Month: May 2021

Equine Families

A loosely latched utility room window constantly thudded throughout last night against the whistling rhythm of thunderous gales sweeping through the Isle of Wight at speeds of up to 100 m.p.h.

The Weeping Birch bent its back and tossed it tresses.

As I write we do not expect a cessation until 9 p. m.

A pony couple contributing equine child labour introduced a very young colt to the family business of maintaining the clipping of the verges at the Brockenhurst end of Rhinefield Road. While Dad kept a discreet distance the infant was more interested in clinging close to his unresponsive mother in the hope of latching on for food.

I wandered into the woodland alongside, picking out a split, yet still flourishing tree; watching jackdaws, tidier than Tootlepedal‘s, foraging in the grass; and, when noticing birches swaying scarily with the wind – perhaps to join others littering the forest floor –

returning to the relative safety of the road where I enjoyed a pleasant conversation with a friendly couple, also fascinated with the foal and his mother who sought relief from an itch through the medium of a conveniently angled tree trunk.

Jackie had photographed me on my way in. How long will that torn limb take to fall from the foreground tree, I wonder?

Along an open stretch of Rhinefield Road I was surprised to find the wind so fierce that I struggled to stand still to photograph another equine family blending with the gorse. I decided it would have been unsafe to attempt to cross a ditch to reach them. Turning to include Dad was quite out of the question.

We briefly stopped at Puttles Bridge where I photographed rippling water, reflections, tree roots, and some of the fresh green leaves ripped from the trees everywhere this morning.

As we were leaving, a small herd of cattle were arriving.

This evening we dined on spicy pepperoni pizza; fried halloumi; and plentiful fresh salad, followed by apple and blackcurrant pie with rhubarb and ginger ice cream. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Collin-Bourisset Fleurie 2019.

Greys And Greens

We had booked to see Mum in the garden today, but it was too cold (11C), so we reverted to the Screen room. My mother was on good form, and able to hear me rather better.

After lunch Jackie drove us to New Milton where she deposited some clothes in Whites dry cleaners and, after a very positive eye test, I ordered some new specs.

The weather was wild, wet and windy when we drove on to Milford on Sea where,

buffeted by blustery winds and unable to see what I was pointing at, I photographed swathes of sweeping storm-tossed waves; billowing salt-spray; resilient rocks; sturdy breakwaters; and Hurst lighthouse. Checking my results really was rather a lucky dip.

Just one grey pony stood out among the varied layered greens of the mushroomed leaves now clothing the distant trees seen as we looked down over Wootton.

After a visit to Ferndene Farm Shop we retuned home.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s well-filled beef pie; boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender runner beans; and spicy ratatouille, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbec.

Back Inside The Lamb

Yesterday evening we met Elizabeth and Danni inside The Lamb Inn at Nomansland for our first permitted meal together since the months long Covid lockdown.

Jackie’s photograph of Danni arriving shows that masks had to be worn on entry and walking about, but could be removed while seated.

Three of us chose chicken, ham, and leek pie meals. Jackie was the exception who selected a burger meal. Danni, who produced the last two pictures in this gallery, my sister, and I drank a very good Mendoza Malbec, while Jackie drank Amstel. Actually, Danni’s wine was a chaser for her Diet Coke. For dessert Jackie chose strawberry sundae; Danni, lemon meringue pie; and I summer fruits pudding. Elizabeth finished with decaffeinated coffee. The fare was all very good, and the service attentive an efficient.

Our niece’s shot of Jackie and me includes a pony on the green outside.

I guess I must have been perusing the menu in these two photographs Jackie took of Elizabeth and me. These pictures were all produced early in the evening. The pub filled up a bit afterwards.

This afternoon I scanned six more of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to “Nicholas Nickleby”.

‘The small unfortunate was looking on with a singed head and a frightened face’

An example of the artist’s double page spread is ‘Nicholas found the four Miss Kenwigses on their form of audience, and the baby in a dwarf porter’s chair’

‘A short, bustling, over-dressed female, full of importance, presented herself’

‘The young lady, then and there kissed the old lord’. Note the hands in this one.

‘The easy insolence of their manner towards herself brought the blood tingling to Kate’s face’

‘Miss La Creevey found Mrs Nickleby in tears, and Ralph just concluding his statement of his nephew’s misdemeanours’

Later this afternoon Jackie felt the need to buy an owl, so we visited Shallowmead Nurseries, where she was recognised as “the owl lady”, to do just that.

