September 2015 – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Grass Cuttings And Wild Woodbines

This morning Aaron twice drove himself and me to Mole Country Stores to buy some decking with which he repaired our somewhat decayed structure. The reason for the second outing was that the new lengths were narrower than those being replaced, so we were originally two short.

Sitting in the cab of a working van took me back to my teens and early twenties. As I said to Aaron, it is often the scents of such an enclosed space that stay in the memory. The dominant one in our friend’s vehicle was that of grass cuttings. Dad’s removal van during the 50s and 60s bore the strong aroma of Wild Woodbines, his chosen brand of cigarettes. I worked alongside my father in the school holidays, and later, on Saturday mornings.

Today’s TV rugby fare included matches between Samoa and USA, Wales and Uruguay, and New Zealand and Argentina. In order not to spoil things I will say nothing about them, except that that was a lot of TV.

In the intervals between contests I took the air in the garden, where plants and wildlife continue to benefit from the Indian summer.

Hibiscus thrives;

the first colchicum or Autumn crocus has emerged from the soil;

Bees, like this one on a bidens, still coat their limbs with pollen;

and a spider wrapped up its prey with which to stock up its larder.

The sunlight enhanced the garden views such as

those from the Shady Path across the Grass Patch,

and from the Brick Path towards the Heligan one and beyond. Japanese anemones are prominent in each one.

Jackie produced her delicious chicken jalfrezi with egg fried rice for our dinner tonight. Tesco’s meat samosas made good starters. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I finished the malbec.

70 Years On

Jackie spent the morning planting the pansies and spring bulbs in place of the ficus.

The bamboo in the Oval Bed tends to send tentacles under the rock border and into the gravel path. At the first sign of a sucker piercing the shingle, excavation has to be carried out. This was my task.

This afternoon, Jackie drove us to Walkford for Daphne and Ray Salinger’s Platinum Anniversary party. Apart from one picture, I recorded the event in Black and White, which seemed appropriate.

Here, Ray examines the album Ron had made up largely from the prints I had produced.

He then posed with his wife.

Over lunch They both looked again at the historic photos, the album here held by Donna.

The best way of approaching the splendidly plentiful buffet was to heap your plate with those selections you could fit onto it, then return for seconds of the other dishes.

The day was warm and sunny enough for many guests, entertained by Ben, a professional guitarist, to sit outside.

The couple’s great niece, her husband, her father-in-law and a great great niece enjoyed the sunshine,

whilst Helen enjoyed great granddaughter Imogen.

Ron made a speech in honour of his parents,

and Ray gave a witty reply.

He and Daphne then cut the cake made by Shelly,

who helped her mother-in-law slice it.

Finally, all assembled for group photographs.

And the one colour picture?

Here it is.

This evening I watched the second half of the South Africa v. Japan World Cup rugby match, and the whole of France v. Italy. In deference to anyone yet to watch a recorded version, I will not give the results, but I will say that the last five minutes of the first of these games was as thrilling as any finish I have seen.

After The Rain 1

SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read to the end if you are watching the rugby recorded.

This morning Jackie weeded and planted chrysanthemums in the front garden, whilst I dug out the remaining roots of the ficus in preparation for planting the pansies.

In the event, a heavy thunderstorm ruled out putting the pansies to bed. They were therefore plonked in their trays. Even though the rain ceased, enabling us to finalise the preparation and wander round the garden, the soil was far too muddy.

The sun emerged for a while. The rain ceased, but continued to drip from the trees and the shrubbery. Battered blooms bore watery blisters.

These included geraniums;

Ginger lilies;

roses unknown,

Altissimo,

and the leaves of Deep Secret;

dahlia Bishop of Llandaff;

sweet peas;

and verbena to name a few.

Echinaceas and chrysanthemums, and others in Elizabeth’s Bed have been well watered.

Here are views down the Dead End Path;

across the New Bed to the Brick Path;

and across the Heligan Path.

Our dinner this evening, consisting of Jackie’s superb chicken jalfrezi and pilau rice, was taken on trays on our knees, as we watched the opening match in the rugby World Cup, in which England beat Fiji by 35 points to 11. I drank more of the malbec while Jackie drank Hoegaarden. I didn’t spill too much curry down my sweatshirt.

