March 2018 – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Expect Equine Visitors

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With yesterday’s snow now but a memory, today held a real promise of spring.

The Culinary Queen made us a picnic lunch,

half of which we consumed in Whitemoor Pool car park, which, in common with all other such New Forest facilities offers a really rocky ride from the road, riddled as it is with murky pothole pools. Ponies had been there before us.

On our way to the moors, we had enjoyed the drive along Lower Sandy Down where primroses, daisies, and crocuses thrust through the cropped sward on the shadow-striated banks of its clear, flowing, stream. One garden contained a huge fallen tree.

Just outside Brockenhurst, I hoped the stains streaking the backs of the legs of a runner towing his dog was mud thrown up by his trainers from the soggy terrain.

As opined by Jackie, if you live in a New Forest village you must expect equine visitors to you garden or any patch of grass outside. So it is with Brockenhurst, where ponies basked in the welcome sunshine.

Back home, a wander around the garden with its own early afternoon shadows, made clear that our plants have all survived.

We dined this evening on Jackie’s succulent pork chops flavoured with mustard and topped with almonds; crispy roasted potatoes; crunchy carrots and broccoli; and red cabbage, peppers and onions in red wine, with which I finished the Chateauneuf.

“Book’s”

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First published in 1961, for most of my adult life Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch – 22’, has been acclaimed as one of the great novels of the twentieth century. Until now, I had never read it, yet my 1974 second-hand Corgi paperback copy mysteriously appeared in my library more than 40 years ago.

There are several reasons why I was deterred from opening this book. Firstly there are 478 very browned pages of small print. Secondly, the binding is Perfect. This is a low cost method of glueing individual unstitched pages to an adhesive coated spine. After a while the pages loosen and tend to fall on the floor.

This is particularly awkward if you are reading in bed. Okay, okay, I know it is not meant to last for 44 years.

My particular volume has stained pages. I fondly hoped this was caused by water, tea, or coffee. On the other hand, the previous owner could have had an incontinent cat.

I tend to question blurbs that claim a book is ‘brilliantly funny’, nevertheless the review extracts printed on the back cover are, in my view, surprisingly accurate.

It was on-line discussions with WordPress friend Uma that encouraged me to pick it up.

At times, sensitively poetic, Heller’s breathtaking prose often rampages at breakneck speed through the pages. Some of his descriptions of action seem brutally accurate. The sexuality is both erotic and indelicate; the detailed violence at times exhausting.

I understand Heller was a bombardier during World War II, but I am sure that the absurdity of events and characterisation here is aimed at all wars. As is my wont, I will attempt not to give away the story, but to speak of my impressions.

The film and TV series MASH never appealed to me and I only saw extracts by mistake. Unfortunately this, by association, put me off Heller’s book. Having read this I have investigated views on the web about any links or similarities. It seems I was in error to consider them in the same light.

The absurdity of war and its management is clearly what this book is about. The author’s brilliance is that he manages to convey stupid brutality, and self-serving incompetence in a hugely entertaining way. Paradoxical, repetitive, and logically irrational, it even has a character called Minderbender.

We are shown devious corruption and precarious self-aggrandisement. We see that this scale of management of events is impossible.

War, we know, is destructive. The real impact of this is brought home in the later stages of the book. Not only is it destructive of life, but of morals, of ethics, of faith, of trust, of relationships.

Yet, we want to know what happens to the major protagonist, and, finally, we are given a glimpse of hope.

I enjoyed it.

During their recent stay, Florence and Dillon discovered Arthur Rackham. This was in a shop selling framed prints that had been removed from now antique books. I was pleased to be able to give our granddaughter two of my unvandalised first editions.

The first was Undine, featured in my post of 17th May 2016; the second of Richard Wagner’s ‘The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie, translated by Margaret Armour, published in 1910 by William Heinemann in London, and Doubleday, Page & Co in New York

I published the Undine post before I began to place pages for the purpose directly onto my scanner. At that time I was photographing them, which is not such a faithful operation. There are 34 tipped in colour plates, protected by still pristine tissue sheets; and each scene in the drama is topped and tailed by exquisite vignettes. In order not to strain the spine of this book which is still in very good condition, I have simply selected

the front cover board, the title page, and six sample plates.

