Aaron this morning cleared more brick paths of weeds and began painting the Ace Reclaim bench with white Hammerite in order to combat rust; Jackie continued planting, weeding, and general maintenance work;
and I finished off spreading the Landscape Bark around the rose garden beds, thus offering The Head Gardener, who had begun the job yesterday, a certain minimal assistance. We need a few more bags to complete the task.
Each day now, we have more emerging varieties of
tulip,
daffodil,
pansy,
and primula.
Speckled fritillaria Jackie planted in the autumn thrive in the cryptomeria bed.
For ground cover we have such as
buttercup-yellow celandines
and deep-blue vincas.
Many self-seeders need to be kept under control. Cropping up everywhere we have, for example,
purple honesty,
and multi-hued hellebores which drop veritable carpets of offspring. Unmanaged, this dense brood would choke the rusty heuchera to death and cover the brick path onto which it is already encroaching.
We are still marginally ahead of the game in the race to have the garden ready for spring, but nature is catching up by the day.
This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Quilla. My choice was king prawn Ceylon, and Jackie’s, prawn bhuna. We shared egg fried rice, an egg paratha, and an onion bhaji; and both drank Kingfisher.
This morning Jackie and I joined Helen and Bill, Shelly and Ron on a visit to the exhibition at The First Gallery. We had an enjoyable time together with Paul and Margery.
On the road from Brockenhurst to Beaulieu, a herd of cattle, complete with a number of calves, streamed out of the forest to our right, crossed the road with their customary insouciance, and came bearing down upon our little Modus.
The car ahead of us edged forward. But, having enlarged the image by clicking on it, keep an eye on the two white calves towards the rear of the file on our left.
They brought the optimistic driver to a halt by, oblivious of the cumbersome gait they would soon grow into, frolicking across the front of his vehicle like a pair of spring lambs. As can be seen we were already at a standstill.
The animals had free access to the road from our right, but the forest was fenced on our left so, wherever they were going, they travelled, at what seemed an increasing rate the nearer they approached, along the tarmac.
As I have mentioned before, they are inquisitive beasts,
and are convinced that they own the road.
I really think they imagined
that, if they kept on coming,
the obstruction that was our little car
would simply move aside.
On our way home, having a hankering for an awesome Needles Eye Cafe breakfast, we took a diversion to Milford on Sea where
the waves were becoming choppy,
a yacht skimmed past The Needles lighthouse,
gulls glided on the wing,
and family groups promenaded.
In the cafe, as we sat with our drinks awaiting our fry-ups, I was approached by an attractive woman who opened with ‘You don’t know me, but I know you. You’re Derrick, aren’t you?’ Naturally I was keen to learn more. ‘I own this place, and I read your blog’. This was Simone. Not only had she remembered the photograph I had put on a post practically two years ago, but she recollected that on that day my toast had been forgotten. I did remind her that I would not have been able to eat it anyway.
At least one couple were hardy enough to use the tables outside, and families enjoyed the children’s playground that was provided for customers.
This evening Jackie dined on her excellent lamb jafrezi and savoury rice, with a paratha. Well she had not had the maxed up breakfast and chips for lunch.
When Jackie heavily pruned a bay tree in our front garden last autumn, some of the branches escaped into the untended jungle next door.
This morning, I decided to do the decent thing and remove them. I cut them to size and filled one of the gravel container bags with them. Later, Jackie and I donated them to the Efford Recycling Centre, along with another bagful we had collected during the week. We only came back with a large cut glass bowl.
This afternoon we visited Mole Country Stores where we bought a new post for the uprooted side gate and three bags of Landscape Bark. This outlet hast vast areas both inside and out where can be acquired most garden materials I can think of, and quite a few I wouldn’t have known about. Among other goods, the outside yard alone displayed
stacks of timber stakes in all shapes and sizes;
house coal;
Irish Moss Peat;
compost, topsoil, and landscape bark.
The company also caters for equestrian needs, such as harness and bedding. Unless someone is breeding very large rabbits, I imagine
these bright orange carrots are intended for horses.
As I make my way through my eighth decade, it is only time that travels faster than it did in earlier days. Certain adaptations have to be made. It was when my arthritic right wrist, perhaps suffering from this morning’s exertions, made me aware that I could not lift my share of the Landscape Bark bags that I was reminded that I am not quite the man I was.
