Yesterday Flo arrived with her jewellery making kit. Already an international on-line tutor in Na’vi, the language invented for James Cameron’s film ‘Avatar’, she has just set herself up 
in business making tasteful pieces from natural materials.
This morning Becky, Ian, and I went shopping in Milford on Sea, where we had coffee and cakes in Inger-Lise’s excellent cafe.
Jackie weeded a new bed. When I returned I was of almost imperceptible assistance.
Because I play it most days, I haven’t mentioned the on-line word game Lexulous before. I transferred to this after the disastrous Mattel takeover of Scrabble. Both games are plagued by advertisements that interrupt them. In Lexulous the advertisements flicker in order to engage your attention until you have played your turn. Only today did Jackie come up with a useful idea, which was to place a post-it note on the screen obscuring the offending flashing lights. Others of the advertisements are down-right lies, informing you that your computer is about to crash or is overheating. Mattel’s Scrabble offers you ad-free games provided you are prepared to pay for the privilege.
Today Becky, as she often does, helped me with a PC solution. She introduced me to the free application Ad Blocker +, and installed it on my computer. Now I am ad free. If any of my friends who have given up the struggle against the frantic flashing are reading this, you may wish to come back.
This evening, there having been vast quantities prepared, we dined as we had done yesterday. I finished the wine and Ian drank Hoegaarden.
P.S:
Month: August 2014
The Fender
The garden looked glorious in the morning light. In fact the morning glories lived up to their name. 
It was difficult to remember that the newly created bed through which runs the head gardener’s path was a jungle of bramble and overgrown shrubs completely obscuring the fence behind, on which were trained unseen clematises and camellias.
A clerodendrum Trichotomum is coming into flower. These delicate blooms have various transformations to go through before they are done with delighting us.
A very leggy hardy fuchsia, rescued from the jungle at the far end of the garden now clings to the netting fixed to a tall dead tree stump.
Most of our Japanese anemones are white, but there are some strategically placed pink versions, like this one growing through the red leaved maple.
The lace cap hydrangea attracts insects like the hoverfly in this picture.
I have mentioned before that the small white butterflies flit about barely settling for a second. They are partial to the plants in the iron urn. 
If you have managed to find the hoverfly above, you may care to try your luck with this well-camouflaged butterfly on the lobelia.
This afternoon I read Hisham Matar’s introduction to Ivan Turgenev’s ‘On The Eve’, then started on the novel itself. I also did a little watering of plants, and staked up a gladiolus.
Early this evening, Becky, Ian, Flo, and Scooby, came to stay for a few days. With them, they brought birthday presents for Jackie and me jointly from them and Mat and Tess. 
The major shared present was a beautiful copper Art Nouveau fender 
which fits quite well in front of our wood burning stove. On each side of the stove itself tands one of a pair of bookends that Becky had given me about five years ago.
We all dined this evening on a splendidly authentic Jackie curry meal, consisting of lamb jalfrezi (recipe), chicken and egg korma, vegetable samosas, and pilau rice (recipe). Hoegaarden and fruit juice was consumed by the others whilst I drank Castillo de Alcoy 2010.
After this Ian and I walked with Scooby around the maize field.
Annie
The garden still freshly dripped this morning after a night’s deluge of rain. I was reminded of ‘A few of [Julie Andrews’s] favourite things’, from ‘The Sound of Music’.
After a wander round the estate, Jackie drove me to New Milton for me to catch the London train. I visited the money bank first, but was still rather early for the train and sat outside the station for a while. Plum-like fruit had dropped from their branches and tumbled down a grassy bank opposite, into the wet gutter. Because I didn’t know what they were, especially as they were a yellow/orange colour, I asked a passing woman who seemed vaguely familiar. She identified them as greengages and walked on into the ticket office. Soon afterwards she, having had the same sense of partial recognition, returned, having realised I was Chris’s brother.
Annie, which is her name, was at school with my sister in law Frances and a joint friend of theirs called Stephanie. Chris, Frances, Stephanie and her husband,John, had once shared a holiday with Jackie and me in Sigoules. We had first met at my niece Fiona’s wedding to Paul in August 2007, at which I had, fortunately for this post’s illustrations, taken the photographs. Jackie and I had both then met them at Chris and Frances’s Ruby Wedding celebration.
Here is Fiona on her big day:
She and Paul here stand with their respective mothers, Frances, of course, next to her daughter:
Finally, Stephanie and Annie, on the right, arrive in the garden:
Otherwise, my journey was uneventful until I arrived at Waterloo. At the Gents on the station the change machine let fall into the tray 3 x 20p in exchange for my 50p piece. Either because the dispenser didn’t appear to have any 10p coins or because the barriers themselves were faulty they were left open and we were all invited to walk through at no charge. Soon afterwards, I picked up £5 on the concourse. Normally, in order to use the conveniences, one is relieved of 30 pee. Instead of this, I emerged from the terminal station £5.10p better off. I’d call that a result.
