Hampshire Window Surgeon, Jason, visited this morning, fixed our Velux window, and took details of the necessary Everest window maintenance from which to send us a quotation. Over coffee we also had a good conversation with this engaging gentleman.
After this, postman Mike, noticing I was walking down Downton Lane, clutching a letter, on my Hordle Cliff top walk, stopped his van and relieved me of it. Such is his friendly service.
Our friend Judith Munns had commented on Facebook that she recognised the family likeness between her mother and Jackie in the Statuesque Beauty post. These two, 
and two more worthy of that description, appear in our wedding photograph, taken on 2nd March 1968, that I scanned and retouched on my return. Sisters Sheila and Helen flank the group. My Dad stands next to Sheila, and Mum peers over my right shoulder. Jackie’s Mum stands next to Chris, and her Dad smiles between them. My sister Elizabeth and the bride’s Auntie Maureen each succumbed to off-stage distractions in different directions. In the back row Mum Rivett’s brother, the sisters’ Uncle Dennis, cranes his neck to see above my mother. His wife Elsie stands beside him, and his son, cousin Patrick is at the other end of the row. Patrick now successfully directs Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, notably those of the Godalming Operatic Society, the performances of which it is a family tradition to attend. Michael, festooned with confetti, looking up quizzically, holds Jackie’s hand. She was more or less the same age in this photograph as was her mother in the picture that prompted Judith’s observation.
I have today become Facebook friends with my cousin Yvonne Burgess whom I have not met since we were small children. From Spain, where she now lives, she sent me a 
photograph of her parents’ wedding, taken some time around 1940, coincidentally the possible date of the Statuesque Beauty picture. My mother is the standing bridesmaid, and my maternal grandparents are on the left, Grandpa Hunter stands behind my seated Grandma. Uncle Ben was a Military Policeman during the war, so Dad had to be very circumspect when he went AWOL whilst courting Mum.
Late this afternoon Jackie drove us to Emsworth to collect Flo for the weekend. Before returning we, with Becky and Ian, dined at The Spice Cottage restaurant in Westbourne. Ian and I walked there, and the others joined us by car. The meal, with which most of us drank Cobra, was excellent, and the service friendly and efficient.
Month: December 2014
Touches Of Gothic
Ripped by a fierce cold wind pines creaked against fencing as, taking the Shorefield section first, I reversed my Hordle Cliff top walk. With howling gusts forcing me backwards, turbulent waves crashing against the shingle, and swirling clouds looming overhead, there was a 
truly Gothic feel over The Solent. One only had to imagine the light came from a midnight moon to fancy one had stumbled into a Hammer film set.
Soon after midday we arrived at Shelley and Ron’s for the annual laying of a wreath on the ashes plot of the mother of Jackie, Helen, and Shelley featured in yesterday’s post. After the trip to the Walkford Woodland Burial Ground, we all, together with the two brothers in law, enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Shelley, with various red and white wines. Leak and potato soup was followed by a wonderful chicken casserole, potatoes, and vegetables. Then came a suitably tangy lemon meringue pie, coffee and mints.
A game of Trivial Pursuit took us into the evening, and further enjoyable conversation.
Beautiful as are many of the unusual trees in the garden, a number have been misplaced, causing a certain amount of overcrowding. An example is an interesting fir plonked in the front garden perhaps two metres from the house. At this time of the year there is only one use for it. Jackie has festooned it with white lights, which, when viewed through a piece of Giles’s stained glass present glowing colours. This treasured artwork is based upon my initials, DJK, in Gothic script.
A Statuesque Beauty
Jackie dropped me at Silver Street again this morning. This time I walked along this road, which, like many local ones has no pavement. I the turned right into Woodcock Lane and crossed Everton Road into Hordle Lane and, eventually, home.
Peterson’s Folly is visible from our front bedroom windows, but there was a much clearer 
view from Silver Street, where moon daises were still blooming.
The ditch in Woodcock Lane, that is liable to flooding, is beginning to fill up.
A creature appears to have taken up residence in a dead tree stump.
