June 2016 – Page 3 – derrickjknight

Gooseberry

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This morning Jackie drove us around the east of the forest.

At East End we passed some ponies chomping by the roadside.

It was a narrow lane, so Jackie drove on and parked in a passing spot for me to walk back to photograph the scene.

This is a small farming area with fields enclosed by hedgerows.

Back up the hill and round the bend, I observed a novel method of clearing ponies from the road.

What this driver did was to give the rear end of the white pony a gentle nudge with the vehicle’s nose and keep creeping forward.

In the field alongside stood, in awe, a little foal with a thought bubble above its head bearing the caption ‘Will I be like you when I grow up?’ I am not sure, however, that this was not a Falabella (named after its Argentine breeder, Julio) such as we encountered at St Leonard’s, further down the road.

This adult horse, lost in a group of larger ponies, rarely exceeds 75 cm. in height.

Two pairs in this group were indulging in heavy petting,

which extended to love bites,

which was all rather difficult for the unfortunate, mournful-looking, gooseberry.

We visited the Lavender Farm at Plaitford where we enjoyed coffee and plants along with many other visitors.

Even before entering we could see that lupins and foxgloves were in abundance.

Many more plants at their peak were also on sale;

and, of course, numerous types of lavender,

also growing in the gardens. I am not sure which bird is represented by the avian topiary in the centre distance of this shot,

but this is surely an elegant swan.

Since our last visit a blue painted plough has been added to the interesting artefacts enhancing the beds.

This evening we dined at Dynasty in Brockenhurst. My choice of main meal was Ayre (fish) jalfrezi with special fried rice. We shared onion bahji, tarka dhal, and egg paratha. Jackie and I drank Kingfisher, and Sheila drank sparkling water.

The Beachcomber

I began dead-heading roses this morning.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Barton on Sea via Milford on Sea. We stopped off at Milford for Sheila to buy a stamp for New Zealand and maybe some wool from the shop that was also a Post Office. The Post Office had been permanently closed a fortnight ago and the wool shop was closed for lunch.

We had more success at Barton, because the Beachcomber Café was fully open for business, and we spent a pleasant time in their garden overlooking the sea.

The gate in a low fence at one end of the plot is now nailed up. This prevents wanderers venturing past the valerian and irises and dropping off the end of the crumbling cliff;

something I all but did, not realising the sward would so abruptly disappear, the first time I photographed the paragliders who were out in force today.

I had been so engrossed in striding across the grass to get near the gliders that I almost walked off the edge. The cyclist in this picture has his black labrador running alongside him.

Today the fliers floated past the café.

This one was joined by birds in the air and by a plane high above them.

The dog-friendly café caters for people of all ages; children in buggies; older people in wheelchairs, with walking aids, and post-operative crutches.

The usual avian hordes scavenging for scraps included an imperious gull,

ravenous starlings,

and spritely sparrows.

The cake on the grass was tossed there by one of the customers. Jackie picked it up and placed it on the plate to encourage a photo opportunity. The last of the starlings was, we think, a juvenile. Perhaps that is why it was content to attempt to feed off an empty plate.

Our plates this evening were far from empty. They contained Jackie’s superb sausage casserole, creamy mashed potatoes, and crisp carrots, cauliflower, and runner beans, followed by sponge cake or rice pudding or both. She drank Hoegaarden, I drank Gilbert and Gaillard Chateauneuf du Pape 2014, and Sheila drank sparkling water.

Around The Harbour

This morning Jackie drove us to Lymington Quay where, after a short wait watching the harbour, we boarded Puffin Billy for a thirty minute tour.

Approaching midday in sultry weather, most visitors were taking a rest on the many available seats.

One of these watchers was prevailed upon to walk her little boy around the quay to see the ducks.

He became very excited when the Isle of Wight Ferry terminal train crossed the bridge over the untroubled water.

A colourful conversation took place on a moored boat.

Once started out on our trip in hazy midday sun, apart from one exception, shapes became more important than colour. A young family in the prow seats watched as we neared the yachts, moored at a cost of £10,000 per annum.

Our friendly guide pointed out the tallest ship, built in 1913, that is on the market for a cool £3,500,000.

We were rather too close for me to photograph the whole thing, so I had to be satisfied with a man up the mast.

On our return we skirted the opposite side of the harbour, so I took the shot then.

An interesting array of footwear was sported by our fellow passengers.

The exception to monochrome was the view of Lymington Marshes.