Fisherton Mill Arts Centre

This morning, Jackie drove us to Salisbury where we met Frances and her friend Jenny for lunch at Fisherton Mill.

We arrived in good time. This was fortunate, because we walked the wrong way out of Central car park and took forty minutes, which was eight times what it would have taken had we gone the right way. Our problem was compounded by being directed to The Mill public house on the river Avon which flowed round the car park.

Leaving the parking area we crossed a bridge over the stream in which a moorhen preened its plumage, snaking its serpentine grey neck and burying its red and yellow beak into motley wing feathers.

The banks of the river were lined with lichen-covered trees.

Our venue was located in Fisherton Street. Since we found ourselves at the wrong end of it we were able to take in a little tour.

Salisbury’s municipal hanging baskets splendidly flaunt the sometimes reviled begonias.

A young woman eyeing Foxtrot Vintage Clothing window looked as if she may have just stepped out of it. I wondered if the original mart may have been owned by unknown ancestors of mine. Another passer-by seemed more interested in the gold and silver on offer next door.

Water Lane’s pavement runs alongside the river, which flows under Fisherton Street.

On a wall on the opposite side is fixed an old sign advertising Dick Barton’s.

Dick Barton was the hero of required radio listening in my ’40s and ’50s childhood. Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Dick Barton – Special Agent was a popular radio thriller serial broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by such well-known British radio broadcasters as Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-minute episodes at 6.45 (later 6.15) each weekday evening. From 11 January 1947 an additional “omnibus” edition repeated all of the week’s programmes each Saturday morning between 11.00 and 12.00. In all, 711 episodes were produced and the serial achieved a peak audience of 15 million.^[1] Its end was marked by a leading article in The Times.^[2]

The serial followed the adventures of ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton MC (Noel Johnson, later Duncan Carse and Gordon Davies) who, with his mates Jock Anderson (Alex McCrindle) and Snowy White (John Mann), solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations, and saved the nation from disaster time and again.

Mum joined Chris and me in listening during those pre-television days.

It was very good to see Frances after so many months of incapacity of one kind or another. We enjoyed wide-ranging conversation with her and Jenny over an excellent lunch.

My roast beef sandwich consisted of well filled home made bread. It was delicious.

Jenny photographed Frances, Jackie, and me.

Fisherton Mill also contains galleries of top-quality artwork on two floors. Notices throughout ask us to respect the artists’ copyright and refrain from taking photographs.

It seemed acceptable to photograph the alfresco dining area through an upstairs gallery window.

On our return we nipped off to Otter nurseries and bought winter pansies and chrysanthemums for planting tomorrow.

Mr Pink’s fish and chips, picked onions and gherkins constituted our evening meal with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Shepherd Neame’s Spitfire Kentish ale.

The Plantation House And Garden

A visitor just inside the front door this morning somewhat deterred Jackie from leaving the house by that route. Well, it was suspended at just about head height.

Yesterday the Head Gardener pronounced sentence of death on a ficus which was far too close to the patio, and too big for the plot it occupied. She made a valiant start on carrying out the punishment which I continued today. Working in steady drizzle, I just managed to complete the task before heavy rain set in for the day. The two pieces of trellis in the background of the photograph were taken from the recently freed cast iron gate. A scented jasmine has already been planted to make its way up them.

In the days following Sam’s arrival into Port St Charles, Barbados in May 2004, I continued to photograph the island and scanned a dozen more slides today.

The two boys were very keen to meet the new celebrity. They were Jay and Sol, the sons of Peter Milnes, who lived in a former plantation house. An introduction was arranged and we made our way to their home, where their delight was patent.

The family lived in a former plantation house. Better appointed than most they date from the colonial days when rich men could keep the poorly paid servants to run the establishments. The house was impressive and situated in an idyllic spot.

Hibiscus

and breadfruit were among the plants.

This evening Jackie and I dined on her scrumptious cottage pie, carrots, and cauliflower. She drank Blanche de Namur and I drank Cimarosa Reserva Privada malbec 2013.

Battle Of Britain Day

Today the wind has dropped to a mere 23 m.p.h. The good news is that there was minimal damage in the rose garden.