The offer of help from two beautiful young women was therefore gratefully accepted, and I did my best not to feel embarrassed, but to stand back and enjoy it.
Back home, it was almost warm enough to sit down with drinks. Instead, we wandered around with them.
Daffodils lining the Heligan Path have a marked, pleasant, scent.
We dined on Jackie’s excellent lamb jalfrezi, succulent savoury rice, and vegetable samosas; followed by chocolate sponge pudding and custard. While The Cook drank Kingfisher, I finished the madiran.
Today we completed the weeding of the rose garden, and Jackie cleared out the potting shed, to which she adapted a set of shelves to fit.
This afternoon, I scanned a batch of colour slides from a French holiday in September and October 1981. We shared a house in Cabrieres, Languedoc with Jessica’s friend, Sue Sproston. The house belonged to a colleague of Sue’s who was in the process of renovating it, but hadn’t been too bothered about fixing potential leaks in the roof. Trust us to experience the worst thunderstorm locals could remember.
Here, Jessica and Sam see me off on a trip for the obligatory croissants from the boulangerie.
I found the local gardens fascinating. Some were carefully tended;
others seemed to be spaces to park trucks or trikes.
Cacti were in abundance. It seemed to me that, if the barbed wire had been designed to deter inquisitive fingers, it was probably somewhat superfluous.
Here Sue joins Jessica and Sam in investigating the local lake.
It was clearly the time of the vendanges, or the grape harvest.
We drove around the area and visited a number of villages, like the beautifully kept St Guilhem, and the almost abandoned Villeneuvette, where Sam sloshed in the fountain, a little less elaborate than the one in the grapes picture.
Wikipedia, currently has this to say about Colbert’s social and economic experiment:
Villeneuvette is a small village made up of a group of buildings initially erected in the 17th century to create a royal clothmaking factory and provide accommodation for its workers. Apart from a hotel and restaurant, the buildings are now restricted to residential use, many for holiday purposes.
Creation of Villeneuvette was promoted in 1677 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert the noted finance minister of King Louis XIV. It was one of his many initiatives to develop France’s industrial base. Power for the factory was hydraulic with water supplied via different water courses from existing basins. The factory was privately owned and produced cloth for the king including uniforms for his armies. The factory was in existence until 1955.
Since 1995 the village has been classified as a “Zone de Protection du Patrimoine et du Paysage” recognising the originality and importance of its heritage.
The original inscription above the gateway was “MANUFACTURE ROYALE” but was later rather crudely changed by the Republic to “HONNEUR AU TRAVAIL” – Honour in work.’
When we stumbled across the commune most dwellings were unoccupied, except for a few people who, to us, appeared to be squatters. We were able to amble around and marvel at the higgledy-piggledy nature of the accommodation, often with one family’s upper rooms above those of the residents below.
In 1982, J.K.J. Thomson published ‘Clermont-de-Lodeve 1633-1789’. Since it contains an erudite history of Villeneuvette, I had to buy it. It was, in fact, far too academic for my taste, but I did struggle through it. Interestingly, the book jacket shows the changed inscription mentioned above.
I was, perhaps fifteen years later, rather pleased I had, when one of my consutatiion clients told me that a couple of her friends had bought one of the residences which were now being sold on the open market. I was able to describe what we had seen, and to hand over the book. I didn’t expect to see it again, but, it was eventually returned to me by the wife, who happened to be a committee member of another agency client. Even then, before we were all overtaken by the Web, it was a small world.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jalfrezi, savoury rice stuffed with goodies, and vegetable samosas; followed by apple strudel. We both drank Kingfisher.
Dodging today’s rain, Jackie and I made a little more progress in weeding the soggy rose garden soil.
When we visited Romsey Abbey on 14th December 2014 this turned out to be a very significant day in relation to Judy Walker, the author of ‘Romsey Abbey through the centuries’, a fascinating history that I finished reading today.
I bought the book from the Abbey shop during that visit . The reason can be gleaned by clicking on the highlighted name.
Local histories, I find, are sometimes the product of keen researchers who don’t write very well, and are often stronger on detail than on analysis. Consequently they can be rather boring. Not so this one. Walker is clearly a thorough researcher who writes very well. The foundation stones of her subject, originally a Benedictine nunnery, were laid down towards the end of the first millennium, so she covers more than a thousand years in her little book. She offers architectural, ecclesiastical, political, and social history in a very readable manner, setting it in national and international contexts. A product of Romsey Abbey Publications the paperback is of good quality with sound binding and lasting paper. There are a number of useful illustrations spanning the centuries.
