December 2016 – Page 3 – derrickjknight

Flying Off Into The Sunset

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This afternoon we drove to Lymington and to Molly’s Den in Old Milton for some successful Christmas shopping.

During my early motoring days many cars were still fitted with trafficators like this one (photo from Wikipedia). There was one on either side of the car. These would click up to indicate in which direction the driver was intending to turn. If it didn’t work you had to use hand signals and hope the driver behind understood what you were doing.

This car we followed along the road used one of these to indicate turning left.

When we emerged from the antiques emporium the late, lowering sun burnished bracken and ponies alike. The last of the creatures in this set of pictures yanked away at brambles and gorse as a variation on the customary diet of grass.

Later still the warm rays drew mist from the dampened terrain;

and finally, a passenger plane seemingly leaving Southampton airport, flew off into the sunset.

Back at home we dined on roast duck, boiled and mashed potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and spinach, followed by steamed syrup pudding and Cornish ice cream. I finished the shiraz.

Playing With Dad’s Toys

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Today may have been exceedingly dull, but it was also incredibly mild for mid-December.

The orange poppy bud in this cluster is from our patio. Normally we expect these to flourish in Spring and Summer. This year they have never stopped. The pink rose, For Your Eyes Only, has clusters of buds and small shoots that are more evident in the deep red Love Knot. Winchester Cathedral is having a further flush, and this white clematis, although somewhat bedraggled, still performs.

This afternoon Jackie drove us to Margery and Paul’s home in Bitterne for their annual Christmas sing-song. Here the friendly little group sang a mixture of traditional carols like ‘Silent Night’, folk songs such as ‘Waltzing Matilda’, and fun numbers like ‘I’m ‘Enery The Eighth, I Am’. Lynne ably led the singing, Mary played piano beautifully, and the rest of us did our enthusiastic best. Margery had been the pianist for the first number.

Afterwards Jackie and I went on to Elizabeth’s where she fed us on authentic spaghetti Bolognese followed by tasty apricot tart and cream. Jackie drank Peroni and I can’t remember which Australian red wine Elizabeth and I enjoyed.

Elizabeth was on grandparent duties, so we had the added bonus of a short time with Adam and Thea, before Jackie drove them to a party and returned to join my sister and me and my delightful great-nephew Jasper.

Adam’s childhood toys have remained at his mother’s home, so Jasper, three in January, was happy to wave his parents goodbye, wishing them “a lovely time” and remain with his GeeMa to play with them.

Jasper is a dab hand at spearing chips and sausage with a fork and dipping them into ‘red sauce’, which Elizabeth had to keep topped up.

Our next stop was a short visit to Mum during which we made her comfortable for the night.

Boat Maintenance

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This morning I printed some pictures for Christmas presents, which it would be premature to publish here.

This afternoon I scanned another batch of colour negatives from early 1986.

During that prolonged winter, Sam’s and Louisa’s expressions show quite clearly how cold it was when Matthew, dubbed by Louisa ‘the best big brother ever’, took them out for a buggy ride from Gracedale Road.

It was clearly much more cosy when he read them a story.

At 10.19 one morning Louisa bounced up and down, possibly trying to dislodge her mother and brother from bed. Sam was not impressed. The bedside lamp was made from a stone hot water bottle gained from our ‘Mudlarking’ days.

That year snow lay on the ground for the first three months. It would have been after that when Jessica, Sam, and I spent a week in Mary Dewsberry’s holiday home in Haslemere. The evidence for this is the farm track up which we walked on a recce. Last year’s bracken and autumn leaves lingered in the country terrain.

Jessica, Sam and Louisa feeding ponies 1986

This may have been the occasion when we discovered that the two children both had allergies to horses, the touch of which caused their eyes to swell up alarmingly.

Under the cloak of a little coppice, Louisa made a diving effort to reenter her mother’s womb. Sam insisted that there was room for two.

Mary’s son, Nick, and his children Jack and Dora, welcomed Sam and Louisa into their boat maintenance crew. Louisa made a quick recovery after her early tip-up, and everyone set to with gusto.

This evening, Jackie produced succulent roast duck, suitably reduced spinach, boiled potatoes, and crunchy carrots and cauliflower. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Western Cape Fair Trade shiraz 2015.