On the window sill of one of our spare bedrooms stands a breakfast set consisting of a plate, a bowl, and a mug, painted by Flo for me when she was very small. The crossword, the fire, and the books indicate her associations with me. I do hope our granddaughter, a fully paid up punctuation police person, will permit the preservation of the superfluous apostrophe on the mug.

Given that Flo and Dillon were on their way back to South Carolina, her books have been left with us for safe keeping. I was therefore able to read The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie again today.

For our dinner this evening, Jackie produced pork chops with mustard and almonds; roast potatoes; red cabbage with peppers and onions in red wine; crunchy carrots, and broccoli. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Chateauneuf.

Well Camouflaged

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More snow fell overnight and earlier this morning, so off we went for a forest drive.

Before this we had to listen to the chattering of the residents of the garden who were beginning to feel the cold.

We headed for Crow, where we lunched at the Farm Café. Jackie parked beside Leybrooke Bridge on Dragon Lane, and I took a few photographs of lanes

and stream.

Scattering of snow on the moors, like these around Burley blended with pools, gorse, grass, bracken, and trees to produce sweeping throws of natural wool yarn.

The hardy ponies clung to the shelter of wooded areas where they fed on holly and gorse. Normally the greys stand out well against the greenery around them. Today, however, they were very well camouflaged.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sublime sausage casserole, mashed potatoes and swede, crisp carrots and piquant cauliflower swede. I drank Cru de la Vallée du Rhone Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2015.

Forlorn

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Before I remembered I was supposed to be 75, the little boy in me became so excited that I dashed into the garden this morning to taste the icing on the cake.

After a few cups of coffee, with lumps in our throats, Jackie and I transported Flo and Dillon to Becky and Ian’s new home at Southbourne, near Emsworth, so that our daughter could drive them on to Matthew and Tess’s at Upper Dicker, for an overnight visit before returning to South Carolina via Canada, flying from Gatwick.

We then aimed for lunch at Westbourne’s Spice Cottage. Unfortunately this was closed. We then enjoyed a meal at the recently opened Darbar in Emsworth. This restaurant describes itself thus:

‘Muglai cuisine was introduced to India by the royal kitchens of the Mugal emperors who ruled from the 16th century onwards. Cooking was elevated to an art form.

Strongly influenced by Persian cooking from Iran, the food reflected the royal love of beauty: sumptuous, complex and sophisticated. Dried fruits, nuts and rich spices were incorporated into meat, vegetarian and rice dishes. Notable Muglai meals included biriyani, kebabs, kofta and delicacies from the tandoor. The Mugals also introduced to India the tradition of concluding the meal with desserts. The result was fragrant, heady and flavorsome, fit for royalty.

Darbar’s team of expert chefs bring the Mugal emperors’ cuisine to Emsworth.’

By and large this claim was justified. There was just one other couple with two small children also eating there. The aroma that assailed my nostrils on entering was rather less fragrant than I had hoped. I detected a whiff of some rather strong cleaning fluid sending me speculating about what they may have been subjected to the night before.

The menu contained some items marked with a chilli symbol indicating that customers could specify the required heat. I chose a meal containing a variety of seafoods, which featured such a symbol. The waiter explained that one of the ingredients was not available, and steered me towards nilgiri jheenga which had no picture of a chilli. I pointed this out and expressed my desire for heat. The staff member said he could make it spicy. In fact it was not hot at all, but tasty, colourful, and fragrant, as was the saffron and mushroom rice. Jackie enjoyed her authentic saag panneer. The layered paratha was excellent. Our desserts were shahi tukra and shrikhand. Both were delicately aromatic. Service was friendly and attentive. Jackie drank Diet Coke and I drank Cobra.

There was less snow in West Sussex than was still lying on the moors as we drove back into the New Forest,

where snow bearing boughs admired their beauty in limpid pools.

Pretty patterns were traced on rooftops at East End, where ponies played with the traffic and forlorn-looking donkeys shivered on the verges.