This view of the church from the south-east was drawn by C.E.Mallows in 1895. Does it include a Victorian selfie?
I was intrigued to spot just three spellcheck errors, all on the same page. One referred to ‘Kind John’, certainly a howler for ‘King John’, who would hardly have warranted such an epithet.
This evening we dined on a meal from Hordle Chinese Take Away followed by Normandy Apple Tart and custard. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.
Until the rain set in this afternoon, we were able to make good headway on weeding the rose garden which, of course,
had not existed at this time last year, when it was little changed from this shot of 6th June 2014. On the left, in front of the shed, is the Waterboy, featured yesterday, as found.
This afternoon we delivered the last of the exhibition flyers, to
From Milford, Jackie drove us down to the coast where,
despite the rain battering the windscreen,
there was a remarkably clear view of the Isle of Wight and The Needles with their lighthouse.
This evening Hordle Chinese Take Away provided our dinner. As always, the set meal for two will cater for tomorrow as well. Jackie drank Hoegaarden while I finished the madiran.
After a brief panic on the part of the deliveryman, we received a full tank of oil today. The operator couldn’t initially get his machine to work,
so he spent some time, whilst we trembled in trepidation, tinkering with dials.
Before the rain set in, I cut the grass and Jackie carried on clearing and tidying the rest of the garden.
Having spotted that a number of birds have been tearing strips off our roofing insulation for nest building, she has netted up the entrances in continuing the avian warfare begun yesterday against the greenfinches.
Whilst she was at it, she also blocked the route to last year’s starling nest.
She cleaned out the Waterboy feature and set it going again.
Back inside, as feared, we found the boiler wasn’t working. This, we discovered, seemed to be because Jackie had turned the living room wall thermostat to zero when we ran out of fuel. She turned it up. The light came on on the reset button. When it was depressed, as the instruction book suggested, we had lift-off. We will be having the device serviced anyway, just to be on the safe side.
This afternoon the rain desisted and we continued weeding and tidying.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s lemon chicken; sweet potatoes; and sautéed leeks, mushrooms, broccoli, and bacon; followed by apple strudel and custard. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.
Some weeks ago I wrote of a contact who had come to me through this blog, and left my readers with the prospect of a story. This post is that story, the result of a collaboration between me and Dr Neil Gibbs.
Dr Neil Gibbs recently purchased a copy of the Bird Lovers’ Manual ‘How to Know British Birds’ from a well-known internet auction site.
He was delighted to have found this treasure,
and intrigued by the child’s pencilled inscription inside the front cover.
Who was this young lady?
The name suggested a very popular singer/songwriter from the 1960s and ‘70s; Sandy Denny. Neil sought confirmation of this by researching biographies of the Fairport Convention singer/songwriter, who made successful solo albums during the second of these decades. Interestingly, in these books the only home mentioned was Worple Road. Stanton Road is an L-shaped side road off that main thoroughfare between Wimbledon and Raynes Park.
Our researcher’s next step was to type Stanton Road into Google, which took him to my blog where he learned that I had grown up just 24 dwellings away from S. Denny.
He left a comment on my blog asking if I had known the Denny Family. I responded with an e-mail saying I had, and inviting a telephone conversation.
Without giving away his thoughts Neil asked whether I knew of a Denny family living in Stanton Road. I did, and it was, of course, Sandy who had, at least in the 1950s, lived at 53 Stanton Road. I could be sure of that.
I was unable to be certain whether this photograph features a Stanton Road or a Worple Road home. It could indeed be either.
I can happily vouch for the veracity of the Stanton Road address. I lived there from 1944 until 1960 when I was 18 and Sandy would have been 12.
Sandy Denny died tragically young (aged 31yrs) in 1978, but her contribution to folk music is being recognized this month (April 27th 2016) when she will be inducted into the BBC Radio 2 Folk Hall of Fame at an Awards ceremony in the Royal Albert Hall.
Two days ago I mentioned that our reception at The Fishers Pond had been so insulting that we left without a meal. A rather more generous complaint than mine would have been is detailed here in a copy of my sister Elizabeth’s e-mail received today:
‘After a recent visit when I was so well received and looked after by the staff team and enjoyed a really delightful meal I was eager to introduce my brother and his partner to what I had hoped would be another lovely evening and a new venue for them to try.