Lunch At La Barca

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Jackie delivered me to New Milton Station this morning for me to catch the train to Waterloo for lunch with Norman. I didn’t get a seat until Southampton. I was lucky; many didn’t. The man in the foreground had recently received a replacement hip. At Southampton Central four more coaches were added, but they brought another load of cattle with them.

Norman and I met at La Barca, just around the corner from the side entrance to Waterloo Station on the Taxi Approach Road. The brief walk across this road, down the steps to Spur Road, and round to Lower Marsh is, on a sunny day, not a pretty one. Today wasn’t sunny.

The wall opposite the station offers a view containing the forest of cranes that is a fairly common view in the capital today.

Taxis ply their trade in both directions,

also queuing along Spur Road.

Baylis Road, opposite the end of this, runs past Westminster Millennium Green, featured a number of times since it was described by Steve White as ‘A Beautiful Setting’. The Italian flag flying on the right of this photograph shows how close the restaurant is to the station.

This protective cage may seem a little excessive, but it hasn’t escaped the graffiti merchants.

The lingering touch of autumn does its best to brighten Baylis Road where brickwork is receiving the attention of workers on a large telescopic platform.

The cheap and cheerful Chicken Valley rubs shoulders with the more upmarket La Barca doing its best with seasonal decorations. The snowflakes on the ground are in fact gobbets of chewing gum, found on many of our pavements and station platforms.

This young gentleman dined alfresco.

Across the road the La Cubana’s stall was taking a delivery from an open van.

Norman and I preferred to eat in comfort. We each enjoyed a superb leek and potato soup followed by a splendid veal cutlet served with an asparagus sauce, truffles, and roast potatoes. Our shared bottle of wine was an excellent house red Montepulciano. I needed nothing more to eat later.

The outside temperature shown on the car dashboard when Jackie collected me from the return train at Brockenhurst was 13 degrees. No wonder I felt overdressed.

Contrast

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Late this morning Jackie drove us to Mudeford for a visit to the quay, then on to Friars Cliff for brunch at the eponymous cafe.

Whilst I wandered around the harbour, Jackie enjoyed coffee in the cafe.

Looking out to sea, my ears were pounded by the white horses rumbling across the steely, turbulent, water’s surface, and crashing against the sturdy quayside;

shrieking of the squabbling gulls. The guests at the boisterous shindig being held against the backdrop of the most expensive beach huts in the country, joined forces to evict a jet gatecrasher.

Making good use of scoops of seawater, still ogled by hopeful scavengers perched on posts, the crew of a small fishing boat were engaged in cleaning up at their docking area.

As always, neatly stacked on the quay, lay buoys and ropes between towers of crusted crab baskets.

The entrance to the harbour lies beyond a protective spit. At once, the squeals were silenced and the water became still as rippled sheets of reflective glass. In fact the only sound was a feeble squeak emitted by the open beak of an adolescent cygnet.

Anchored boats made no motion, even when the gulls took off and landed on their gunwales. The outboard motor in the first photograph reminded me of one Jessica bought secondhand in Newark and used for one day in Instow in Devon. She left her recently acquired dinghy in the bay facing our holiday house. In the morning the motor was gone. As was every other similar item from other boats. This was apparently the first time such a theft had ever occurred at that location. I guess that was another example of sod’s law.

A solitary angler chose a position at the point of aquatic contrast.

This evening we dined on meat samosas, chicken and spinach curry, and paratha. I finished the chianti.

Promise

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Today was ultra gloomy, but with promise of good things to come. Now it is much milder again, the garden appeared to have forgotten the recent day of frost.

I made a start on the winter clearance. A couple of weeks ago, Aaron had extracted a clump of badly positioned bamboo from the Oval Bed. I stuffed this into orange bags in readiness for a trip to the dump.

Next was pruning roses. I had expected to be cutting them right down, but there were so many freshly burgeoning buds, that this became a dead-heading exercise, as in these Absolutely Fabulous and Love Knot.

Some actual blooms, like the white Kent and the red Deep Secret, had survived the freeze.

Elsewhere, Vibernum Bodnantense Dawn is in bloom,

and there are new buds on still blooming Clematis Star of India.

The Head Gardener prevented me from waxing lyrical about the seeds of the Japanese anemones ready to be spilled for germination, by pointing out that in this country they propagate by means of underground tendrils.

This evening we dined on chicken, tomato, and mozarella pasta bake with peas. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Via di Cavello chianti 2014.