Today, Daphne and Ray Salinger share their 70th anniversary with Battle of Britain Day.

Yesterday the Isle of Wight County Press reported:

“BATTLE of Britain Day will be marked by a flypast that will include the Isle of Wight tomorrow (Tuesday).

September 15 is the 75th anniversary of the largest and fiercest attack by the German Luftwaffe over the skies of Southern England and London.

Around 1,500 aircraft took part in aerial battles, which raged throughout the day.

As evening arrived a group of German fast bombers were spotted off Cherbourg on their way to attack a Southampton Spitfire factory.

The Luftwaffe planes were later spotted over St Catherine’s and fighters from 607 and 609 Squadrons were sent to intercept.

The Germans made it to Southampton, but missed the Spitfire factory. However they dropped tonnes of bombs on the city, killing nine people and damaging the harbour and houses.

As they headed back past the Isle of Wight, close to the Needles, the British fighters engaged, shooting down four of the 20 bombers.

On Tuesday, World War Two fighters will again be in the skies over the Isle of Wight, thankfully in more peaceful circumstances.

A group of 40 Spitfire, Hurricanes and Blenheim light bombers are due to take part in flypasts, leaving from Goodwood Aerodrome in West Sussex.

They will be split into ten sections, before taking to the skies across Britain.

Two sections are due to fly over the south of the Island and their routes can be seen below.

The first section is due to leave at noon, with four minute gaps between subsequent sections.”

In the event the weather caused some delay and there were route alterations.

Jackie drove us to Hordle Cliff West car park, where we arrived, shortly before noon, to find it almost completely full. We sought no further confirmation that we had chosen the best vantage point from which to witness spitfires and hurricanes flying inland over The Needles. This car park usually belongs to the gulls at this time of the year.

The people came in coaches, they came in cars, they came on bicycles, they came on foot, to witness the flypast, due at about 12.10.

News soon filtered through the crowds, informing us that take-off would be delayed by two hours because of the strong winds. There wasn’t much point in returning home for a while, because we would have lost our place.

Possibly this gentleman is being advised that the gulls overhead are not planes.

We settled down for a wait during which I had a few chats with other would-be watchers and Jackie queued at the kiosk for an excellent choice of egg and bacon rolls, pasties and chips. We were fortunate to be so early, for a couple of hours later the queue stretched to the cliff edge. Clearly the woman in charge made a killing today, but she was managing alone because her husband was ill. Nevertheless she would acknowledge that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

Some people wandered off in search of other eating places. Others, like me, struck up conversations with strangers. One gentleman did a little dance on the clifftop, alarming everyone when he tripped over his own feet.

As the latest expected time of arrival drew near, we all fixed our eyes on The Needles, that row of rocks to the West of the Isle of Wight, over which the historic planes were to thread their way.

Had Jackie not been looking in the other direction, and alerted me, I would have been one of the disappointed multitude who missed the sight. The planes flew over the centre of the island, and aimed for Southampton. The itinerary had changed at the request of that city because of their association with Spitfires.

I managed to photograph eight specks gliding silently across the sky. I cropped and enlarged the first picture. The clouds behind the planes can be located again in the next shot, indicating the progression across the skies. Clicking on the images may make this easier to discern. One woman, returning to her car, exclaimed ‘Well, that was a damp squib’. ‘No imagination’, I thought.

Given that I was born in 1943, had there been a different outcome to the airborne battle, I may very well never have existed.

There was plenty of food left over from the Spice of India takeaway we enjoyed two days ago for tonight’s dinner. My accompaniment was the last of the Cuvée St Jainé; Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.

The Peacock Spring

A welcome visit from Shelly and Ron, to collect the platinum anniversary photographs, broke the monotony of a morning spent on too-long-deferred paperwork. We enjoyed the usual ensuing conversation, naturally involving a certain amount of reminiscing.

Afterwards, beset by the raging gale-force winds, I visited the postbox.

Despite Jackie’s distressed efforts to bring the hanging baskets and raised pots to protective ground level

some were repeatedly blown over and their contents broken.

We haven’t dared approach the rose garden.