Passing the crochet decorated post box, now sporting a rainbow hope, on Pilley Hill, we proceeded to

record this week’s views from one side to the other of Pilley’s receding lake. The first shot shows the spread of the water crowfoots, and the second the increased reflected foliage.

The dried detritus indicates that I was still able to walk across from one side to the other.

I enjoyed a pleasant conversation with people living in the corner house the reflection of which I have often photographed over the years. While I was being informed that a few days ago a small pool had been dry,

Jackie pictured a “shark” in occupation.

A small group of ponies at East Boldre wandered along the road in order to take a drink from a stream flanking soggy terrain.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent beef pie; creamy mashed potatoes; firm carrots and cauliflower; spicy ratatouille; and meaty gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of our Malbec.

The Roble Turnberry Bench

This morning we bit the bullet, unpacked, and assembled the new wooden Roble Turnberry bench. The last picture in this gallery shows what I look like when I have just straightened after an extended bending of my knees.

As can be seen from the first of these seated pictures we took of each other, the agony soon passes.

We have moved the new bench up to Fiveways, where we can enjoy the same views as Florence sculpture.

Here are some of Jackie’s planted urns, the first containing the last surviving purple tulip; the second, petunias and geranium against honesty in the bed behind; the third, some of her many pansies.

While I was at it, I photographed campion, rhododendron, aubretia, aquilegias, and Welsh poppies fronting the budding Chilean lantern tree.

Later this afternoon we will be driving to the Lamb Inn at Nomansland where we will meet Elizabeth and Danni for our first permitted inside a pub meal since the last lockdown that was forever-ago. I will report on that tomorrow.

“He’s Just Found He’s Got Legs”

Yesterday evening I reached a point past nine more of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to “Nicholas Nickleby”. and scanned them today.

Keeping depicts such movement in ‘The animals were no sooner released than they trotted back to the stable they had just left’.

‘A female bounced into the room, and seizing Mr Squeers by the throat gave him two loud kisses’. When repeated further in the book these portraits will be most recognisable.

The three boys in the foreground of ‘Mrs Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle’ are recent arrivals. Keeping shows by the chubby, innocent, profile of one that they have not yet adopted the description, including the harelip, Charles Dickens gives to the others. The mixture of sulphur and molasses was commonly used as a cure-all at the time. Here it was mainly employed as an appetite suppressant.

‘When they were both touched up to their entire satisfaction, they went down-stairs in full state’

‘The timid country girl shrunk through the crowd that hurried up and down the streets, clinging closely to Ralph’ displays the artist’s mastery of perspective.

‘They stopped in front of a large old dingy house that appeared to have been uninhabited for years’ displays historically accurate buildings.

‘The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book with the traces of recent tears still upon his face’ represents the portrait given in the book’s frontispiece.

‘Pinning him by the throat, Nicholas beat the ruffian until he roared for mercy’

‘Dingy, ill-plumed, drowsy flutterers, sent to get a livelihood in the streets’ is one of Mr Keeping’s text sandwiches.

Between showers we prepared a site for the new, as yet unopened, wooden bench.

Later this afternoon we drove to Everton Nurseries where Jackie bought some trailing petunias, and continued into the forest.

where I was tempted from the car by the sight of groups of ponies who had been much more in evidence today than yesterday.

Purple violets beneath a yellow gorse bush; scattered bluebells; and a fossilised hand caught my attention.

I thought I could discern at least two foals in the distance.

To reach them I needed to follow a track across the running stream created by the ponies above.

That reminds me. The pony in the foreground of the first picture in this gallery determinedly emerged in my direction and took up a position with splayed legs right in front of me. It had made me rather nervous. Fortunately missing my feet it released a powerful stream from its rear end. Naturally I lifted my lens enough for decency. This was still creating its own little puddle when its companion did exactly the same thing. Were they trying to tell me something?

This was quite an undulating landscape.

Climbing up to the next level I was rewarded by the sight of two foals.

As its mother wandered away the first of these rose to its feet, stretched its limbs, trotted after her, then felt safe enough to look me in the eye.

On our journey home through East Boldre we encountered a group of donkeys and their foals.

Perhaps attempting to arouse the attention of its comatose mother,

one excited youngster repeatedly ran rings round the gorse bushes, causing Jackie to exclaim: “He’s just found he’s got legs”.

