Month: July 2021

Frozen

I begin with this picture of Jackie’s, down the Brick Path, which I unfortunately omitted yesterday. Mea culpa.

We received a fair bit of rain overnight, but today was dry, if pretty cool, with intermittent sunny periods blown along by stiff breezes.

Our morning began with a trip to Tesco where Jackie carried out the shopping, then wheeled it to the car in a trolley, and I helped unload it into the Modus, after having read a little more of David Copperfield. I then unloaded it at home before my Chauffeuse took us on a forest drive.

During one of the duller spells we drove down Lower Pennington Lane where fresh cow parsley; burgeoning blackberry blossom; and carpets of yellow flowers dotted the fields and hedgerows beneath lowering skies. An inquisitive goat peered through a farm fence.

Looking across to the Isle of Wight we could see Hurst lighthouse and castle, distant walkers, and hang gliders welcoming the wind.

As we pulled into Longslade Bottom car park I was intrigued by voices emanating from the undergrowth. Upon inspection I met three friendly women seated on folding chairs enjoying the shelter.

Dog walkers shared the grassy slopes with ponies. By and large they were respectful of each other.

Then along came a gentleman with two dogs on leads. A small brown one barked a lot. It was loosed. It carried on barking at the ponies. Fortunately they ignored it.

I was also let loose on Bisterne Close where I photographed the woodland and its trees, lichen, moss, and fresh ferns.

A squirrel, racing between trees froze, listened, then sped on. It was so kind of it to pause for the photographer.

A young buck in a field of yellow flowers was quite unfazed by my presence.

More ponies stood among the gorse in the moorland alongside Holmsley Passage.

This evening we dined on a rack of ribs in barbecue sauce; Jackie’s delicious egg-fried rice; and tender green beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Rioja.

Manicured

At the beginning of June we watched a cumbersome pigeon nest building. This morning, as I worked my way through blog comments I noticed the potential parent bird seemingly incubating. The first of these photographs was taken through my window; the second from the garden.

Because of this sighting I was quite hesitant to begin my planned project in the front garden this warm and humid morning, so began by starting the pruning of the Félicité Perpétue rose which is furthest away from the nest. After about 20 minutes I started weeding th gravel path which didn’t seem to upset the wood pigeon. After lunch I returned to the task. The bird was gone and, although we could see it, the nest seemed empty.

The third of these photographs taken by Jackie constitutes “Where’s Derrick?” (4). Despite the obvious clues, enlargement may be necessary. The fourth image is of the footpath through the bed.

This is how far I got before stopping for the afternoon. There is a compost bin beside the trug beneath the overturned chair, but I will clear the footpath to it before I empty the trug.

Jackie has spent much of the last few days weeding and planting the beds around it and manicuring the lawn. She proudly photographed the results of her efforts.

She also focussed on the Pond Bed and a garden view around the Shady Path.

Later, I watched the Women’s Wimbledon tennis matches between Angelique Kerber and Coco Gauff, and between Emma Raducanu and Ajla Tomljanovic.

Dinner, taken on a tray seated in front of the television consisted of two prawn preparations, namely tempura, and hot and spicy served on Jackie’s special fried rice, with which I drank more of the Rioja while the Culinary Queen abstained.

Dank

During the morning of this decidedly dank day Jackie worked on tidying the lawn and its surrounding borders, while I did something similar in the front garden, cleared up debris and fed the compost bins front and back.

Just in time for lunch a downpour sent us indoors. The Head Gardener left her tools outside, so, when I took advantage of a drier period to wander around with my camera, I gathered them up and deposited them in the greenhouse.

A hoverfly wasn’t too bothered about the raindrops on clematis Mrs N. Thompson; other clematises, nasturtiums, Black-eyed Susan, angels wings and day lilies were similarly bejewelled.

Various hanging baskets and other containers are flourishing, well stocked with petunias, lobelias, begonias, and more. Beside the vertical picture of Alan Titchmarsh, deep red Love Knot and lighter hued red carpet rose, are portraits of Ernest Morse and the climber Super Elfin. We have encouraged the honeysuckle to infiltrate the Back Drive from the garden of the adjacent care home. The purple and white Delta’s Sarah is in the patio bed.

Five more chapters read of Charles Dickens’s novel, David Copperfield, carry five more of Charles Keeping’s superb illustrations to my Folio Society edition.

‘She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck’

In ‘We stand around the grave’ the artist chooses to place the burial party in the distance.