Ponies, some wearing jackets, could be seen through a hedge. Their owner, a young 
woman, noticing me poking my lens through the shrubbery, politely enquired as to whether I might be recceing the joint with the intention of returning to steal the ‘rugs’, which I took to mean the jackets. Apparently this is a common occurrence. We had a long, enjoyable conversation in which she told me that the horses were all foresters, and became very 
inquisitive and advanced on watchers, thus alerting her to their presence. She pointed out the unclad grey, which she thought the most beautiful.
Further along, sheep in a field were colourfully stained, perhaps decorated for Christmas.
A public footpath on Hordle Lane, where I met another inquisitive pony, has been blocked with barbed wire. Perhaps the doggie poo bag had been tossed beside it to indicate what a rambler thought of this.
This afternoon we visited New Milton for some banking and postage stamps. After this we went on to Milford on Sea to make an appointment at the GP’s. On my left hand I have a Dupuytren’s contracture which has been progressing nicely for about five years, and is now becoming a little awkward, so I need a referral to a surgeon. Patient.co.uk has this to say about it:
‘Dupuytren’s contracture causes thickening of tissues in the palm. If it progresses, one or more fingers bend (contract) into the palm and you cannot straighten the finger. The cause is not known. In many cases it remains mild and does not require treatment. If the condition becomes more severe or the function of the hand becomes affected then a specialist may recommend treatment.’
Jackie’s sister Helen has discovered an early postcard photograph of their mother and her friend, Sheila. My lady volunteered my services for producing a set of prints for Sheila’s daughter Margaret and various family members. I scanned the original and, after a considerable
amount of retouching, made six copies. This photograph was probably taken around 1939/40 when Veronica Rivett, my delightful late mother-in-law, the statuesque beauty to the viewer’s left, would have been about eighteen.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s scrumptious cottage pie; roast parsnips; crisp carrots, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts; followed by bread and butter pudding and custard for me, evap for her. She imbibed Black Tower B rose, whilst I did the same with Longhorn Valley cabernet sauvignin 2012.
Optical Aids
As the dawn sun emerged behind the trees in our back garden, the moon still occupied the sky at the front of the house.
By the time I returned from my Hordle Cliff top walk the bright, cold, day had warmed up a little because these skies had clouded over.
Framed by a leafless arched bough, Ivy Cottages, dating from 1897, with their neighbours beyond Downton Service Station on 
Christchurch Road, could now be seen from the hedgerow on Downton Lane, where bracken has browned, and a Coca Cola tin blends with red berries. Most cans and bottles similarly discarded are not so happily juxtaposed.
Shards of ice shattered by passing cars had been tossed onto the verges.
The Isle of Wight, The Needles, and their lighthouse were silhouetted against a pale pastel palette.
On a small piece of ground at the top of the steps leading into Shorefield from the path to the beach, fresh cow parsley still blooms. Some of this has begun to seed.
It is time to return to the ‘through the ages’ series. Today I have chosen to reproduce three, being 
numbers 53, 54, and 55, the first two from 1980 and the third from the following spring. These photographs 
were all taken by Jessica, the first two at Gracedale Road, the month of the second being indicated by its background Christmas tree.
The indentations left by over-tight nose pads in the first photo show that I was wearing specs in those days. Having been somewhat short-sighted since I was eighteen, vanity had led me to contact lenses in my twenties, but I managed to play Rugby without them, until, into my thirties I needed them to see clearly across the field. This was rather crucial for a second row forward, one of whose tasks was to cover the corners. I therefore began to wear lenses during the games. Until I lost three in a fortnight, that is. Quite apart from the cost of replacements, the search for little pieces of plastic in cold and soggy mud became somewhat disruptive. So I returned to spectacles.
The story of my first embarrassing visit to an optician, and of the accident which, many years later, resulted in a cataract operation, was told on 13th July 2012. Whether I have the eye specialist’s prediction or the new lens inserted more than fifteen years ago to thank for it, I just use varifocal lenses in specs with the close up element being plain glass, only for watching television or drawing from life. Until I purchased these about six years ago I had to choose between viewing either the model (with specs), or the texture of the paper (without them). Either that or keeping taking the glasses on and off. I have never needed such assistance to read, and don’t even take them with me on my rambles with the camera.
The third picture was taken at the very attractive Owl House Gardens at Lamberhurst near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. It was from one of the photographs in that day’s set that I made the drawing featured on 4th May.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s Cottage Pie, to which she had very successfully added a touch of garam masala; cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, runner beans and brussels sprouts; followed by blackberry and apple crumble and custard. She drank Stella, and I finished the malbec.
