Month: March 2021

Habitual Head Hangers

Blues skies returned today for our first visit to Mum in Woodpeckers since before the Christmas lockdown, which has been somewhat relaxed.

We were able to use the screen room. Jackie photographed Mum behind the screen in which I am reflected. My mother was in good spirits, but not hearing too well, especially at the beginning, probably because of having to adjust after the long absence.

The Assistant Photographer also pictured the view from the window, containing

ponies in a neighbouring field, and

small birds in a tree. Unfortunately Mum would not be able to see all this.

As can be seen from the pictures above, we experienced some sunny periods today. This afternoon I entered the garden with trepidation, to be pleasantly surprised. So far the gale force winds have inflicted virtually no damage.

A few empty trugs have been transported; a watering can has taken refuge in the compost container outside the kitchen door; and one basket is down.

Smaller plants, like primulas, violas, and trailing vinca remain unperturbed.

Daffodils which we feared would be flattened, and the tulips which had been flattened, and spiked, by a recent frost, stood proudly erect.

Apart from a few blown down blooms, our camellias are all unscathed.

Many of our hellebores, habitual head hangers, unusually held theirs high.

Elizabeth came to dinner for the first time since lockdown. Jackie produced one of her splendidly succulent steak, onion, and mushroom pies; roast potatoes; boiled purple potatoes; crunchy carrots and Brussels sprouts; firm cauliflower, and meaty gravy with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while my sister and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019. This was followed by a lemon tart.

Spume

On this wet, windy, Wednesday morning I passed four more of Charles Keeping’s splendid illustrations on my visit to ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ by Charles Dickens.

‘Kit’s mother and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four’ occupies a double page spread.

‘ ‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature with his fist’, follows with another.

‘ ‘Mr Quilp, elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot’. Here Mr Keeping produces three recognisable characters, depicting the scene described with sarcasm by Mr Dickens.

‘Nell went out alone to visit the old church’

Having reached this point on such a day, I was prompted to return to my cemeteries project after lunch.

My next batch of colour slides was produced at West Norwood Cemetery in May 2008.

Perhaps the most splendid memorials in Victorian London were those erected here by the Greek shipping community.

An example is the Mortuary Chapel, C1872, attributed to ‘J Oldrid Scott, to the memory of Augustus Ralli. Small Doric temple with tetrastyle portico at each end, all of fossiliferous limestone white for the stylobate and golden for rest of building. In front, pediment and metopes are marble sculptures of religious subjects although compositions are based on Parthenon models. Set back lower side wings with rusticated ends, angle pilasters, plain metopes and narrow windows. Double door with fanlight of fishscale glazing. Handsome painted ceiling inside.’ in 2019 the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded the Local Authority [Lambeth] a grant under the Parks for People programme which secured funding for the repair of priority monuments. Work is currently progressing on surveys and statutory approvals prior to starting the repair works, which are now anticipated to start in 2021.’ (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1064989). The young man was at Eton College when he died.

There is much skilful statuary. Perhaps a reader may be able to translate the inscription on the child’s plinth.

Yes. I found this mother and son mesmerising from almost any angle.

With the gale winds picking up by mid afternoon, and the sun having spent the day in hiding, we nipped down to

the coast at Milford on sea for some comparison shots with yesterday. The woman had left the shingle and Hurst lighthouse was no longer visible; the Isle of Wight had been towed away.

Colourless rocks and waves had lost their sparkle and breakwaters were largely obscured.

Spray had turned to flying spume-balls carpeting steps to the sea wall over which they sped sailing across the road.

Black headed gulls hung almost stationary on the wind. From the safety of the car

Jackie photographed me failing to focus on them yet having a little more success with the sea.

This evening we dined on firm pork chops topped with sage and onion stuffing; crisp Yorkshire pudding; boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Primitivo Salento.

“Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day”

Knowing that we are about to experience strong gales for three days I lay down the garden chairs and the new water feature as a precaution this morning, and this afternoon we visited the coast at Milford on Sea to make calmer photographs than we would anticipate for a while.

Although from a distance the sea looked calm enough as I focussed on the Isle of Wight and a woman on the seafront shingle,

it wasn’t that tranquil.

Jackie focussed on me photographing

waves advancing in a rush, and seeping back across the shingle.