‘Away we went on our holiday excursion’

The figures in the foreground, bursting out of the frame of ‘I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed’ give a typical perspective to Keeping’s street scenes.

Note the artist’s trademark dog in ‘There was a very long-legged young man, with a very little empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk’

This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s hot and spicy pasta arrabbiata with full, firm, and tender green beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the especially smooth Rioja.

The wind is whipping up, reminding us that tomorrow afternoon we will need to batten down the hatches in the usual manner in preparation for the gale expected to strike early the next morning.

Against The Light

My share of the today’s garden maintenance was a little dead heading and feeding the compost bin; Jackie’s was mostly making and mending.

This dull and cooler afternoon we drove into the forest.

Ponies and their foal grazed on a stretch of meadow at the East Boldre end of St Leonard’s Road, where a pigeon had left a little plumage.

An unidentified yellow flower, cow parsley, blackberry blossom. white and pink dog roses, attracting bees, lined the lush hedgerows.

Later, while we sat in the Rose Garden with our pre-dinner drinks, listening to trilling birds in the Copper Beech tree, fluffy clouds sped across the sky and strangely silent smaller birds too far away for us to identify against the light, gathered in the Weeping Birch.

For dinner this evening, Jackie produced spicy hot pasta arrabbiata and tender green beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cepa Lebrel Gran Reserva Rioja 2011.

Afterwards I watched the last three quarters of the England v. Ukraine Euro 2020 Quarter Final football match.

Breathing Space

On another rather sultry morning we made good progress in

weeding the Rose Garden, thus giving breathing space to blooms such as

roses peach/orange Mamma Mia; pure white Margaret Merrill; pinkish Alan Titchmarsh; the recently righted New Dawn; and plants such as penstemon put in for variety.

Later, I read four more chapters of David Copperfield and scanned a page containing a Charles Keeping illustration for each one.

‘It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was’

Readers who have been following this series of Keeping’s illustrations to Dickens’s novels will know that the artist uses larger figures in the foreground to indicate receding perspective. In ‘Still, nobody appeared to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk’ the diminutive such figure shows how small is the boy.

‘The wooden-legged man turned me about again, with my face to Mr Creakle, and posted himself at Mr Creakle’s side’

‘ ‘I take my leave of you’, said Mr Mell’

This afternoon I watched the Wimbledon Tennis match between Dan Evans and Sebastian Korda.

We dined this evening on the last portion of Jackie’s splendid beef pie, amplified by minced cooked with onions, mushrooms and peas; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cotes du Rhone.

I then settled down to watch the tennis match between Andy Murray and Denis Shapovalov.

Early Morning Light

We began work in the garden early, because we knew it would be a hot day. In addition to all her general labours, Jackie spent much time scrubbing surfaces, such as the slippery decking, and pigeon poo on chairs and benches. My task was a certain amount of dead heading and feeding of the compost bin, but mostly, taking advantage of the diffused light before the sun had risen too high.

This deep red climbing rose was inherited from our predecessors in a sorry, straggly, state, yet now thrives under the Head Gardener’s loving care.

This New Dawn, a present from Poppy and Tess, is now beginning to scale the gazebo.

This recent purchase is a climber called Brownie, which was bred by Nola M. Simpson in New Zealand before 2009.

The first of these clematises is accompanied by a bottle brush plant and a Chilean lantern tree; the second by a Rosa Glauca.

The bottle brush plant glimpsed above is the red one now coming into bloom; the climber Wedding Day spans the Brick Path.

Most hanging baskets have now been planted up.

Several hebes are flourishing. Jackie is very pleased with this sculptural eryngium.

A variety of day lilies abound.

Readers will be aware that we have one honey-scented cordyline Australis. We didn’t know ourselves that we have three more on the west side of the garden which we have not noticed flowering before.

Pale pink Penny Lane and bright red Super Elfin have happily settled on the Gothic Arch.

Peach Abundance flowers in the Oval Bed just outside the Rose Garden, among whose residents are

an unknown deep pink climber; red Roserie de l’Hay; red and white striped Rosa Gallica and yellow Laura Ford; poppies and foxgloves; pink and yellow Summer Wine; bright red Gloriana; and golden Crown Princess Margareta.

This afternoon we spent an hour with Mum, who was in good spirits, in the garden of Woodpeckers.

Afterwards I watched a memorable Wimbledon tennis match between Angelique Kerber and Sara Sorribes Tomo.

This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s delicious beef and onion pie with flavoursome Jersey Royal potatoes; crunchy carrots; tender runner beans, and meaty gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cotes du Rhone.