This evening we dined on plump lemon chicken thighs; creamy mashed potatoes; spicy hot ratatouille; and firm cauliflower, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Trivento Reserve Malbec 2019.

Rippling Reflections

Dark, brooding, precipitating skies were occasionally brightened today by suddenly, briefly, escaping sunshine. The opposite was also true, on the trip we took into a waterlogged forest after purchasing three bags of compost at Ferndene Farm Shop.

I left the car when Jackie parked on the verge of the Thorney Hill end of Burley Road. My intention was to take a shot from the top of the hill of the waterlogged landscape stretching out below. A pair of siren mallards called me from a winterbourne lake some way down. Before I reached them the ducks had disappeared; dark indigo clouds loured overhead; pattering raindrops washed my hair; my woollen jacket took on the aroma of wet sheep; and I craved automatic wipers for my blurry specs.

As Magnus Magnusson on TV’s ‘Mastermind’ would have said, I thought, “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. I was wet, anyway. I failed to photograph the downhill expanse, but

I did capture raindrops sending ripples over the surface of the downhill running streams and the reflective pools that had been created by the recent days’ and last night’s storms. The forest fauna, more sensible than I, kept well under cover somewhere.

This afternoon Jackie planted a vast number of seedlings into nursery pots in the greenhouse and together we carried the

rusted Ace Reclaim bench to the concrete patio where it will provide a platform for larger planters.

This evening we dined on tangy lemon chicken; moist chilli-spiced ratatouille; tender green beans; and boiled new potatoes, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Recital.

“Where’s Elizabeth?” (1)

This was a day of intermittent steady rain and occasional sunshine.

Jackie began, in the rain, by photographing her new planting in the Pond Bed. She plans to do this periodically to record its development.

Shortly before lunchtime, Elizabeth arrived with her gardening kit, brought the sun with her, and set about

weeding the Head Gardener’s Walk.

There were plenty of plants, like these sweet woodruffs, spilling over for her to transplant to her own garden.

In the first London Marathon of the modern era, this photograph by Mark Shearman shows the winners crossing the line hand in hand. Inevitably, fierce competition for kudos and for prizes has superseded this sporting gesture which Jackie and I were to emulate in our contest over reaching

the Ace Reclaim Bench in our weeding of the Shady Path.

Fork and trowel met to share the final removal. Jackie produced this selfie from beside the bench, which I photographed from beside the nearest

rhododendron in the Palm Bed opposite.

Serious rain set in after lunch, so my sister donned her hooded raincoat and continued her task. The third picture, “Where’s Elizabeth?” (1), contains the scented clematis Montana Mayleen making its way up the lopped cypress.

During a later sunshine break I was able to photograph Elizabeth’s work on both the Head Gardener’s Walk

and the Heligan Path. She gathered up her piles before departing.

Meanwhile Jackie photographed raindrops on

the rhododendron on the corner of the Lawn;

the red Japanese maple;

the grey Cinereria Angel’s Wings;

Pheasant’s Eye narcissi;

and aquilegia buds.

This evening we repeated yesterday’s dinner menu with roast parsnips replacing the green beans. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Recital.

A Tall Lean Boy

Today the air was cold and the light dull.

This morning Jackie and I each reached a corner of the bench while weeding the Shady Path. There is just the middle stretch to be completed. A yellow tree peony and a plethora of Welsh poppies can be seen in the surrounding beds.

The clematis Montana weaves about the lilac on the Back Drive.

When literary blogger josbees recommended that I reread chapter 2 of Nicholas Nickleby I had imagined that I would not read the whole book again, but would work my way through scanning Charles Keeping’s illustrations for my readers. In fact I was wrong. As the characters came flooding back to me after more than half a century, this Dickens novel is now one of the few I am happy to read again.

The frontispiece illustration is to ‘A tall lean boy, with a lantern in his hand, issued forth.’

‘Motioning them all out of the room, Mr Nickleby sunk exhausted on his pillow’ demonstrates Mr Keeping’s penchant for sandwiching a section of text into his drawing.

‘The clerk presented himself in Mr Nickleby’s room’ contains the artist’s skill at portraiture. The proximity of the houses seen through the window demonstrates the congested nature of the environment.

‘ ‘Mrs Nickleby,’ said the girl, throwing open the door, ‘here’s Mr Nickleby’ ‘ demonstrates Keeping’s adherence to the text. The young lady has hastily attempted to clean her dirty face with an even dirtier apron.