I took my usual route to Norman’s where he fed us on roast pork, roasted vegetables, croquette potatoes, and broad beans, followed by mixed fruit latticed tart. We shared a fine bottle of Douro.
After this, I travelled by my customary method to Carol’s, and from there back to New Milton where Jackie was waiting and drove me home.
Kenneth Clark learned his trade as an art historian long before the subject was taught in British universities like Nottingham, where my granddaughter Emily is currently studying. Clark was an extremely accomplished member of the profession, as is amply evidenced by ‘The Nude’, which I finished reading on the train. He has a sensitive and insightful approach to his material which covers drawings, paintings, and sculpture from antiquity to the early twentieth century. First published in 1956, before the advent of the internet, his encyclopaedic knowledge is impressive, and eloquently and entertainingly expressed. My Folio Society edition, the beautiful cover of which is featured in my post of 24th July, is lavishly illustrated.
The Walking Stick
This morning I wandered round the garden and did a bit of weeding and dead-heading before delving into my colour slide archives to add a few pictures to the ‘posterity’ series.
This is what the Houses of Parliament looked like in August 1964:
Not very different to today, when, on my trips across Westminster Bridge I am inclined to focus elsewhere.
In that same month I took this reflective photograph of Vivien in 18 Bernard Gardens:
In April this sunset across the garden had attracted me:
The following month, clutching tightly onto Michael at his baptism, Auntie Gwen seemed afraid she might drop him:
My sister Jacqueline was more relaxed as she held her son James in August 1965:
Finally, here is another of the photos I took of Jackie on Wimbledon Common in April 1966:
Before heavy shower brought us in later this morning, I lopped off the invasive brambles in the back drive and Jackie helped me to take out the final dead trunk from the snake bark maple; to prop that between two other trees for it to carry a mature clematis Montana from one to the other; and to take out a high branch from the weeping birch that was pushing its way through the maple. This latter operation involved standing on the upper platform of the stepladder and hooking the branch down with a walking stick. I pulled down stick and branch together and Jackie held them while I amputated the limb. Fortunately I didn’t need the walking stick afterwards.
The stick was, however, to come in handy during the post-shower operation. One of the trees supporting the Montana is half dead. Because of its very attractive yellow foliage, we would like to keep it. One complete side of the trunk is dead and eaten by some insect we have not seen. It was also playing host to a great deal of dead Montana that we had heavily pruned earlier in the year. I took out one long, completely dead, upright branch, and we set about extricating the clematis. Most of that was very high up. This is where Jackie brought the walking stick back into play. Even then, the Montana was very resistant, and we failed to remove it all. But at least the tree, which we still haven’t identified, looks a little more healthy now.
This evening, following a recommendation from Giles and Jean, we dined at The Crown inn at Everton. The food was really excellent and the atmosphere homely and friendly, the decor being a good mix of ancient and modern. We both enjoyed our starters – dressed crab salad for me and deep fried brie in a crispy breadcrumb coating for Jackie – and main courses, but had no room for desserts. My main was steak and kidney pudding, and Jackie’s was mushroom pasta. She drank Peroni and I drank Ringwood’s Best. I needed to take a second photograph of my dish after I had cut into what I thought was a neat mound of cabbage. Inside the cabbage leaves were slices of carrot and cubes of turnip. The chips came as standard.
Lest We Forget
It is Alice’s birthday today, so I will begin by displaying my iMac wallpaper on which she walks across the shingle on a very blustery day in view of the Isle of Wight and The Needles.
This morning I walked to the bank at New Milton. I turned right up Lower Ashley Road and left along Ashley Road. This route is rather less picturesque and more protracted than the winding racetrack that is Christchurch/Lymington Road, but considerably safer. The man who insisted on giving me a lift soon after I had passed Angel Lane on my return thought so too.
Downton’s public Telephone box has probably seen better days.
A grasshopper camouflaged in the long grasses through which I trampled on the verge took me back to A Close Encounter I experienced in Sigoules on 9th August 2012.
A memorial flag flapping on the top floor balcony of a block of flats in Ashley Road encouraged us to remember the 36th Ulster Division’s contribution to the First World War, which we joined 100 years ago today. This was just one group of the generation of young men and boys on both sides sent to their slaughter in order to satisfy the whim of a power-crazed Kaiser and the hopeless ineptitude of our own war leaders. 
A century later we still fight our battles on foreign soil, to demonstrate that not much has been learned by mankind in the intervening century.
It is almost incredible to recollect that Kaiser Wilhelm was a grandson of Queen Victoria, and therefore that the major protagonists were a family at war.
My own paternal grandfather was one of those who came back, otherwise, since my father was born in 1917, when we think this photograph was taken, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this post. Neither would Alice, come to that.