Housewarming

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Donna and Neil hosted a housewarming event in their lovely new house in Westmoors. A certain amount of necessary segregation took place in their extensive living room. The ladies, Donna, Shelly, Helen, Daphne, Ron’s sister Jackie, and my Jackie sat round the table beside the garden window, while Neil, Ron, Malcolm, and I watched the rugby. Bill, who was unwell, was sadly missed.

We were generously plied with and array of sandwiches, dips, and cakes; beer and wines. As Donna said “watching rugby requires a great deal of concentration”.

First we watched the match between England and Ireland on ITV.

We then switched to BBC for the Wales/France match. I was pleased to be able to provide a profile portrait of Leigh Halfpenny for my wife. He is not the one with the dreadlocks – that is the formidable 20 stone French captain, Mathieu Bastareaud.

Exercising Choices

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I undertook some minimal tidying in the garden this morning. Here are a few photographs of how it looks at the moment:

Many more daffodils are in bloom, including those in tubs and window boxes,

and those in beds like the Weeping Birch one

which also has its share of hellebores.

Raindrops settled still on such as these primulas that survived the snow.

We have many blooming camellias. The shady path is bordered by them.

It could be considered mandatory that a tour of our area should include Big Breakfasts at The Beach Hut Café on

Friar’s Cliff Promenade.

So it was today. Jackie brunched on the marginally more moderate Friar’s Breakfast while Flo, Dillon, and I all went for the Big one.

A number of people were out exercising their dogs;

others walked, jogged, or cycled.

Efforts at promoting fitness in Mudeford, for these two jet-skiers at least, were rather more strenuous.

Others basked in the sunshine or floated on the wing.

The usual fishing paraphernalia lay in tidy heaps on the quay.

Flags flapped in fortuitously reflective surfaces.

Our last visit was to Highcliffe Castle around which the young people wandered while I peered down the steps to the beach. This set has replaced the zig-zag sloping route used on 6th January 2016, now considered unsafe.

For our dinner the evening, Jackie produced her piquant cauliflower cheese with smoked haddock fish cakes and runner beans. Small portions were in order after our brunch. Flo’s favourite pudding, that gets her all of a quiver, is Grannie’s rice pudding with squirty cream. Naturally, this was served today. I finished the Navarra, and the young couple drank different soft drinks.

Standing Stones

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It is more than fifty years since Jackie and Helen enjoyed their ‘Stonehenge Sandwiches’. Since that time English Heritage and The National Trust have, between them restricted access and priced out all but those individuals who can afford £25 for a timed entry ticket and have on-line facilities for booking this on the day before. When Flo and Dillon wished to see some Neolithic standing stones, we suggested viewing

Stonehenge as we drove past,

and driving on to Avebury, which is far more user friendly. Unfortunately the road that Jackie had carefully memorised before setting off was closed. With the aid of Dillon’s mobile phone we were able to find an alternative route by narrow roads through the Vale of Pewsey, where

we trundled along behind a hay cart. Jackie sensed that the driver of a Land Rover chasing her was becoming rather frustrated. At the first opportunity he sped past. He remained between us and the hay for quite some time until he reached his own destination. It was a considerable while before the cart turned off, freeing us and the convoy in our wake.

Once clear of Salisbury we had stopped at a Harvester pub opposite Old Sarum Castle for lunch. My choice of meal was gammon steak with all the trimmings, and my drink was Marston’s pale ale. Should they wish, the others can speak for themselves.

On reaching Avebury we passed ‘the largest artificial mound in Europe, mysterious Silbury Hill [which] compares in height and volume to the roughly contemporary Egyptian pyramids. Probably completed in around 2400 BC, it apparently contains no burial. Though clearly important in itself, its purpose and significance remain unknown.’ (English Heritage website)

When we reached the henge itself we went our separate ways. I dawdled with my camera, seeing faces, figures, and even a horses head in this 10,000 year old monuments. There was quite a lot of evidence of mole activity.

We met up at The Red Lion, a 400 year old pub standing in the middle of the largest circle.

Flo and Dillon posed against the backdrop of the stones,

alongside a tree full of jackdaws.