The Mallards hitching a lift on a dinghy insisted on being shown in all their glory.

Back home the sun continued burning, but, now no longer directly overhead, was more conducive to photography.

A scarlet climbing rose has now taken over the wisteria’s arbour.

Our more flamboyant poppies are now coming into bloom;

this one is reflected by a pink hydrangea in Elizabeth’s Bed.

This rose in The Oval Bed is labelled Pink Abundance. We are not sure about the colour description.

The Rose Garden received a good sprinkling.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent chicken jalfrezi, vegetable rice and samosas; followed by her sponge cake. She drank Hoegaarden, I finished the Fleurie, and Sheila drank water.

Mothers’ Protection

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I watered the pots in the front garden this morning.

More pink roses bloom on the trellis each day;

and clematis Piilu

and a tiny solanum are now making their way across the garage door frontage.

New arrivals in the Rose Garden include Mamma Mia,

Rosa Mundi,

and Deep Secret;

and my favourite rhododendron is coming to fruition.

The peach rose is reaching its peak,

and attracting bees.

This afternoon we took Sheila on a forest driveabout to the North of the forest.

A group of ponies on the far side of Burley ignored a Give Way sign as they held up the traffic.

While we were watching another group, including a couple of foals, drinking in the stream at Ibsley,

an alarming neighing was set up by two other adults of these normally silent animals. There was a clattering of hooves on the tarmac to our right, and a thudding on the sward on the other side of the water, as the spooked ponies scattered. The foals clambered up the bank at the calls of their dams. This one nuzzled its relieved parent.

These creatures reconvened on the road.

Meanwhile others tore frantically around the field until a loose collie dog ran off and joined its owners out of sight. The horses then quietly regrouped under the trees.

Some homeowners leave carrots out for ponies. This mother crunched on one, whilst her foal satisfied itself with grass to the right of the cattle grid protecting the house entrance.

As I disembarked from the car, the youngster made its way back to its Mum,

and had a scratch under the protection of her flanks.

We stopped off for a drink at The Royal Oak in North Gorley, then Sheila treated us to a meal at The Plough in Tiptoe. We all chose gammon steak, eggs, chips, and peas. My drink was Ringwoods Best Bitter. Probably because I had also had a pint at The Royal Oak, I wasn’t able to fit in a dessert.

There’s Some Corner Of An English Churchyard

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Over breakfast this morning, I photographed two more angles of view through the kitchen window;

and afterwards, The Rose Garden.

We have many banks of aquilegias.

Compassion blooms on the Dead End Path arch,

And we have our first bottle brush flower.

A Painted Lady butterfly availed itself of the gravel camouflage.

This afternoon we visited St Nicholas’s church in Brockenhurst. Jackie and Sheila led the way into the exhibition inside;

Jackie pausing to inspect the eighteenth century gravestones.

I wandered around the beautiful landscaped graveyard, where light glinted through trees and the ground fell away allowing the monuments to ramble down the hillside.

After my following exploration, I joined the ladies inside where a couple of volunteers within were giving them an explanatory history of the World War One burials in the churchyard.

They told Jackie that this yew tree dated from the twelfth century.

This sculptured stump must also have been a substantial giant.

Past the tree I came to a set of steps and a path leading down to level ground.

Flashes of red against clean, cream background suggested I was approaching the memorial symbolised by the sculpture at the entrance to the church. This was a brilliant fern cut out from weathered metal, familiar to anyone familiar with an All Blacks rugby jersey. The brilliance lay in the figures silhouetted in the work. I crouched a bit to ensure that the background grass made this clear.

Indeed, I had. Ninety three members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force soldiers from World War One lie buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery attached to this church.

The farming village of Brockenhurst soon became a World War 1 hospital village, from 1914 caring for wounded and sick Indian troops, and from 1916 the No. 1 HQ New Zealand hospital. Those who died therein were buried in this churchyard.

Of the 93 New Zealanders, 12 were Maoris, only one of whom died from wounds. This was Private Kiri Rapona. Clare Church’s book, which I bought, gives this young man five more years of life than does this gravestone. One other drowned and the rest succumbed to illness.

One Indian is Sukha.

There are also three unknown Belgian civilians who share a plot.

These plots are very well tended and maintained by New Zealanders in UK.

Of the three hospitals from those years, the only one still standing is now the Balmer Lawn Hotel, which keeps its own living lawnmowers.