In 1975 I bought a first edition of Rumer Godden’s ‘The Peacock Spring’. In 1996 the novel was filmed for television. Directed by Christopher Morahan and starring Peter Egan, Nareen Andrews, Hattie Morahan, Ravi Kapoor, with Madhur Jaffrey, this production was well received. It still took me until this year to read the book. I finished it today.

Set in 1959, a slow fuse burns with ever-increasing tension, until the explosive finale of the tale of a tragic relationship. The author’s trademark poetic description and insightful characterisation enables her to build an enthralling story of a flawed family and the conflict of cultural mores. I will not give away details, but can say that the picture to the left here shows the father with his two English daughters who have been brought to India to provide a veneer of respect to his relationship with the woman portrayed.

MacMillan’s publications comes in a striking book jacket designed by David Baxter.

It is not unusual for me to take forty years to read a book in my possession. As with this one, I sometimes wonder why it took me so long.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sublime cottage pie, crisp orange carrots and green cabbage. I drank more of the Cuvée St Jainé and Jackie enjoyed Blanche de Namur, a different Belgian wheat beer. The filmy quality of the above photograph comes from the wisps of steam rising from the dish, possibly encouraged by the layer of smoked cheddar cheese over the mashed potato topping.

The Print Room

Aaron’s main task this morning was the freeing and repairing of a side gate. In order to set a new post in concrete, he needed a bag of postcrete, a quick-drying material produced for the purpose. When Jackie and I went off to buy it, he directed us to a marvellous outlet, now Moles Country Stores, that he still knows as Scats. I have written before about how long it takes – sometimes several generations – to change long-established names in the popular mind.

Our gardening treasure also dug out a dead stump from the grass patch, filled in the hole, and reseeded the area.

Today’s garden view is looking from the corner of the Heligan Path towards the Fiveways chimney pot.

As I have managed to recover most of the iPhotos I lost last week, I was able to print, for Jackie to frame, a Poppy photo. We turned the image through 90%. Our granddaughter is not a vampire. Her fangs are reflections on the glass.

It has taken me several months to find the right kind of frame for ease of changing the content in order to display the Warwinter set of prints Becky gave me in April. Today I hung the first of the series. The idea is to replace each image with the next one. The corner magnets hold the acrylic cover in place over the picture, and can easily be removed for the replacement. This model is made by Adventa.

These works join others in the which is the downstairs loo, so named because all the pictures in it are prints, from the obvious photographic ones, to book illustrations. There is an original lino-cut, and a couple of favourite greetings cards.

A Spice of India Takeaway provided our evening meal. We shared poppadoms, paratha, and onion and mushroom bhajis. My choice of main course was lamb naga and special fried rice. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cuvée St Jainé red table wine.

Imperial Leather

Jackie spent the morning weeding and planting. I chipped in with an hour of clearing up the leaves and other debris from our recent burning session.

After lunch I received a call from BT level 2. This is a more experienced adviser than the poor cannon fodder who field the first problem calls. Since we have had no interruption for the past eighteen hours or so, and I am convinced the problem is outside the house, I was not willing to waste my time or hers by going through the checks all over again, whilst I hung on to the phone when I could be doing something else. We compromised. I hung up. She asked me a few questions, then ran the checks, and called me back.

Well. What do you know? The problem is outside the house. Something I have been saying for a fortnight. There was a term for this, which I didn’t catch, since it was spoken in an Indian accent. There are three possible areas of difficulty: the exchange, the cabinet in the street, or underground. At least that is what I understood. An engineer is to be given the task of investigating this, and I will receive a phone call in three to four days time.

I was at last being given some sense, but we won’t hold our breath.

Our new bath was delivered on Thursday when I was in London. The man who brought it would not help take it upstairs because he wasn’t insured for that. At least he put bit in the hall, which is where it stayed until Jackie and I took it up ourselves. It helped me relax after yet another long distance technical conversation.

We then planted up yesterday’s three rose purchases and gave the whole of the rose garden a good sprinkling.

These are two views from the bench by the orange shed.

The clerodendrum trichotomum undergoes quite a metamorphosis during its flowering. In future posts I will demonstrate this.

Butterflies, such as the Speckled Wood, are enjoying the sunshine.