As we left, a black-headed gull was perched for takeoff.

Should there be anyone who does not know of Captain Sir Thomas Moore, you are advised to consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Tom_Moore to read about the inspirational gentleman approaching his 100th birthday who, during 2020 raised our nation’s spirits; £34,000,000+ for the NHS; and, ultimately Queen Elizabeth II’s dubbing arm. This man’s favourite phrase, “Tomorrow will be a good day”, has been celebrated in yarn on the Pilley Street letter box.

After passing this, we drove on to Lepe where, from Inchmere Lane

we looked out over the flats, where I photographed

a solitary oyster catcher, and Jackie photographed

a motor boat.

I disembarked beside a seasonal pool on Exbury Road where I photographed

reflections of overhead trees;

fallen branches; and a mossy bank.

Do ducks lay eggs on a bare scratched circular area of ground? If so, I found one.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chicken and vegetable stewp with fresh bread, followed by her spicy pasta arrabbiata and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Primitivo Salento.

School Was Out

Despite our recent sunshine The Head Gardener remained convinced that Jack Frost had not yet kept his icy fingers out of reach of the garden.

Early this morning she took her camera outside to prove her point.

Later, Callum of Metro Rod brought his specialist camera to investigate a blockage in the drainage to our septic tank. His diagnosis was that the tank needed emptying. There was no additional obstruction. We are normally on an 18 months rolling cycle for clearance, yet it is only nine months since it was last emptied. I telephoned CSG, increased the frequency of the pump out, and booked one for next week.

The temperature was warmer this afternoon when we drove into the forest.

Blackie, photographed by Jackie,

and Splash, by me, two Highland bulls to whom I have been introduced, with their herd, occupied the green at Bramshaw. After a good scratch the red bovine let me know what he thought of me.

Among the others on which I focussed,

one sported a mud pack by rubbing the grass of well-placed mound.

Jackie also captured me at work, refusing to accept that it was a portrait of the muddy cow I was making, and not the other creature’s bum.

Moving on to Nomansland, an assortment of ponies were employed on keeping down the grass in the cricket outfield.

Today, most primary schoolchildren in England, have returned to school after the latest Covid-19 restrictions.

Those in the village of Hale share their playing fields with ponies on the green. The school bus driver had to shift the pony from the path in order to pick up some pupils. Meanwhile families gathered, safely distanced, to collect their charges. School was out.

I believe this was a herd of English White cattle on a hillside outside the village.

Primroses now line many of our verges, like those beside the field above, beyond which

stretch extensive landscapes.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy pasta arrabbiata, and tender green beans, with which she finished the Sauvignon Blanc and I drank Primitivo Solento 2019

The March Garden

Bluebell is the young lady I photographed yesterday between her partner, Aaron, and the Shetland pony he was photographing.

She photographed me photographing them from beside my trusty steed, and has e-mailed me a copy of it, for which I am very grateful.

This morning I made a further five illustrations into ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. Regular readers will know that these are by the inimitable Charles Keeping.

‘Messrs Codlin and Short’ were extremely uncomfortable in their unaccustomed environment. Keeping has depicted this just as Dickens described it, even to the extent of their perching on the edges of their seats.

In the theatre ‘Everything was delightful, splendid, and surprising’. The artist has captured the whole gamut of audience reactions.

‘ ‘Stay, Satan, stay !’ roared the preacher again’. Charles Keeping leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of cleric he was.

‘The boat was towed by a couple of horses who were resting on the path’ of a most evocative waterside scene presented as a double page spread.

‘Tall chimneys poured out their plague of smoke and made foul the melancholy air’ subtly depicted in the wavy lines across the background.

This afternoon I gathered

a few garden views, each of which is identified in the gallery which can be accessed by clicking on any image.

This evening we dined on boned chicken thighs marinaded in mango and lime sauce; boiled new potatoes; and tender green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rolling Over And Thinking About It

This morning I watched the Channel 4 broadcast from Ahmedabad of the last rites of the English Cricket tour of India.

Soon after lunch we visited the pharmacy at Milford on Sea, then drove into the forest.