The very friendly couple who were very informative about the church and this particular section of its history, pointed out the Victorian stained glass in the twelfth century stonework of the windows.

This evening Jackie produced succulent chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potato, and crisp carrots and runner beans for our dinner. Sheila’s dessert was rice pudding, and Jackie’s profiteroles. As I had consumed two pieces of chicken I passed on this. But I did drink more of the Fleurie. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and Sheila, sparkling water.

It was Rupert Brooke, an Englishman who did die in 1915, who is immortalised by his own verse: ‘And if I should die, think only this of me, that there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. I have adapted his words for today’s title.

Perseverance Rewarded

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Until 2.30 p.m. when Jackie drove us to Brockenhurst to collect our friend Sheila who is staying with us for a few days, she continued sterling maintenance in the garden while Aaron and Robin continued with the fencing.

The erigeron outside the French windows featured as part of yesterday’s kitchen door shot. Here is a close-up of some of them.

Walking down the back drive to open the gate for our two marvellous garden maintenance men, I admired, on the bordering beds,

snapdragons;

wallflowers and valerian;

and rose Féliticé Perpetué, now draping the dead stumps.

The heucheras in the Rose Garden provide stiff competition for the roses themselves.

Here, the geranium palmatums lead us in,

and aquilegias front Schoolgirl and Golden Showers.

Ballerina dances with honeysuckle alongside the entrance arch.

The rose Hot Chocolate in the front garden is, however, just ahead of that in the back.

Festooning the front trellis are two different depths of pink roses.

Here is a view across the Cryptomeria Bed to Elizabeth’s Bed.

The peach coloured rose photographed yesterday is further open today.

The smallest hoverfly I have ever seen landed on For Your Eyes Only.

I have striven for a long time to capture a bee in flight. Today my perseverance was rewarded.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s lemon chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I drank more of the Fleurie, and Sheila drank water.

Around Our Patch

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Yesterday, I took a tour around my Social Work patch from the 1970s and ’80s. Today I took several around the domestic one I share with The Head Gardener.

I began by stepping through the kitchen door into the patio. The large window box filled with mimuluses and pansies stands in earth which was so poor that we believed it to have been used as a midden in more recent times than one would imagine. Jackie did a very thorough job of getting rid of the rubbish and replenishing the soil under and around the planters. The plentiful erigeron plants have populated the rest of the garden. Between one clump and the window box can be seen flowers of one of the two thriving thyme plants I transplanted from the blue painted Butler sinks in our first year. The wall by the path to the right is crammed with an assortment of planters.

This little patio rose has responded to feeding,

as has this peach coloured beauty.

There were just two blooms on straggly stems when we arrived. They will soon be cascading from stronger limbs.

We have a new rhododendron in the Palm Bed.

Passing this on the way to the Rose Garden,

where Altissimo stands sentinel,

I was reminded of a visit to a perfumer in Bergerac. This was with Emily and Alice a few years ago. They spent ages choosing a present for their mother, Heidi. The scents were most enticing. But they couldn’t match those emanating from our living blooms.

Petunias and geraniums in the foreground urn lead us to the entrance arch bearing Summer Wine, Madame Alfred Carière, and honeysuckle;

Chris Beardshaw introduces Festive Jewel;

and Magic Carpet is beginning to fulfil its function.

Even these wonderful aromas, however, are not as far-reaching as the sweet, heady, scent of the Cordyline Australis. Anything smelling less like a cabbage, (it is also called Cabbage Tree) I cannot imagine.

One of Jackie’s major tasks today was further planting of Elizabeth’s Bed. She can be seen in the centre here working on this.

I have mentioned before that geranium palmatum has taken over from honesty in its ubiquity. It can be seen dancing in synchronicity with

clematis Rouge Cardinal and rhododendron;

with rose Compassion;

with clematis Natacha;

and with foxgloves.

Lazy bees were about this afternoon. This one dusted its rear in an antirrhinum.

The pieris I brought in a pot from Sutherland Place is thriving in the centre distance of this bed, that also contains heuchera, marguerites, geraniums, bronze fennel, and, further right, out of shot,

iberis.

We have a solanum under the dead snake bark maple,

and Félicité Perpetué is now opening in the front garden.

This evening we dined on pork rib rack and vegetable risotto followed by profiteroles. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2014.

Around My Patch

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Today I scanned another dozen colour slides from the Streets of London set. These were made in May 2004, by which time I was working as a therapeutic counsellor in Beauchamp Lodge Settlement in Little Venice’s Warwick Crescent.

