Month: August 2020

A Vehicular Stand-off

A week or so ago I searched for a phone ringing to my right. I went through jacket pockets, opened cupboards etc – all to no avail. A while later the same thing happened. Jackie picked up the phone to my left which I thought had been silent. It was then I realised that the surfeit of wax in my left ear was now affecting my hearing; and I hadn’t imagined I would be unable to detect sound direction. This morning I kept an appointment for clearance at the Milford on Sea ear clinic. Most of the stubborn substance was removed, but I was given a date for another visit to complete the job.

We abandoned the idea of a walk along the clifftop because the car parks were filling up fast

and masks were not much in evidence.

Some couples were content to stand and stare at the pastel shades of the Isle of Wight and Hurst Castle in the haze that had set the fog warning sounding during the early hours.

We then tried Keyhaven where we were unable to park even if we had wished to scramble past visitors.

We proceeded along Saltgrass Lane to the spit which was again becoming decidedly overcrowded with visitors, some of whom were unaware that the shallows would deepen when the tide came in.

Once the lane bends to the right past the bridge the only possible passing spaces on what becomes a one track road would be the verges. These were all occupied by parked vehicles.

We soon approached a vehicular stand-off. The dark blue car in front of us sat nose to nose with the light blue model. The third picture in this series shows the intimacy of the snogging session. Eventually, seen in the next two shots, a mid-blue vehicle prised itself from its tight spot, leaving the lighter one the challenge of squeezing itself in. My maternal grandfather was fond of asking anyone who leapt into his vacant chair “would you be in my grave as quick?”. This driver was very unlikely to complete the manoeuvre with any turn of speed. We didn’t wait to see. We just got the hell out of there and went home to lunch.

During the afternoon we engaged in more sweltering watering and dead-heading activities until, early in the evening we drove for a while around the lanes less travelled.

In a field alongside Rodlease Lane

a group of small breeds of pony, one of whom studied us mournfully from behind the barbed wire fence.

In Brockenhurst it was the turn of ponies to block the road, one rather underfed mare still suckling her offspring.

Another had the good sense to stick to the woodland verges.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent sausage casserole; crispy duchess potatoes; and crunchy cauliflower and broccoli, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Argentine Malbec 2018.

Like Joyce’s Wet Bed

Early this sultry morning, before setting off to meet her sisters for lunch, Jackie carried out necessary garden irrigation which I continued after enjoying the lunch she had left prepared for me. After giving pots a fresh-water- and myself a sudorific-drenching I proceeded to a little dead heading that I had failed to ignore.

Aaron, working at Mistletoe Cottage, dropped in for a chat.

Later, my clammy shirt now cold, like James Joyce’s wet bed sheet (“When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold.” – ‘A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man” ),

I wandered around with my camera.

The random photographic results are all labelled in the gallery that can be accessed by clicking on any image each of which may be enlarged in the usual manner.

This evening we completed the watering and I cut off a few more heads before dining on spicy pepperoni pizza and plentiful fresh salad with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Carles.

Sweated Labour

On another sweltering, humid day we made short trips into the garden largely for the purposes of watering, mainly plants in hanging baskets.

Speaking for myself, I needed to wait until I had stopped soaking my T-shirt and recovered from my efforts before I was almost fit enough to wander around to admire our work and produce a few photographs.

As usual the images are titled in the gallery which can be accessed by clicking on any one. They include various petunias; a golden sunflower; a variety of dahlias; a bee on a geranium Rozanne; a bunch of begonias; mauve Japanese anemones purple and red fuchsia Mrs Popple; roses Margaret Merrill, Special Anniversary, For Your Eyes Only, Lady Emma Hamilton, Mamma Mia; and pelargoniums.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious liver and bacon casserole; boiled potatoes; and crunchy carrots and cauliflower, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hop House Lager and I drank more of the Carles.

Summer Holidays In The Woods

In an effort to avoid the holiday traffic and the intensely hot sapping humidity of the day we set off for a forest drive at 8 a.m.

Beside Ober Water which passes under Rhinefield Road ponies quietly grazed, cattle strode purposefully, cyclists and cars sped along;

sunshine dappled the woodland, reflecting trees and skies on the surface of shallow, bubbling, water

from which a splashing, excited, dog time and again retrieved a soggy tossed tennis ball.

Three different shoes and a rather useful looking pan had all been abandoned on the banks;

as they swooped from tree to tree and hunted among the roots I witnessed ample evidence that robins spend their summer holidays in the woods.

Cattle drank from the stream.

Early bracket fungus stepped up trunks further along Rhinefield Road;

bracken pierced the shadows along Mill Lane

where walkers and dogs were beginning to wander.

On Bisterne Close an inquisitive foal left its mother’s flanks in order to investigate the warm bonnet of our Modus. It took a loud application of a certain amount of vroom to shift the mohican-coiffed youngster.