At Norleywood Car Park we found I was not the only person interested in photographing the wild life. The gentleman in the last two images in this gallery adopted an enviable position from which to obtain his pictures. I was happy to explain to the woman in the first three photographs the story of

the Shetland ponies, which cropped the grass,

ignoring the fallen trees.

Along the road to Beaulieu, many of the trees stand in nature’s water buckets throughout the winter.

Perhaps the ponies gathered here today wished to be near their water source.

I really identified with the seated pony in the final image of the above gallery. All these equine adults when seeking to rise to their feet adopt the practice of first rolling over and thinking about it before stiffly staggering up. This, of course, is why I found the earlier photographer’s position enviable.

Driving along Saint Leonard’s Road past a waterlogged verge, Jackie noticed that the recent drop in the water level had left the surface algae drying on reflected bramble washing lines. These are her pictures;

these are mine.

At the corner of Saint Leonard’s and Norleywood Roads a pony drinking gazpacho soup took umbrage at my attention, shook her head, and sped off into the gorse.

It was a rather startled cockerel that I photographed along South Baddersley Road. Seconds earlier he had been canoodling with a group of guinea fowl. When I unsuccessfully attempted to focus on them they took off, loudly flapping and squawking. He must have wondered what he had done to upset them.

This evening we dined on oven fish and chips, pickled onions, and wallies, with which we finished the Sauvignon Blanc.

Sunny Intervals

Early in the day I watched Channel 4’s transmission of the enthralling second day’s play in the Test Match between India and England.

The forest was still overcast when, this afternoon, we set off for a drive.

Lanes like Bockhampton Road were quite clarty. Beside this one

a whiteness of swans occupying a field attracted my attention as, their serpentine necks sinuously swaying, they foraged in the grass and reflected in one small pool.

The next pale reflector paddled in weed soup in a seasonal pool during a sunny interval at Ibsley. When she became aware of my circling her spot, she emerged from the water and joined

her cousins on the green. I exchanged greetings with the dog walkers as they drew near.

Glowing golden gorse enlivened the landscape below Abbots Well. The second of these images containing another dog walker employing an extending lead shows the difference in light created by a sunny interval. Only the distant slopes are lit; those nearer are overshadowed by cloud.

This evening we dined on tasty smoked haddock; piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potatoes; crunchy carrots and broccoli, with which we both drank Western Cape Sauvignon Blanc 2020.

A Magnificent Sunset

Early today I watched the Channel 4 broadcast of the first day’s play at the fourth Test Match between India and England.

After lunch I scanned some more colour slides. This is the last of those from Kensal Green Cemetery, made in May 2008. A lengthy preview of Mark Olden’s ‘Murder in Notting Hill’ features the inscription of this grave of Eugene Henry Draggon, known as Jingles. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Murder_in_Notting_Hill/LKRblqxEUDkC?

Late in December of 2008 I received a phone call from an excited John Turpin, who wrote the text of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ informing me that there was a splendid sunset at Kensal Green and urging me to visit and photograph it before it disappeared. I duly obliged.

The last picture in this gallery contains

the rather weather worn memorial to Thomas Taplin Cooke.

According to Wikipedia, he ‘was born in Warwick in 1782 the son of Thomas Cooke and his wife, Mary Ann.[3]

He took over his father’s circus around 1810. In the autumn of 1830, following a pleasurable visit from King William IV and Queen Adelaide, the company adopted the name “Royal Circus” and retained this name for the remainder of their existence.[1]

In 1835 the circus had a semi-permanent structure in Edinburgh (a circular timber structure) at the north end of Lothian Road but this had to be later moved when the Caledonian Railway was built. At this point (c.1850) the circus moved to Nicolson Street, where it was later surplanted by the Empire theatre (now known as the Festival Theatre).[4]

In 1836 he chartered “The Royal Stuart” from Greenock[5] and two smaller vessels to convey the whole circus to America. 40 of the 130 artists were members of the Cooke family. This extended trip included prolonged programmes in New York, Boston and Walnut Street Philadelphia. At this stage their “pattern” was to erect a large circular building of a temporary nature (normally in wood). It is unclear how long this American tour was intended to last, but it met an abrupt end during their stay in  Baltimore on 3 February 1838, when the Front Street Theater burnt down (note- there is some confusion as two “Front Street Theaters burnt down within 5 weeks of each other: Baltimore on 5 Jan 1838, Buffalo on 3 February 1838).[6] The Cookes lost 50 horses and many items of wardrobe and props in this fire.