When our new bath is installed our visitors may well be supplied with Imperial Leather soap. Alexander Tom Cussons 14.7.1875 – 20.8.51, chairman of the eponymous company, is best known for manufacturing this body cleansing agent. He also manufactured a number of others which have since been discontinued. These included Apple Blossom, Linden Blossom, Lilac Blossom, Blue Hyacinth, and beautiful rose perfumed soap that led to the naming of the famous Wendy Cussons Rose. The rose was bred by Gregory & Sons of Nottingham, and was intended to be named after Tom’s daughter Marjorie, but instead she asked for it to be named after her brother’s wife, Wendy as she bore the name Cussons. This extremely successful fragrant hybrid tea has won many awards, and is still available today, over 50 years after its introduction.

Ours is now blooming.

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in spicy barbecue sauce, savoury rice, and boiled new potatoes, followed by vanilla ice cream. Neither of us imbibed.

Three Roses

It is now 9.30 p.m. I f I finish this post this evening it will be a miracle, because, so far, much of it has been spent having useless and frustrating conversations with someone in India about lack of BT Broadband connection.

This morning Jackie drove us to Helen’s home in Poulner where we decanted into Helen’s car, in which she drove us to Lavender Farm at Landford, just inside Wiltshire. Taking in lunch we spent the best part of the day enjoying another splendid late summer’s day, before reversing the process.

The farm is an outlet for many wonderful plants, seen at their best on such a beautiful day.

There was, of course, a plentiful supply of lavender, but also very much more.

From the moment we entered, it was clear that the displays for sale were all as attractive as this one for cacti.

The three of us wandered around the gardens. I photographed the two ladies.

Sometimes just the beds;

or other people, like these two admiring the vegetables;

and these taking tea.

A couple I noticed sitting among the flowers were Brian and Sandra. Having taken the first picture from some distance away, as is my wont when I have not asked for permission, I walked along the narrow path to their bench, and sought it in retrospect. A very pleasant conversation ensued and they happily posed for a second picture. Brian turned out to have a collection of some 3,000 colour slides, mostly of historic Southampton, and was wondering how to digitise them. I described my scanner and advised them how to go about the task.

The garden was clearly troubled by wasps in July.

There is no charge for enjoying this haven, but charitable donations are encouraged.

Of course we bought some plants. Apart from smaller ones like heucheras and salvias, three roses on Jackie’s collection list just had to be acquired.

The first was Gertrude Jekyll, named after the famous gardener.

This is from the website in her honour: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), created some 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and America; her influence on garden design has been pervasive to this day. She spent most of her life in Surrey, England, latterly at Munstead Wood, Godalming. She ran a garden centre there and bred many new plants. Some of her gardens have been faithfully restored, wholly or partly, and can be visited. Godalming Museum has many of her notebooks and copies of all her garden drawings, (compiled and sorted by members of the Surrey Gardens Trust); the original drawings are in the University of California, Berkeley.

Her own books about gardening are widely read in modern editions; much has been written about her by others. She contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines. A complete list of every book and article written by her is in the Bookshop section of this site. A talented painter, photographer, designer and craftswoman; she was much influenced by Arts & Crafts principles.

(c) Elizabeth Banks; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

William Nicholson painted this portrait of her in October 1920.

Next came Lady Emma Hamilton.

Wikipedia tells us that:

Emma, Lady Hamilton (26 April 1765; baptised 12 May 1765 – 15 January 1815) is best remembered as the mistressof Lord Nelson and as the muse of George Romney. She was born Amy Lyon in Ness near Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of Henry Lyon, a blacksmith who died when she was two months old. She was raised by her mother, the former Mary Kidd, at Hawarden, and received no formal education. She later changed her name to Emma Hart.

Finally, has the rose Mamma Mia anything to do with Abba?

Readers may be amused to learn the reason that my first attempts at photographing these last two roses produced very bleary images. This is because a very small insect had become ensnared in Helen’s chutney. Not being able to identify it with the naked eye, I thought that if I photographed it with the macro facility it would be possible to do so. The creature turned out to be a small wasp. But I had poked the lens into the chutney, with the obvious results. My handkerchief was not adequate for the task of cleaning the glass, so I had to use a lens cloth when we got home, and photograph the roses here.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice, with chicken samosas. I finished the cabernet sauvignon.

Phew! 11.35 and all done.