Back at home, Jackie made pancakes for the others and brought me a plate of finger food to be enjoyed whilst working on this post. When the internet started misbehaving I poured myself more of the Navarra, and just managed to publish before the witching hour.

Lost In Clerkenwell

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As I sat at my computer this morning, a pair of long tailed tits attempted repeatedly to penetrate the double glazed windows beside me, possibly in order to keep me company.

Richard visited a little later, bringing the instruction manual for the hobs and returning our key. We had as enjoyable a conversation as always.

This afternoon I scanned another batch of colour slides from my Streets of London series. These are from June 2005

http://hidden-london.com/gazetteer/euston-square/ tells us that’In 1869 Euston Grove was extended south from Euston station through Euston Square to connect with Euston Road. The following year two lodges were completed at the grove’s intersection with Euston Road, both of which have now been converted to bars.’

This one is the Cider Tap. I believe the other building is called the Euston Tap. At the time of my photograph above, one of the buildings was being used by a charitable organisation with which I briefly carried out a consultancy role.

The two uniformed gentlemen at opposite corners of Florence Street, N1. are traffic wardens whose task it is to report parking violations. They are, of course most unpopular with drivers. The RAC has useful information on their website

I wonder how long that heap of rubble and cone cordon occupied this corner of Islington’s Waterloo Terrace before the kerb was repaired.

http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/london/n1_islington_oldparrshead.html updates this picture. ‘The Old Parrs Head was situated at 66 Cross Street. Closed in the mid/late-2000s, the pub has the alternative address of 290 Upper Street. The bar area is a shop, the pub name can still be seen in tiling above the ground floor.’ So, here in Islington the process described above in Euston Grove has been reversed. Uses of London’s buildings are constantly changing.

Pilates Central is situated at 10-12 Gaskin Street. Most of the residential accommodation there consists of flats or apartments. You could rent a three bedroomed one for £1,900 per week, or, if you prefer, purchase a 3 bed penthouse for £3,300,000.

This section of Islington High Street is tucked in between buildings adjacent to Angel, Islington tube station.

Wikipedia tells us that ‘Staple Inn [in High Holborn, N1] dates from 1585. The building was once the wool staple, where wool was weighed and taxed. It survived the Great Fire of London, was extensively damaged by a Nazi German Luftwaffe aerial bomb in 1944 but was subsequently restored. It has a distinctive timber-framed façade, cruck roof and an internal courtyard.

The historic interiors include a great hall, used by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The ground floor street frontage is let to shops and restaurants, required to use plainer signage than they do on less sensitive buildings. This building will be familiar with those that smoke “Old Holborn” tobacco, as formerly it featured on tins and pouches of this product, this logo is no longer in use.’

During my pipe-smoking days I often bought pipes, tobacco, and various paraphernalia from Shervington’s, the last outlet on the right. Now permanently closed it was one of the last such specialists I once frequented. As one gentleman I passed when we were both smoking quipped “there are not many of us about now”. Declining smoking and increasing rentals drove most of them out.

With his back to Staple Inn, facing down High Holborn towards us near the junction with Brooke Street stands Albert Toft’s bronze Royal Fusiliers war memorial.

This is where I get a bit lost because I can’t read the road signs. I think this is part of the Leather Lane market;

as is this corner of Greville Street;

and I’m pretty sure I took this one from Holborn Viaduct. Is that Mount Pleasant, and what? The car park was probably temporary and will have been built over by now.

Finally, we have another view of The London IMax Cinema from the corner of Sutton Walk, SE1

This evening the four of us dined on Jackie’s exquisite sausage casserole, with perfectly cooked carrots, broccoli, green beans, and mashed potato and swede. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Don Lotario, gran reserva Navarra 2009.

P.S. wdeod’s comments below are a useful supplement to this post.

A Stag Party

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Becky and Ian returned this morning to their home at Emsworth. This afternoon Jackie drove Flo, Dillon and me out for a drive in the forest.

On the way to Beaulieu, Flo spotted a row of antlers among the gorse on the moors. They belonged to a string of stags. Jackie turned the car round and returned to the spot, where the animals still congregated. As long as we stood still and kept our distance, cervine curiosity kept them interested. When I edged forward, slowly at first they turned tail and suddenly rushed back into the golden covert.

