After an early lunch Jackie drove me to The Grove Pharmacy at Christchurch for my second Covid vaccination. My appointment was for 1.00 p.m. We arrived at 12.30. I was back in the car at 12.46. We returned home via Avon where I photographed two landscapes. The water meadows in the first are now veryContinue reading “An Agility”
Monthly Archives: April 2021
Avian Camouflage
This afternoon of an overcast day, slowly brightening with brief sunny periods we visited Ferndene Farm Shop to purchase salad items, eggs, and vegetables to accompany this evening’s second sitting of Jackie’s excellent cottage pie. These were carrots, cauliflower, and beans which would be cooked to perfection, and accompanied by Hoegaarden and more of theContinue reading “Avian Camouflage”
A Turning Circle
Yesterday evening, the first of the new Covid lockdown relaxations, we dined alfresco at the Lamb Inn in Nomansland. Outside the pub John, the owner of a coach and horses, and his friends had stopped for refreshment. Our timing was perfect. We may have been somewhat early for our booking, but, had that not beenContinue reading “A Turning Circle”
Surviving The Cold Weather
Having progressed comfortably past the halfway point in Charles Dickens’s ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, this morning I scanned the next six of Charles Keeping’s imaginative and skilful illustrations. In ‘Mrs Hominy stalked in again; very erect, in proof of her aristocratic blood’ the artist perfectly displays her haughtiness. ‘Three or four meagre dogs; some long-legged pigs; someContinue reading “Surviving The Cold Weather”
Just Kidding
On 22nd March, when I first photographed two of these kids living alongside Wootton Road at the point at which it is about to join Tiptoe Road, they were just four days old; the other two were expected the following week. On that first visit, Lizzie Knight, having seen me photographing the young goats, hadContinue reading “Just Kidding”
The Wren
Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Child’s Talk in April’ is a delightful metaphor for the nest building and future plans of young love. Florence Harrison’s vignette pictured above appears in my Blackie and Sons edition of the writer’s poems. This is the artist’s colour plate illustrating the poem. One group of nest builders currently active in ourContinue reading “The Wren”
It Did Not Stay For Its Close-up
After lunch today I scanned the next five of Charles Keeping’s idiosyncratic illustrations to Charles Dickens’s ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, displaying the artist’s liquid line in expressive portraiture. ‘Martin and his friend followed them to the door below’ ‘On his livid face was one word – Death’ ‘Whole troops of married ladies came flocking round the steps’Continue reading “It Did Not Stay For Its Close-up”
Ecological Contributions
Mum was on very good form when we visited her at Woodpeckers at midday. Her thoughts and stories flowed and her hearing and sight were not too bad. We could forgive her for repeating some tales. Her one and only flight to Jersey with Jacqueline some years ago was a new one. From Brockenhurst weContinue reading “Ecological Contributions”
Blackthorn Time
We woke this morning to frost on the kitchen extension roof and ice on the water features. The day continued cold and overcast with a top temperature of 7C. The quotation from Christina Rossetti’s ‘Spring’ given by Libre Paley in https://librepaley.com/2021/04/06/alive-in-everything/ sent me to reread the work in my copy of her poems illustrated byContinue reading “Blackthorn Time”
Woodland Denizens
The weather temperature has plummeted. Early this morning Jackie photographed ice on the new water features. Beginning mid-morning I wasted four hours and my frayed nerve ends wrestling with an on line banking problem arising from a regular heating fuel supplier who had changed their bank details, and a system which could not adequately copeContinue reading “Woodland Denizens”