‘ ‘I have been thinking, Mr Squeers, of placing my two boys at your school’ ‘

‘A minute’s bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the vehicle to one side’ exemplifies the artist’s mastery of receding perspective by bursting the foreground range of portraits out of the frame.

Early this evening a friend of Jake, who I photographed Sunset Dancing last December, called to collect a print I had made for him. Jake now lives in The Netherlands, and earns a living skydiving.

Later, we dined on roast chicken thighs and roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, sage and onion stuffing, carrots, cauliflower, and green beans, with meaty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Recital.

Wrong Herd

This morning we each tackled the weeding of the Shady Path from opposite directions. Jackie began in the left hand picture; I progressed in the right. We aim to meet at the bench. The Head Gardener says the last one there is a sissy.

Meanwhile the rhododendrons in the Palm Bed are filling out nicely. Please ignore the wild garlic in the second image.

Having moved the stone urn from the front of the Pond Bed, Jackie carefully planted it up after lunch.

We then took a trip to Ferndene Farm Shop to purchase eggs, salad items, and trailing petunias, after which we drove into the forest.

When we turned into Forest Road a bunch of cattle were occupying the tarmac and the verge. Jackie parked the Modus so I could follow them with my camera. As they left me trailing they rapidly began to disappear from sight. Jackie caught me up and transported me to a point ahead of them.

Most of the cattle crossed the road into woodland opposite.

One young heifer was rather left behind, and stopped for a drink, no doubt to ease its throat,

strained by its incessant efforts to imitate the Isle of Wight foghorn.

Her plaintive bellowing was ignored by the rest of the group.

Eventually, still bawling, she returned to the road and, with the usual awkward gait, walked up the hill and, stretching her neck, stood on the bend further straining her voice. Several hundred yards further on we noticed another small bovine gathering, and Jackie, probably correctly, surmised that she had become attached to the wrong herd. We assumed she would find her own family.

Some weeks ago, my friend Barrie Haynes asked me to review a book by a member of his group. This is ‘In the Dead of Night’ by Richard Allen. It is the sixth in a crime fiction series published by Amazon. I finished reading it today.

Without spoiling the story I can say that it reads rather like a film script, published last year, and, given that it is mostly written from the viewpoint of the interviewing detectives, put me in mind of the contemporary ‘Line of Duty’ series. The author brings his knowledge of police procedures gleaned from his career in the service.

It is, nevertheless, an engaging mystery. The spare prose of the short sentences is packed with precise detail, even to the extent of times being quoted to the minute, as if extracted from a policeman’s notebook. This helps move the pace along. The longer paragraphs do not always flow so well.

Author’s notes, given at the end of the book, differentiate between fact and fiction in the narrative.

My copy is not paginated which made it rather difficult to know where I was at times, and a certain amount of further proof reading would have been helpful.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s savoury rice packed with vegetables and topped with a thick omelette; Lidl rack of pork ribs in barbecue sauce; and tender runner beans, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Recital Languedoc Montpeyroux 2018.

She Brought A Friend

This afternoon we visited Milford Pharmacy.

Scaffolding was being erected in Island View Close; while

bowls matches were under way at Milford Bowls Club, where an appropriate weather vane stands atop their flagpole.

Perhaps a Southampton F. C. supporter lost his hat outside the club.

We then drove to Pilley for the purpose of continuing the seasonal changes project begun on 5th May.

The first picture in this gallery repeats the representative image which began the plan, without the pony drinking.

For the pony to be included would have been an amazing coincidence, wouldn’t it?

Or so I thought.

As I turned away my equine model approached from the distant grassland. I waited. She took up the position. I clicked.

And she brought a friend.

I was able to walk across the dry receding bank to photograph the second choice scene from the other side of the lake. Note the fresh green leaves on the reflected trees, and the water crowfoots still in bloom on the surface.

An assiduous group of donkeys were keeping the verges of the East End Arms car park trimmed for the reopening.

On our return home Jackie finished her work on redesigning the Pond Bed; together we replaced the red iron railing; and she added a new Brick Path sign.

In the meantime I made a little more progress on weeding the Shady Path.

The white metal Ace Reclaim bench shows that the Shady Path runs alongside the Palm Bed, now sporting two flowering rhododendrons and its own share of wild garlic alliums.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s flavoursome savoury rice topped with a thick omelette and served with a melange of hot and spicy and tempura prawns with sweet chilli sauce. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.