In the foreground of this landscape are some of the many pools springing all over the forest at the moment.

As we approached Beaulieu an obliging pony put on a display of disrupting the traffic for our family visitors.

We visited The Yachtsman’s Bar at Buckler’s Hard for refreshments.

A number of yachts and motorboats were moored in the harbour.

We made a small diversion down to the beach at Tanner’s Lane where we watched a helicopter flying across the Isle of Wight.

The next stop was at Lyndhurst where, in the churchyard of St Michael & All Angels, Flo and Dillon were shown the grave of Mrs Reginald Hargreaves, otherwise known to the world as Lewis Carroll’s Alice. Dillon produced these selfies, while I photographed the stone commemorating Anne Frances Cockerell which I suspect was that of a 23 year old who probably died in childbirth, leaving her husband to live on into the next century.

I also photographed roofs of the Crown Hotel and adjacent buildings,

while Flo crouched to focus on the street below, before she and I photographed each other.

The next grave to be visited was that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, complete with pipe. It was Flo who captured these images whilst I focussed on her and Dillon.

This was in the graveyard of

Minstead Parish Church. Only the first, vertical, picture of these last seven is mine. The others are Flo’s. The list of rectors, beginning in the thirteenth century, bears out the age of the shattered, regenerated, yew tree to the left of the last photograph, said to be at least 700 years old.

Back home, we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips with mushy peas, pickled onions, and gherkins.

Omitted From The Talking Book

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Yesterday evening, Becky, who with Ian also stayed overnight with Flo and Dillon, was hunting in the library for James Joyce’s ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’. She had been listening to it on the radio. I knew where it was, but it was inaccessible at the moment. This morning I moved items blocking the passage and brought it out for her. This is my Folio Society edition of 1965, with illustrations by Dodie Masterson. The coloured drawing is on the front cover board; the black and white ones are full page pictures in the text.

This book, in its slip case, has followed me around for more than half a century. Purchased only five years after I left Wimbledon College, a Jesuit grammar school, it contains descriptions of a Catholic child’s upbringing with which I could identify. Beginning in the language of a very small boy, my recollection of Stephen’s bed-wetting and how it is warm and comfortable at first, then goes cold, was an example of such reminiscence. Becky tells me that this has been omitted from the talking book version. I was happy to present her with the slender volume.

Dillon, hailing from South Carolina, had never seen ponies roaming free before. Becky therefore offered to drive him and Flo on an equine foray. I accompanied them to Burley and back via a somewhat circuitous route. On the way to the village we encountered a number of ponies on the moor. They mostly seemed rather young, and less inquisitive that we would expect from older ones, as they went about the business of eating grass and gorse. Interestingly, they were very tolerant of Scooby’s attention.

We stopped at Burley where the young couple explored the witchy and other tourist shops. The fudge outlet was popular. Becky’s experience was so hilarious that at this point I hand the keyboard to her.

‘I noticed a bag of Marmite Fudge and on hearing the surprise in my voice the lady in the shop asked me, tentatively, if I would like to try it. There was a long pause before I weakly said yes. She sliced a very small piece off the block and then said, “Oh no you won’t want that much”, cut it in half and finished her sentence, “because it’s hideous.” I popped it in my mouth and just looked at her. Speechless. “It’s interesting.” I said politely. She replied, “I think it tastes like you’ve accidentally poured gravy all over your apple crumble.”‘

As we left the village, our guests were treated to the classic pony traffic disruption. In this they were assisted by a partial road closure furnished with temporary traffic lights. A string of the animals trooped across the road. One turned back to the other side to sample some tasty looking ivy dangling over a fence. This creature couldn’t make up its mind which side of the road was more attractive. As the lights changed from red to green no further progress was possible until it had stopped crossing and recrossing the tarmac.

This evening Jackie, utilising all her new cooking appliances, produced an excellent roast chicken meal, including Yorkshire pudding, roast and sweet potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, manges touts, sage and onion stuffing, and tasty gravy. Jackie and Ian drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Chateauneuf du Pape 2015