Unfortunately I was really shocked by the contrasting experience at reception. I had rung ahead and was told that a table would be made up for us right away and 20 minutes later we arrived at the venue. We waited a very considerable time at the reception area and eventually my brother’s partner walked around to the seating area and raised a menu to draw attention of the waitresses who on seeing her turned away ignoring her.
After some considerable time the member of reception staff arrived and when I gave my name and said that I had a table reserved, he abruptly said that we were early and we would have to wait for a table to be made up. I replied that we were not early and at the same time two other people arrived saying that they had a table booked. Without responding to me, or any other acknowledgement he spoke with the new arrivals, rudely speaking right across our little group and took the couple to their table leaving us standing open mouthed in surprise..
I am afraid this rudeness after already having been kept standing for some considerable time at the greeting area was too much for my guests and we therefore left without having a meal.
Even if there had been a delay in making up our table there were plenty of empty tables and at the very least we could have been appropriately greeted and offered somewhere to sit and wait.
Thank you for taking the time to read this complaint.’
This morning, we noticed a greenfinch pair pecking prize primulas in the front garden. Faster than it is possible to repeat that, The Head Gardener was out there investigating. She found that
the plants had been decapitated. Naturally she found a use for them.
Aaron almost finished weeding the brick paths, while Jackie continued clearing and planting the borders of the back drive. We are really quite ahead of spring this year.
This afternoon I finished reading Lupercal, being the second collection of the poems of Ted Hughes (1930-1998), one of our greatest modern poets, who served as Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.
The poems are mainly about the animal life he would have known in his native Yorkshire. His muscular language and powerful imagery, presented with supreme poetic skill, depicts the violence of nature, shrieking of the harsh landscape with which he would have been familiar. Just as he would have wrested his verbal sculpture from the world about him, we must wrestle with it fully to understand his work. I can’t say I totally succeeded, but I responded viscerally to the experience.
The final offering is Lupercalia.
Wikipedia tells us that ‘The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, or “Wolf Festival.” The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine Hill (the central hill where Rome was traditionally founded[8]), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. A known Lupercalia festival of 44 BC attests to the continuity of the festival but the Lupercal cave may have fallen into disrepair, and was later rebuilt by Augustus. It has been tentatively identified with a cavern discovered in 2007, 50 feet (15 m) below the remains of Augustus’ palace.’
This evening we dined at Dynasty in Brockenhurst. The food and service was, as usual, top quality. My main course was chicken chilli garlic, and Jackie’s was chicken tawa. We shared special fried rice, an onion bhaji, and an egg paratha; and both drank Kingfisher.
This afternoon, I finished reading Jonathan Dimbleby’s excellent history, ‘The Battle of The Atlantic’, the story of a series of ocean conflicts that occupied the best part of the Second World War. Having been born in 1942, I unwittingly, along with the rest of us at home, bore the consequences of the shortages of basic living requirements for a good decade after Victory in Europe Day three years later. But I kept my life. Unlike those many thousands of sailors of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Marine; not forgetting the German crewmen, who died such terrible deaths in the struggles to supply the Allies.
Dimbleby has written a thoroughly engaging book detailing not only the political and strategic decisions of the combatants, but also the horrors of the battles, and the effects on the lives of civilians ashore.
The author’s concentration on the conditions endured by both the merchant seamen and the enlisted crew-members brings home to the reader the horrific nature of those years at sea. His description of the consequences of the severe weather on navigation and the impossibility of prolonged survival in the water makes the scenes in and around the lifeboats in the film ‘Titanic’ seem like coping with a capsized pleasure craft in a municipal boating lake. It had, for example, never occurred to me that the vessels on the Arctic convoys could become so iced up that the weight of the frozen water on deck would be capable of sinking a ship.
Sam, after his solo Atlantic row, told us how the waves could toss his little boat considerable distances through the air. Dimbleby describes much larger vessels being given similar treatment.
Since the last few negatives of our March 2004 visit to Barbados are of the Atlantic’s multicoloured waves, albeit in the shelter of the Barbados shore, it seemed appropriate for me to scan them for today’s illustrations.
Tonight we dined on Jackie’s excellent chilli con carne and savoury rice, followed by treacle and apple tarts with thick cream.