Purple heather, such as this beside Holmsley Passage among which a lone walker tramps is brightening daily.

As usual, clicking on any image will access its gallery, individual members of which can be viewed full size and further enlarged if required.

Even when entering the garden for a watering session we were hit by a blast furnace, and the library dehumidifier required emptying twice today, when normally once every two days may suffice.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious liver and bacon casserole; creamy mashed potatoes, crunchy carrots; and tender green beans with which I drank Carles Priorat 2016, and the Culinary Queen abstained.

An Important Novel

‘Writer and playwright [James] Baldwin was born on August 2, 1924, in Harlem, New York. One of the 20th century’s greatest writers, Baldwin broke new literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his many works. He was especially known for his essays on the Black experience in America.’ This is an extract from https://www.biography.com/writer/james-baldwin

This afternoon I finished reading the author’s novel ‘Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone’ in which, according to the above-quoted website ‘Baldwin returned to popular themes — sexuality, family and the Black experience. Some critics panned the novel, calling it a polemic rather than a novel. He was also criticized for using the first-person singular, the “I,” for the book’s narration.’ My copy is a first UK edition published in 1968 by Michael Joseph.

In my view the novel was certainly not a polemic. It recounts the story of the life of a man of his times from mid-teens to middle age. The atmosphere of fear and mistrust underlying the life of the Black protagonist is never far from present but the book is far more than a rant. Leo’s struggles with relationships, both within and without the constraints of racial boundaries, both sexual and familial; his bisexuality reflecting the author’s own; finding a non-stereotypical place in the world, are conveyed with sensitivity, compassion, passion, and understanding. Yes, there is progressive seething anger, yet, to my mind, the author’s genuine humanity is the dominating factor.

Baldwin is a literary genius. His writing is eloquent, his fine descriptions elucidating and his complex characterisation credible.

I thought the first person singular enormously enhanced the impact of the book.

He was also very far sighted in his view that change would not come in his lifetime. Indeed, it seems that not much has been learned in the last half century. The author’s work has never been more relevant.

Today, the hottest day of the year, was largely overcast and humid. We began with a trip to the pharmacy at Milford on Sea for repeat medication. The coast road car parks were full to bursting. We continued to Ferndene Farm Shop where Jackie bought some new lavender plants in the uncrowded nursery section, but eschewed the queues to the main shop. We returned home where I spent much of the afternoon indoors and the head Gardener carried out essential watering..

This evening we dined on Jackie’s flavoursome cottage pie with superb al dente carrots and cauliflower, and tasty, meaty, gravy with which she drank sparkling water and I finished the Rioja.

Raindrops And Humidity

This drizzle-wet morning gave way to the hot, humid-wet afternoon on which I carried out a dead-heading exercise.

For those worried about our robin family, Jackie’s internet research has revealed that in summer the missing small birds abandon gardens for woods where a plethora of readily attainable food abounds. They can be expected to return when it takes less effort to follow gardeners around than to forage the fields and forest.

In the meantime we have butterflies like the Small Whites that sup from the verbena bonariensis.

The still bejewelled Deep Secret; the apricot Mamma Mia; and red Love Knot are examples of the Rose Garden Roses, while

along the Shady Path the red climber also retains raindrops.

Yellow rudbeckia Goldsturm and rich red crocosmia Lucifer grace the Palm Bed;

an intriguing gladiolus whose label has been eaten by slugs is propped up in the Oval Bed;

Yellow kniphofias need no support in the Cryptomeria Bed;

in other locations we have more lilies;

bronze fennel and sweet peas,

Japanese anemones and pelargoniums,

and dazzling dahlias.

Later this afternoon I made a minor contribution to Jackie’s extensive watering project. One lesson I have had to learn is that water from the skies does not reach plants in pots.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s cheese-topped classic cottage pie, carrots, and mange touts with tasty beef gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Rioja.

Do Horses Have Twins?

Today, carrying a freshly prepared picnic lunch, Jackie drove us out to the currently sleepy village of Hale in the north west of the New Forest. This proved to be a good choice because all the other tourist spots we passed were quite busy.

We turned off Roger Penny Way into Woodgreen Road running between Godshill Village Hall and The Fighting Cocks pub.

A woman with a mobile phone bent to photograph a portrait of a donkey standing in the middle of the road;

while one of their number stroked another ass her companions were intrigued by one more,

beside a somnolent companion still sporting its winter coat while waiting for the postman, resting its head against the hall wall, on which hangs a defibrillator.

Judging by the number of tiny foals sleeping like any infant on the dry grass beside the pub there has been a recent spate of births.

It didn’t take the young ladies from outside the hall long to pet this one awake.

We continued to Hale Lane from which we could look down on a quilted landscape, and enjoy the sunlight brightening a bracken hedge and dappling the trunk of a mighty oak.