It appears that the circus had been used to operating from large theatres up to this point. Either during the American tour or following the fire disaster, Taplin Cooke, had a very large circular tent constructed. After a few more months in Philadelphia, he returned to Britain in the summer of 1838 with this large tent, which freed up the possible locations for the circus.[1]

One very dramatic equestrian show was “Mazeppa” based on a poem by Byron, first performed in Philadelphia in 1838 and still playing until at least 1843 when it was showing at Birmingham in England. This concept was borrowed from Andrew Ducrow‘s show Mazeppa of 1831.[7] In 1846 a similar style of show was based on the life of Dick Turpin.’

Cooke died in 1866. His memorial contains a mourning horse and a child reading.

There is further information on details depicted here in the post ‘Where Is The Body?’ The sphinx is from the grave of the above mentioned Andrew Ducrow, and the Raj Guard from that of Gen. Sir William Casement.

A black and white image of William Mulready containing an explanatory plaque appears in ‘Ninon Michaelis’

I know neither whose hat and gloves have fallen with their broken plinth, nor what is being celebrated in this intriguing bas relief.

This evening we repeated yesterday’s excellent Jalfrezi dinner, complete with beverages, which meant I opened another bottle of the Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, and toasted Yvonne.

Leaping The Ditch

By 9.30 a.m. this morning an early haze was beginning to lift. In an attempt to catch it we set off at that time on a forest drive.

When we reached Holmsley Passage

the weak sun was soon swimming in swirling watercolour washes of ochre and indigo. It remained beneath them for the rest of the day.

I disembarked to photograph the fresh gorse and aged bracken tinged landscape, taking the opportunity to greet a passing pedestrian.

Our next stop was at Bisterne Close where a glimpse of distant cattle in the woodland tempted me to venture after them.

This involved following their tracks through the trees. I considered myself fortunate that the mud had dried, yet was still friable enough to be safe to walk on without twisting an ankle.

The lowing of the cattle; the sweet music of birdsong; the thudding of a squirrel, were soon joined by

the shrill neighing of a few ponies making their way along a wide footpath.

I spent some time standing beneath these trees wondering what was engaged in spring cleaning above me before I discerned a grey squirrel cleaning out its larder. It didn’t pose for a picture. Neither had the robin whose sweet melody had kept me similarly searching a thorn bush on Holmsley Passage. I was eventually able to identify the singer which remained camouflaged by twiggy branches.

Many trees bore knobbly excrescences suggestive of further forest fauna.

As always there were ample examples of sylvan ecological process as fallen moss-covered branches decomposed providing breeding ground for fungi and numerous insects.

Ponies had the woodland alongside Mill Lane to themselves.

Again, there were plenty of arboreal contributions to the future life of the forest.

The rich chestnut ditchwater alongside Mill Lane may have been the reason the grey pony chose to leap across it to reach the other side of the road.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s hot and spicy chicken jalfrezi, aromatic savoury rice, and vegetable samosas, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.

An Irresponsible Chase

This morning, with minimal help from me, Jackie assembled the solar powered water feature bought yesterday. This is not its intended resting place but it has been left on the patio for the sun to charge it up.

On this hazy afternoon we drove to Mudeford and back.

I wandered around the harbour with my camera.

First I focussed upon people taking in the main view, before making my way to the north-eastern side for what I thought would be the best almost monochrome shots.

Take particular note of the elegant swan.

Allowing a glimpse of yellow a sailboarder walked in the water to the shore, where, unbeknown to either of us,

Jackie completed the story as he carried the sail across the sward;

she also photographed the masts laid up for winter, the street lamp, and gulls in flight, one of which perched atop a post.

Now back to my swan and the irresponsible chase. Even when fleeing for their lives swans take a long time to achieve lift-off. Like a bouncing bomb, our Cygnus managed to escape, and the dog returned empty mouthed. The photographer in me saw this as an opportunity; the human being, as a totally irresponsible act by the owner/s who had loosed two such animals in what should be a safe haven.

This evening we reprised yesterday’s fusion dinner with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.