Early Morning Sun
On her way to an early morning shopping trip Jackie dropped me at Silver Street near Ashley, and i walked back via Everton Road and Hordle Lane. It was a relief to turn right 
into the lane after walking directly into the glaring sun. The explosion of red, yellow, and green baubles picked up by the camera lens beset my own irises, gradually changing to purple and blue, blinding me to much else, especially oncoming prams and buggies.
This experience took me back to Harrow Road, N.W.10, in the early 1970s when my Social Services Area Office was housed at the Ladbroke Lane end of that thoroughfare. This busy road runs East to West from Central London. On a morning such as this I witnessed the aftermath of an accident in which a driver, similarly dazzled, had, coming from the West, crashed into the back of a stationary bus. I reflected that, perhaps, like me today, he had not been wearing sunglasses.
Opposite the children’s nursery in Hordle Lane, a forlorn little bear sat on a wall. Perhaps an equally sad infant will return to retrieve it and her happiness.
Beyond the school and the church the lane is bounded by fields, and the pavement 
disappears. Long shadows of trees and me were cast across the grass, and that of their 
gate crisscrossed the drive to Apple Court Nurseries. Oak trees were silhouetted against the landscape.
Horses that had worn protective masks against swarms of irritating flies in the height of the 
summer, now clad in colourful sleeveless overcoats, slaked their thirsts in pools of water lying on the surface of their paddock.
Back home, the winter flowering plants, such as these violas, soaked up the sunshine.
Such was the buoyant mood in which I returned from my walk, that even BT couldn’t shatter it. But they tried. Oh boy! Did they try!
Anyone who has been following the fiasco that began at the end of October may have been surprised that I had stopped writing about it. That is because for a few days now we have enjoyed an uninterrupted Broadband service. At 10.51 a.m. I received an e-mail telling me that my new service would begin on 15th December. Further down, in a section headed ‘small print’, subsection ‘cancellation’, was a statement that the new service had already started. What the service was, other than simply ‘broadband’ was not indicated. Since the five working days after which we should have reverted to our old copper system is well passed, and the broadband is working satisfactorily I thought that was the end of it. I had been promised an e-mail telling me when it had been activated, but didn’t receive one.
I then had the first of two conversations with an adviser who was as confused as I was. She suggested I waited until 15th December to see what happened. Whilst I was speaking to her, at 10.55, another e-mail came in telling me that the new service was ready. This prompted a further call from me. After a lengthy time listening to music whilst the sensible adviser discussed the matter with the orders department, a comprehensible answer was forthcoming. We had reverted to the old system. The 15th December service was faster broadband, but not Infinity. The Hub 5 should still work. I had, of course been told that it wouldn’t function with the old service and I would have to change back to the old Hub 3. But it did, so I hadn’t.
While I was at it, I said I wanted to revert to paper billing. This was arranged, and my adviser asked if there was anything else she could do for me. Great hilarity was occasioned by my reply: ‘Yes. Sort your company out’.
at 11.45 I received this e-mail:
Thanks for contacting us.
We found an answer on our Help website that you’ll be interested in:
Our website at BT.com is changing all the time, so please visit for:
- Help – find fixes and tips, download user guides and watch video demos at www.bt.com/help.
- My BT – view your bill, make a payment, track orders and manage your services at www.bt.com/mybt.
- BT Life – check www.bt.com/btlife regularly for the latest news, offers and much more.
- BT Products & Services – see our range of products, services and tools at www.bt.com
Thanks,
BT Customer Service’
If this is all doing your head in, just imagine what six weeks of it has done to mine.
This evening all was again right with the world when we dined on flavoursome pork chops roasted with mustard, brown sugar, almonds, and mushrooms; crisp carrots, cabbage, runner beans; and swede and potato mash. Dessert was spicy bread and butter pudding. I had custard on mine. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I enjoyed Mendoza Parra Alta malbec 2014.
‘Painting With Light’
With extensive cloud cover and intermittent rain this morning was considerably warmer than yesterday, but 
far less inviting for my Hordle Cliff top walk. Nevertheless a rainbow did attempt to put in an appearance, as did a watery sun over The Solent, which sent ochre coloured waves crashing against the blending shingle on the beach.