On a previous visit to Hale, featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2019/03/21/posing-comes-with-the-job/ I had photographed these happy thatchers working on

this lengthy roof, now well weathered in.

We enjoyed our picnic on a bench beneath a spreading oak canopy near the

village hall, also bearing a wall-mounted defibrillator.

At lunchtime during normal term-time the green would have resounded with the cries of schoolchildren – not so 2020; the quiet was so still that voices could be discerned on the other side of the open space which belonged to

resident ponies and foal

which eventually trooped off to the shady outskirts.

Passing Wootton Bridge on the way home we spotted a pair of foals prompting us to speculate about whether horses produced twins. Several sites on Google leave us in no doubt that this is a very rare event, the odds against a healthy mare and both twins surviving are 10,000 to 1. We had not seen twin youngsters.

This evening we dined on tangy pork chops coated with mustard and almonds; crisp roast potatoes, including the sweet variety; tender sweetheart cabbage; crunchy carrots; and tasty, meaty gravy with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank a smooth Flores de Soligamar Rioja 2018.

“Not Where You Want To Meet Something Coming Round The Next Bend”

Quite early this morning we drove along

Mount Pleasant Lane beside which

sweeping landscaped fields harboured horses, some sporting fly-protection masks.

Our original destination was South Sway Lane, along which

free manure is usually on offer. All that is required from people helping themselves to this gardeners’ gold is that we leave replacement empty bags for those

that we load into our cars. As always, this morning a quantity of flying livestock came with the horse droppings, so as soon as we arrived home I transported this lot to the compost bins.

Before that we drove around for a while, pausing at Longslade Bottom where I wandered among

ponies, a foal, and walkers with or without dogs. The crowds had not yet built up.

Approaching a bend in Church Lane on the way to Pilley Jackie observed that this was “not where you want to meet something coming round the next bend”.

Very soon she found herself backing round that same corner.

On arrival at Pilley we encountered another group of assorted ponies. I explained to a couple of European visitors that the lake bed on which some of the larger animals were grazing was not normally so dry. The tourists were quite alarmed at the violence with which the smaller ones were butted out of the way by the bigger variety.

A solitary bay fronted the thatched cottages beside the green..

This evening we dined on second helpings of Forest Tandoori’s excellent takeaway fare with which I finished the Malbec and Jackie abstained.

Her Pride And Joy

Late yesterday evening Jackie raced round the garden with her camera, gleefully photographing

her pride and joy. Petunias, pelargoniums, phlox, fuchsias, clematises, alliums, agapanthuses, dahlias, verbenas, campanulas, erigeron, lilies, Japanese anemones, diascias, begonias, eucalyptus, roses, and no doubt many I’ve missed. As usual, clicking on any image will produce the gallery, each member of which is separately labelled and can be viewed full size by clicking on the box beneath it, and further bigified with subsequent clicks.

As if that weren’t enough, the Assistant Photographer dashed out later to capture

the full moon, and again this morning to add

crocosmias Emily McKenzie and Solfatare,

and finally Lycesteria.

I had my work cut out today to select from 56 images, load them into the iMac, edit and crop them, then transfer them to WordPress retyping each title. I left my own camera alone, and for the first time ever rejected the offer of a forest drive, otherwise I would have been at the computer until midnight.

This evening we dined on Forest Tandoori takeaway fare with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

The First Of October

My Under Gardener tasks this cooler, more cloudy, morning consisted of a little clearing to compost and a lot of rose decapitation.

Among the regular bloomers like the White Winchester Cathedral,

the prolific bright yellow Absolutely Fabulous, and the fulsome Lady Emma Hamilton a number of repeat performers are taking the stage.

Just Joey has risen from

the red carpet that continues to attract bustling bees.

The peachy velvet Schoolgirl graces the arbour

beneath which Gertrude Jekyll stretches from sleep, while

budding Deep Secret is currently keeping us in the dark.

This afternoon we drove to the less touristy east of the forest.

We had been promised a 30% chance of rain today. The nearest we got to that was a distant fall when driving along St Leonards Road.

The skies on the opposite side, across The Solent over the Isle of Wight, had no rain to drop.

The roof of the ancient St Leonard’s granary, which, as explained in https://derrickjknight.com/2016/08/04/salt-marshes/ once served Beaulieu Abbey, glows a rich rusty orange;

a pigeon surveys the scene from a ruined arch bearing similarly hued highlights.

Our mighty oaks do suffer in the heavy winds. Here, one huge limb has recently been wrenched off. The stump in the fourth picture has been a more distant casualty.

Further along a covey of juvenile pheasants were possibly discussing the approaching 1st of October when their shooting season starts.

This evening we dined on a rack of pork ribs in a rich barbecue sauce, mini spring rolls, Jackie’s tasty egg fried rice, and tender green beans, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Trapiche Pure unoaked Argentinian Malbec 2019 – a birthday present from Helen and Bill.