Alfresco Dining

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There are still plenty enough crab apples on our trees to attract blackbirds daily. This morning I watched them eating. They are quite territorial over their meal table, tending to deter unwelcome guests. They prefer to approach the fruit on the higher branches. If they do not drop them onto the plants below, they are capable of swallowing them in one go.

Later this afternoon, diverting to observe the beach huts burnished by sunset over Friars Cliff, we drove to Curry’s/PC World at Christchurch for some Christmas shopping.

This evening we dined at Lal Quilla in Lymington. My choice was Purple Tiger (tiger prawns and aubergine) and Jackie chose Harayali chicken (not sure if I’ve spelled it correctly, but it is spinach based). We shared mushroom rice, tarka dal, and a paratha; and both drank Kingfisher.

Lunch At The Village Shop

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Today, Jackie drove us to and from Upper Dicker to visit Mat, Tess, and Poppy. We had the added bonus that Becky was staying there for the weekend.

Our house stands beside the A337 which takes us all the way to the Cadnam roundabout where we join the M/A27 to Mat and Tess’s home. I amused myself photographing the A337 through the car windscreen.

After a large group of walkers had completed their meal in the shop cafe, we all took our places at the large pine table.

We can’t remember the name of Jackie’s choice of avocado, bacon, tomatoes, and perfect fried eggs on toast.

Becky enjoyed burger, chips, and salad;

while my selection was coq au vin.

Matthew was happy with a couple of massive, meaty, sausage rolls. He and I both drank an Oyster Bay merlot 2013. The others drank coffee and water.

Poppy received a selection from Tess’s chicken goujons, but preferred what she plundered from Becky’s plate. She was given a fork, but used it in the well-tried method of her age group, namely spearing the food with the tines in one hand and taking it off and stuffing it into her mouth with the other. It was, of course, soon abandoned. After all, you can’t hold a delicacy in each hand if one is holding an item of cutlery. When she was replete, Poppy wiped the surface clean with a tissue, looking very pleased with herself.

Our happy, and contented, granddaughter then posed for a family group photograph with her parents. On Tess’s Specials Board behind them can be glimpsed her little bilingual joke.

The sun was setting above Coldharbour Lane as we set off for home. We needed no evening meal.

A Losing Battle

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This morning we drove to Milford on Sea to search out a door handle in the architectural salvage outlet there. The establishment was closed, so we consoled ourselves with

brunch at The Needle’s Eye Cafe. I enjoyed the Maxed up Breakfast while Jackie chose her customary jacket potato with cheese and beans.

Whilst a speedboat laid a trail across The Solent;

gulls squealed into the car park;

and intrepid sea fishers set up their rods;

Cloudscape with Jesus beams over Isle of Wight

the sun fought a losing battle with the indigo clouds over the Isle of Wight. Jesus beams provided the brush strokes to the cloudscapes and a slash of light on the water.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tender beef stew, sauteed potatoes, and crisp carrots, cauliflower, and green beans. I finished the Fleurie and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

On Thin Ice

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A couple of nights ago I finished reading the novel on which my views had been sought. Today I e-mailed my observations to my friend, the author. As the book is not my work, I will say no more about it here.

Andrew Day, a local carpenter, visited this morning and successfully completed two tasks left over from our predecessor’s D.I.Y. disasters. There will be more bodges for him to put right.

This afternoon I scanned a batch of colour negatives from December 1986.

The first, of Jessica at a family Christmas party at Caxton in Cambridgeshire, I converted to black and white in an effort to compensate for the graininess caused by fast film and a very small crop.

Louisa took a break from the festivities,

and a short while later, at home in Gracedale Road, was in fine dressing-up fettle, as was Sam.

Here, I think, Jessica was writing up her notes.

This was the last year I remember a decent amount of snow in London. Matthew took his little brother and sister for a sledge ride on allegedly thin ice beside the Waterfowl Sanctuary on Tooting Common. They were accompanied by a neighbour, the lady with the leggings whose name I disremember. Alison Barran, if you are reading this, I need your help.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNoFbwxbDfs&w=560&h=315]

I have Johnny Cash to thank for the word ‘disremember’.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty beef stew, boiled potatoes, and perfectly cooked carrots, cauliflower, and green beans. On preparing the vegetables I discovered an alien being in the beans. We resisted the temptation to resuscitate the chilled caterpillar in order to rear a possibly exotic butterfly. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I consumed more of the Fleurie.