Whoever broke into the garages of the empty Royal Oak pub was bound to have been disappointed, for there was nothing they wanted inside. The deciduous trees on Downton Lane 
have mostly lost their foliage, but the evergreen pines have retained theirs.
In an attempt to cheer up the day an inflated memento from a Macdonald’s Happy Meal bobbed in the stream, and a festive reindeer has arrived in Shorefield Country Park.
The skies had brightened considerably by midday when Aaron Parris of A.P. Maintenance came with a colleague and cleaned out our guttering. I engaged him to complete my work on the back drive, and to level the former kitchen garden.
By 2 p.m. the winter sun was strongly in evidence and the temperature several degrees colder. I took a short stroll down the lane with the object of reprising some of the morning’s shots. These are the results:
By 3 p.m. it wasn’t far off sunset.
Chris Weston, on his training course, described photography as ‘painting with light’. Perhaps these images, all unenhanced, and taken at different times on the same typically English day, illustrate what he meant.
The chauffeur was feeling a little under the weather, so unfortunately we were unable to attend Margery and Paul’s annual Christmas singing party, but trust the usual good time was enjoyed by all.
Since the chef was also feeling a little frail, we dined out at the Rivaaz, where I enjoyed lamb nagin and special fried rice, with a few titbits donated by Jackie from her choice of the buffet meal. We both drank Kingfisher.
Crumbling Cliffs
This has been a glorious day. Our first real frost lay on those parts of Barton Common not, by 11 a.m., yet reached by the brilliant sun. That was when Jackie deposited me there after a trip to Redcliffe Nurseries where we had purchased four outsize window boxes.
I spent almost an hour wandering amongst the bracken, the woods, and the ponies, before braving the path through the golf course and returning via the clifftop and Shorefield Country Park. Now standing stock still, now chomping the undergrowth, the animals spend their whole day preserving energy for grazing.
The paths were rather muddy, and although I didn’t quite get lost, I did twice meet a ditch I didn’t fancy crossing. Strangely enough I approached it from two different directions.
Attracted by a cluster of backlit leaves, I noticed a small red blackberry struggling to reach ripeness.
As, on the path alongside the golf course, I approached a tree tunnel leading to the sea, the thwack of the strike on a ball a metre or so to my right, followed by a cry of ‘Oh, bloody ‘ell’, had me diving for cover. We are, of course, warned of the occasional sliced shot.
The flickering yellow flags protruding from rounded humps on the newly laid section of the course deterred the gulls from exploring it.
Along the cliff top I had numerous conversations with other walkers in which we discussed the marvellous weather, the extended growing season, and the propensity of 
the footpaths to plunge into the sea.
Some of the cow parsley stars twinkling in the clear light would make excellent Christmas decorations.
This evening we dined on crisp oven cod and chips, mushy peas, and pickled onions that had remained in the cupboard long enough to soften. This was followed by Jackie’s beautiful blackberry and apple crumble and custard. She drank Stella and I finished the Languedoc.
Shades Of A Late Autumn
Over both the still fields and the calm sea, pastel shades dominated the skies on a crisp morning as I took my Hordle Cliff top walk in reverse. Although the sun was largely clouded over, shooting directly towards it across The Solent produced a lighter image.
These muted colours were repeated in the fallen leaves blending with the planks of the footbridge over the Shorefield stream, but, there being no sunshine, I allowed myself to use the vivid colours setting for the autumn leaves on the drive to Oldrode House on Downton Lane.
No-one was at home in
the rookery.
A gentleman greeted me as I approached the steps leading to the footpath to the sea. For obvious reasons, I held back until he reached the top, and repeated this self-interested politeness when a friendly couple joined me on the cliff path to Barton, along which I walked a little way before turning back to the coast road.
Judging by the evidence of their frenzied activity on the grassed terrain at the cliff top, the moles are becoming frantic in their urge to reproduce.
The weather is becoming colder now, but remains most clement for the time of year. Cattle have been 
let back into the field alongside Hordle Closed Cemetery, and marigolds still bloom in Bridge Cottage Garden.