When our lights are extinguished at 10 p.m. this evening, it will not be a power cut that brings this about. We will be joining the rest of the UK in an hour’s darkness of remembrance.
Back home this afternoon, while Jackie laboured with her watering cans, 
I wandered around the garden, at one point taking a rest on the dump bench and admiring one of its views. I did a little dead heading on my rounds. Petunias are very sticky.
The nocturnal relative of this morning’s grasshopper, probably sleeping, aboard one of our many blue clematises was a cricket. Close scrutiny of the photograph reveals the incredibly long antennae that distinguish this insect from the other.
We think the purple clematis climbing the new arch on the opposite side of the garden is a Niobe.
Near this is a very prolific hibiscus.
Because we are likely to forget their names, Jackie is labelling all those plants, like the unusual crocosmia Solfoterre, that she can, sometimes after considerable research.
Just as extensive research was required for me to identify a black and white striped butterfly that flashes it bright orange underside when on the wing. After a thorough study of the thoroughly informative ‘The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland’ by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington, I surfed the web, to no avail. Then I had one of my strokes of genius. Maybe, I thought,’ it is a moth?’. One had, after all, the other day, settled on Jackie’s woolly bosom. It is a Jersey Tiger Moth. She was, incidentally wearing a cardigan at the time.
For our dinner this evening, Jackie produced a professional egg fried rice to accompany our succulent pork chops and the remnants of our recent Chinese takeaway. I finished the Bordeaux and she sampled some Hoegaarden.
The Green Man
Today’s weather pattern was similar to yesterday’s. I therefore delved into the archives again and came up with another black and white picture of Sam looking remarkably like his daughter Orlaith, among a collection of shots of still naked trees that must have 
been taken early in 1982 somewhere in Surrey. I love the contorted shapes and the images they sometimes reveal. Study, for example, the last picture above. Can you see the Green Man of legend? He is a mythological figure representing rebirth, and, reproduced in every art form, whether drawing, painting or sculpture, is frequently seen as an architectural symbol or a pub sign. Very often he is painted as if formed from foliage. I have never seen him depicted in bark, which is my excuse for breaking my normal rule and altering an image.
Perhaps the fossilised Picasso-like deer in this shot is easier to spot.
As the day brightened up, I wandered along Hordle Lane as far as the path by the side of Apple Court Garden, and along this until my way was barred by a locked five-barred gate. I then retraced my steps. 
Two of the horses in the paddock still wore their protective 
masks, although the day was less fly-blown.
We now have a delicate little clematis Campaniflora rambling across the plants in the front garden.
Water lilies are still forcing their way to the light in the tiny pond created in an old water tank.
Among the most fidgety of the butterflies we have is the small white, which, like Tigger, never seems to be able to settle. They are constantly, restlessly, flitting around the garden. I managed, fleetingly, to catch one on a bidens. It didn’t stay long enough to disturb the other two basking insects.
Having noticed that Apple Court were advertising rare and unusual plants, I returned this afternoon with the head gardener to make some purchases. We bought a Persicaria microcephalus Red Dragon; a Hydrangea paniculata Phantom; two Athyriums, one Metallicum, the other dictum Red Beauty; and a Dryopteris erythrosora Brilliance.
In the sales area Meadow Brown butterflies and bees flocked to the cone flowers. In the garden itself, a magnificent catalpa shed its shaded blooms, vying with the sunlight in dappling the lawn beneath, and Primrose was having her photograph taken.
Water lilies in the capacious carp ponds had no need to force their way into the sunlight.
When we returned with our spoils, seizing upon the opportunity to contribute to the planting, and, more significantly, to take a break from digging up concrete slabs, I volunteered to dig the holes for the new residents. This turned out to be somewhat unwise. I began with the ferns, which were destined for a comparatively fallow spot where only weeds seemed to be growing. Almost immediately I hit upon large lumps of tufa. Tufa is a porous rock, formed near mineral springs, upon which some hardy plants will grow. It is popular for rockeries and alpines. Maybe a rockery was once intended for this bed. 
The large piece on the left of the pile in the picture demonstrates that it is useful on which to grow certain plants. Not ideally those it was harbouring. 
Having dug all this out, the craters left had to be filled with soil scrounged from other parts of the garden. Then we planted our ferns.
The lair allocated for the Red Dragon involved piercing a mixture of clay and gravel. Fortunately for me Jackie did most of it.
Finally, I only had to negotiate a tree root before setting the Phantom hydrangea standing proud.
This evening we again dined on Jackie’s luscious lamb jalfrezi with boiled rice, followed by evap on strawberries on raspberry twirl cheesecake. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Chateau Chataigniere Bordeaux 2012.
The Perfect Camouflage
This morning our plants enjoyed some welcome rain; I identified, scanned, and retouched twenty black and white negatives from my unsorted collection; and Jackie shopped for 
and prepared our evening meal. 
