we end up, especially once we have actually entered potential purchases, we will have learned a great deal, and had a lot of fun from the research.

This evening Jackie served chicken breasts slow roasted with a honey and mustard marinade and accompanied by mushroom risotto. Bread and butter pudding was to follow. She drank a 2012 Liebfraumilch; I prefered the more savoury Berberana Rioja produced the same year in a different part of Europe.

Hansel’s Trail

The dismal drizzle descending, as I dragged myself from my laptop and set off for the two underpasses walk, soon developed into a steady stream, only slightly abated by the leaves on the still clad trees upon which it spattered.

Today I began from the Malwood Farm end. My nostrils picked up the scent of a bonfire as I passed the farm. I was drawn to it. Lingering longingly, struggling to summon the determination to continue through the soggy forest, I thought of my Facebook friend June. It was she who had the perspicacity to question my sanity when she realised that I went ‘out each day regardless of the weather’. I wondered whether she had a point. After all, the peaty scent of a glass of Talisker would have been rather preferable to that of woodsmoke.

I assume the board placed against the wire fence was to prevent sparks setting the forest alight, not to block off the smoke, like the board Mike Kindred fabricated for the log fire in the sitting room at Sigoules. Mind you, there was about as much chance of the forest being set on fire today as there was of stopping an uncapped chimney from blowing smoke into the house.

The tracks through the forest are now more disrupted. There are more fallen branches and more sucking mud patches. The pony pits in the clayey parts are beginning to fill with ochre coloured water, and the rivulets are filling up again. Elsewhere the clay is still firm, rendering it similar enough to that fired and formed into London concourses to warrant signs warning that ‘during wet weather floors may be slippery underfoot’.

I set off with such confidence that I know some of you will find it difficult to believe that I perpetrated a slight navigation error. How was it that, instead of emerging opposite the Sir Walter Tyrrell I came face to face with the fence around the farm that I had skirted so recently? Please don’t ask. ‘Blow this for a game of soldiers’, I thought, and headed back along the fence to the sandbagged ford which is now serving its intended purpose. Miraculously, I made the correct left turn.

Next time I will emulate Hansel, making sure to use white pebbles rather than breadcrumbs. Any of my readers unfamiliar with the Grimms’ folk tale of Hansel and Gretel will be able to find it on Google, but its relevance for my difficulties in successfully reaching Sir Walter, is that first pebbles, then bread, were used by the boy to lay a trail to help him and his sister find their way back.

This afternoon I boxed up a collection of DVDs for Mo and John to transport, with my obsolete iMac, to rue St Jacques. They are going to join the builders there and use the place as a base from which to seek their own French home.

Our two new friends dined with us this evening on Jackie’s French Onion soup; British roast chicken with Italian mushroom risotto and salad; followed by English Bread and Butter pudding, all cooked, as always, to perfection. We began with Antoine de Clevecy Champagne brought by our guests, and then served Maison des Papes Chateuneuf du Pape 2011. Jackie was disappointed that we didn’t have any English wine, but she enjoyed her German Liebfraumilch 2012. We had a most enjoyable evening.

To Sir, With Love

Just after lunch we drove to Ringwood to shop, then delivered a present for John and Stephanie to Helen and Bill’s at Poulner.

The earring no longer adorns the information board in the car park. I do hope it is now happily reunited with its partner and dangling from one of a pair of beautiful lobes.

After unloading the shopping, we sped across the other side of the forest to Milford on Sea, there to investigate Agarton Lane, on the outskirts, where there is a house for sale.

The cottage is down a very narrow lane with fields all around, across one of which, virtually next door, trooped what, from a distance, looked like a group of grouse. The other neighbour seemed to be Woodlands which was staked out, it seemed, for building one house in the centre of a very large plot.

Although the garden of the subject cottage appears free of them, the whole area is infested with mare’s tails. A stream runs across the road adjacent to the building.

Having given ourselves food for thought we continued to the coastline at Milford, finding that we had approached Hurst Pond Nature Reserve from the other side to the one we had investigated on 3rd July. I became quite excited when I saw a heron stalking fish in the water, really quite close by. Jackie stopped the car. I got out. She revved up the engine to move on to a parking spot. My prey flew off in search of a safer spot to seek his. Noticing his landing point, I decided to stalk him. He chose to camouflage himself by imitating reed stalks. It’s a good thing this wasn’t a stork, otherwise my wordplay may have got a little out of hand.

Along the causeway we had traversed in July, fisher folk could be seen carrying home their gear after the day’s work.

Jackie has never cooked risotto before, but she decided to give it a try this evening. Her mushroom version was superb. She will definitely do it again. After all, it is different from biriani simply in the type of rice used in order to provide the glutinous effect which is required. I don’t think there is a great deal of difference in the method, or, for that matter, in the Persian inspired pilau, at which she is most proficient. Jackie’s choice of ice cream to follow was strawberry. Mine was rum and raisin.

Given that we were eating risotto, I sought out a wine from our IKEA wine rack that sits in the bathroom cupboard, that I thought would do it justice. I had the exquisite taste to hit upon a superb Sicilian offering from Fiorile, a Nero d’Avola Syrah of 2010. In truth, I had never heard of it, but it had been given to me by the Head of Geography at Chichester Cathedral’s Prebendal School. This is Ian Steele who we are welcoming into our family. Ian had been given this present by a satisfied parent at the end of the last school year. Knowing I was more likely to appreciate it, he had given it a good home. What better pedigree, I thought, for a wine, than that it has been purchased by such a donor. So I very much enjoyed it this evening. Thank you, Ian, and the anonymous giver.

This bottle provided the inspiration for today’s title, for which I am indebted to E.R.Braithwaite’s semi-autobigraphical novel dealing with social and racial issues in an inner city school. There have been several dramatisations of this ever-topical tale, the most famous possibly being the 1967 film starring Sidney Poitier, the title song of which propelled Lulu to No. 1 in the US charts. Lulu, incidentally smiles across at Sam from the opposite wall of the Akash in Edgware Road.

Poon after I have pent this sopt, I will have brunk the hole dottle. (The computer’s spellcheck wnet breseckr at this)