The wind picked up again this afternoon with, I am convinced, the sole purpose of harassing me in my efforts at continuing to clear our fallen foliage. I did, however persevere, consoled by the thought that I did not have to tackle Oldrode’s drive.
The sun also emerged late in the day and emblazoned an oak tree on the opposite side of Christchurch Road.
Happy Times is the name of the Pennington Chinese takeaway. We ate more of their excellent food this evening. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank a reserve Languedoc red wine from 2012.
A Rash Camellia
While Jackie worked on cold frames this morning, I swept and raked up more leaves.
In England it is now compulsory to provide an inventory of those items to be included in the sale of a house. This prevents sellers from surprising purchasers by removing such as light bulbs, door handles, and other removable fittings before occupation; and makes clear what can be expected to be included. One item written into our contract was: ‘Greenhouse, unassembled’. We thought we might find visible, neatly stacked glass sections heaped up somewhere in the garden. We didn’t. But as we gradually cleared the undergrowth in the back drive we unearthed, partly buried and broken, polycarbonate panels littered about. Maybe that was the greenhouse.
Our head gardener has nurtured many plants in pots and window boxes that can survive cold weather but would perish in frost. She has therefore set about building her protective 
frames from these sections, from shelving removed from the garage, from large window boxes, and from the bath found at the end of the kitchen garden.
As I used big hands to pick up the leaves, I speculated about whether they would have been helpful in retrieving the 5p piece I dropped yesterday. Probably not. It was more likely that I would have found it as difficult as had the young man on the escalator in July last year.
The nasturtiums in the photograph above should, by now, have been blackened by frost. Just by my left shoulder can be be seen a camellia which has had the rashness to bloom in December, at a time when the cold frames are being deployed to protect smaller plants. It has been suggested that we should cover these wonderful shrubs with some kind of sheeting in order to offer them similar protection. Perhaps that is worth exploring.
In order to represent this flower, I further explored my camera settings. The first facility offers vivid colours, the second to get the best out of portraits, and the third to enable me to adjust the colours myself. This flower is of a delicately striated pink. Which version is preferable?
Within a five or six mile radius of our home there is a surfeit of Chinese takeaways but none where we can sit down to it. It fell upon one in Pennington to provide us with our dinner this evening. Different from the other two we use, it was equally as good. Jackie, who went to collect it, did not register the name. Given that I would wish to convey it to my readers across the world, some might consider this rather remiss. She is, however, so perfect in every other respect, that I think I’ll keep her on a little longer. I finished the Cotes du Rhone and Jackie drank the last of the Pedro Jimenez.
A Robotic Swivel
At New Milton station, where Jackie delivered me on this bright, cold, morning for the 
London train, the strong sun silhouetted travellers crossing the bridge linking the two platforms.
Norman and I changed our venue today. We lunched at The Archduke on Concert Hall Approach Road opposite Waterloo Station. I had not been there since, when we both worked in London, Wolf and I frequented it up to about five years ago. It has changed ownership and now has a jazz theme. The food, wine, and service was as good as ever. My choice was Cumberland sausages, mashed potato and onion gravy followed by pecan pie with clotted cream. We shared an excellent bottle of Sicilian red wine.
As I was early for our rendezvous I took a walk along Lower Marsh and back to Waterloo 
via Station Approach Road, where the graffiti constantly changes. In a tunnel behind a metal grill, perhaps fitted to keep him contained, The Incredible Hulk prepared for action.
By the time I left Norman and walked to Carol’s via South Bank and Westminster Bridge, the light had failed and the sky clouded over. Westminster Winter Festival was again 
installed on the South Bank. A jolly little train was parked in the sidings in sight of Big Ben.
A metallic military living statue stood motionless beside the stalls. With my now customary comment: ‘If it’s worth a photograph……..’ I made a donation, in the process dropping an additional 5p piece which, because my lower back still has a knife stuck in it, I was unable to pick up. I told him this, and that he was welcome to it. He smiled, swivelled robotically, and raised his hand in acknowledgement.
On Parliament Square a demonstration urged the immediate cessation of Guantanamo torture.
Again early, I sat in Christchurch Gardens for a while before visiting Carol for our usual enjoyable conversation. Afterwards I returned home by the usual methods. Jackie, of course, was waiting at New Milton on time.