When, on 24th October last year I visited the site of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, I mentioned some missing prints I had made in the 1970s. In fact I was confusing them with some black and white ones from 1982. This were among the negatives I worked on today, and I reproduce one here. Anyone familiar with the work will recognise that the position in which I needed to stretch myself for this shot would probably be beyond me now.
This set of negatives can be safely dated at early summer 1982, by the same method of deduction as the colour ones featured on 20th July. A trip to Cannizaro Park alongside Wimbledon Common with the Shnaps family provides one theme. 
I think it must have been in the park that the unknown girl was about to turn her cartwheel.
Jessica, Becky, Maurice and Beverley, with their boys, brought up the rear as Sam delightedly raced into his brother Matthew’s arms.
There were also a number of pleasing portraits of my other offspring, Becky and Michael.
The Zebby board books were a great favourite. Never having seen them before or since, I think I bought them in one of London’s many remainder bookshops. 
Michael here reads to Sam, whose excited expression suggests this book was ‘Where’s Zebby?’. Sam must have spotted him before he emerges from behind the upright railings that offered him the perfect camouflage. Board books are heavy duty and can withstand a considerable amount of attempted mutilation from young fingers and teeth.
On a bright and blustery afternoon, having missed the post at Shorefield, and wishing to ensure that Alice received her birthday gift on time, I walked on along the cliff top to the Needles Eye cafe and up Sea Road to the Milford on Sea Post Office. I missed that one too. Never mind, my granddaughter will forgive me.
I returned to the path overlooking the sea via Park Lane, and thence home. Motorboats sped along the solent, and hardy holidaymakers sat watching the waves or walked along the shingle.
I know you will all be keen to learn what Jackie cooked during the day and served up this evening. Now I can reveal that it was her trademark juicy lamb jalfrezi (recipe), and it was delicious. It was accompanied by vegetable samosas, mini poratas, and boiled rice; and followed by mixed fruit crumble and custard. The proprietors of the Shaan in Newark would approve of our choice of dessert. Jackie drank Kingfisher and I drank Cobra.
‘Not Two Peoples…….’
When you wake up at 6 a.m. in an all-electric house to find you have a power cut and cannot make your morning coffee; and you have often passed a cafe in New Milton that professes to open at 6.30, there is only one thing to do. We did it. Dopily, Jackie drove us to Sunny Side Up Cafe. When, on entering, you learn that the big breakfast contains Ferndene Farm Shop sausages, suddenly coffee doesn’t seem enough. Jackie enjoyed her poached egg on toast, but I just had to have the full works.
And I could read about the Test match in yesterday’s Sun. Moeen Ali, permitted by the English Cricket Board to wear wrist bands bearing the legend ‘Save Gaza – Free Palestine’, had been stopped from doing so by the International Cricket Council. Steve Harmison, M.B.E., former England fast bowler has been quoted as saying that the spinner’s action on a cricket field was dangerous. Perhaps so, but Gaza has been an insurmountable problem for generations. Even without being able to unravel the rights and wrongs of the situation, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have made his statement.
Through the cafe window we watched the driver of a huge articulated lorry tidily loosening his load for delivery to Travis Perkins. We had watched him drive past the depot, presumably because he could not negotiate the left turn, and on to the next roundabout where he could backtrack and execute a right turn from our side of the road. Others were queuing, awaiting the store’s opening for their reception. From the top of the pillar box a POST OFFICE sign has been removed. Our home therefore has a shared history with the eating place, as does the Upper Dicker Village Shop, and no doubt many others of our smaller post offices which have been lost.
I took a walk along the maize field and collected more flint stones, completing the head gardener’s path on my return. I blame my Dad for the visual pun, because I thought of him as I peered down a hollow tree branch lodged in the hedgerow. One day when I was very small my father appeared in the doorway with one cardboard centre of a toilet roll held up to each eye, thus forming a pair of makeshift binoculars. Somewhat mystified, I gazed up in amazement.
‘Not two peoples’, said Dad. ‘Two peepholes’. Yabba dabba doo!
He would have been proud of his grandson Matthew’s offering related on 31st August 2012.
Between the tyre tracks on the path alongside the field, bees worked their way along ground covering convolvulus. Back home, another burrowed into a morning glory.
This afternoon I dug up and stacked more of the heavy concrete blocks and a few bricks from the kitchen garden, and Jackie completed her compost wall, then pruned and trained the wisteria.
This evening’s Red Admiral butterfly perched on a solar light, presumably waiting for it to come on in order to enhance its colour. It is of a duller, more orange, variation than, and consequently perhaps envious of, its redder and brighter relative seen yesterday.
We dined on Hordle Chinese Take Away’s delicious offerings. Jackie drank T’sing Tao beer and I finished the Cotes du Rhone.