A turning off this small crescent was Blomfield Villas, the address of this building bearing the Delamere Street W2. Once quite grand, this row of houses was split into flats, some at least of which were owned by Westminster City Council. These ladies asked to be included in the shot.

From 1974 to 1986 I was responsible for Westminster’s Area One Social Services Department. Here we have the end of Kilburn Park Road NW6 that forms a T junction with Shirland Road, running along the Northern side of my patch.

The Queens Park Estate was a key focal point. Many of the lovely little Victorian houses that were built in the Avenues had been replaced by the prize-winning modern architecture that formed a mugger’s paradise, and that was, after my departure, to find itself being radically altered for the safety of the residents.

I never saw this building in Ilbert Street without its boarding up.

My office was on Harrow Road. Several streets that had seen better days ran from that major road towards Queens Park tube station. Bravington Road is one. It was, however, the parallel Portnal Road that I used as my route one summer evening in the 1990s, when two young men, literally, jumped me with intention to mug. I told the story in ‘Mugging’. My assailants made their escape into the walkways of the above-mentioned prize-winning estate.

From my counselling rooms I would walk, once a fortnight, along Harrow Road to Harlesden for lunch with Norman. Victor Road,

Trenmar Gardens,

and Scrubs Lane were all turnings off this thoroughfare. There was apparently a great deal of money spent on the film ‘Troy’. I didn’t see it, but I understand it wasn’t a success.

Making up this dozen, is ‘Shakespeare’s Head’ at the corner of Foubert’s Place and Great Marlborough Street, W1. This, unfortunately, was not in my patch.

This evening, Elizabeth joined us for dinner at Dynasty in Brockenhurst. My choice was king prawn vindaloo and special fried rice. We shared an egg paratha and a cauliflower bahji; and all drank Kingfisher. The food was as excellent, and the service as friendly and efficient as always.

‘Did You See Those Chairs?’

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On another dull morning I scanned the last few colour slides from 1980.

In October Becky enjoyed pushing the buggy in Tooting Common.

There was someone in it. That was Sam.

Jessica was also on the walk.

Here is Matthew the following month,

and in December with Sam, who,

on 25th was helped by Michael to open his first Christmas presents,

And, of course, we had a festive tree.

This afternoon we took a trip to New Milton to buy a posting tube for Pauline’s parcel, post it, and take a waistcoat to Johnson’s Cleaners. We began with the tube from the art suppliers. We made up the parcel outside the shop, parked a bit nearer the Post Office, and went our separate ways – Jackie to the cleaners and me to the Post Office.

On the way I walked past two garden chairs of the perfect size for me, displayed outside Hand Made New Forest. Following the invitation, I tried them, and found them to be extremely comfortable.

When Jackie met me outside the Post Office a short while later I asked ‘Did you see those chairs?’. ‘I saw them,’ she replied with a broad smile, ‘and I sat in them’. ‘Shall we get a pair?’ was my next unnecessary question. We ordered a couple, of a different colour.

By early evening the weather had cleared enough for us to take drinks in the rose garden, where

Roserie de la Haie is flourishing;

and the mirror behind Golden Showers happily reflects the similar hued Laura Ford filling the gap between between the two levels of the climber.

This evening we dined on spicy pork with vegetable risotto, followed by profiteroles. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the malbec.

The Doggie Bird

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Ali, Peter, Becky, and Ian stayed overnight. When we had all surfaced we drove to the Beachcomber cafe in Barton on Sea for a brunch.

Ali and Peter look forever young.

Anyone familiar with my healthy café fry-ups may be surprised to see my smaller than usual plateful. Anyone who knows what I ate last night will not.

Jackie was satisfied with poached eggs and toast.

Soon afterwards our guests returned home, Ian driving his parents back to theirs. Last night Becky, as is often her wont, asked for a doggie bag to take home what she couldn’t eat. The very friendly waitress made one up.

This was it. Our daughter left it at our place.

This afternoon, Helen visited with her grandson, Billy, who successfully fought against being woken up.

Until early evening this had been a cold, blustery, and wet day. Then I was able to take my camera into the rose garden and photograph

Mum in a Million,

and, appropriately for today, Golden Showers, which has reached the top of the pergola.

Mr Pink provided fish and chips for our dinner this evening. We added pickled onions and gherkins; and onion rings from Becky’s doggie bird. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I didn’t.