May 2024 – Page 3 – derrickjknight

Breakfast, Gabion, And Footwear

Soon after 9 p.m. yesterday evening, I received a phone call from NHS Out of Hours service to tell me I was in a queue to speak to a clinician. This call may or may not come that evening, otherwise it would be the next day.

As dawn was breaking this morning I stepped outside with my camera

and put a pair of carrion crows off their breakfast. One flew away.

Soon after 9 a.m. I received the promised call from a clinician who advised me to turn up at Lymington Hospital UCT where I would be triaged and referred to a doctor. This was all very smooth, although the wait was 2 hours because it was busy and they were short staffed – also, we suspect because of the number of families obviously on holiday. A very friendly Dr Katie Wiseman took a urine sample and made all the general function tests, including the perfect blood pressure. She thought the problem most likely to be a urinary tract infection, so prescribed antibiotics, yet instructed me to take the sample to my GP in the morning and ask him to send it to the lab.

After having delivered me, Jackie drove off for some shopping, and, when returning to collect me, photographed

some of the sparrow chorus occupying their lengthy gabion lining the wall facing the car park.

Late in the afternoon, when this hot afternoon was beginning to cool, Jackie took us on a brief forest drive,

having first photographed the front garden pink climber.

Two pairs of waterfowl lined up on the bank of Hatchet Pond turned out to be the footwear of a couple enjoying a paddle.

This evening we dined on meaty Ferndene sausages and gravy; creamy mashed potato; firm cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts; and crunchy carrots.

Waiting By The Phone

For the last couple of days I have been experiencing physical symptoms which, although not alarming, require examination. This morning I rang 111 the NHS out of hours service. I answered a bunch of questions and was told I should visit a local facility. The assessor said she would arrange this and I would receive a phone call to make an appointment. This didn’t happen.

I therefore spent the day with “Kristin Lavransdatter” while waiting by the phone.

This evening we dined on meaty Ferndene Farm sausages and gravy; creamy mashed potatoes; piquant cauliflower cheese; crunchy carrots; firm broccoli, and tender runner beans, with which I drank more of the Merlot.

Avian Backing Notes

We were out early enough in the forest this morning to be held up by children being delivered to schools.

Against the soundtrack of a distant cuckoo’s call ponies breakfasted on the moorland alongside Holmsley Passage, further along which

lay a foal alongside its dam, until I approached too close for comfort, sending it to seek security from her flanks and source of nourishment.

More ponies, still shaggy in winter coats, were gathering on the green at N. Gorley, where a local resident gathered fresh manure with bucket and spade. Here the avian backing notes were provided by the cawing of vociferous rooks.

Jackie photographed a herd of deer lounging beneath trees at Gorley Common. They can be seen roughly central in the first picture.

En route to Ogden’s North her next subject was a rabbit seemingly paralysed at the roadside. She produced the next two in this gallery

while I photographed the rippling stream, its shallow bed, and its clear reflections.

It was the crowing of roosters that rent the air at Hockey’s Farm Shop

where Jackie photographed some shaggy alpacas.

This afternoon I added a lengthy P.S. to https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/21/a-knights-tale-36-some-schoolmasters/ consisting of further memories of Wimbledon College teachers e-mailed to me by Keith Prince, who joined the school two years after me.

This evening we dined on tasty haddock fish cakes; piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potato and crunchy carrots, with which I drank more of the Merlot.

Hot And Sunny

Throughout the day the temperature was hot and the skies sunny.

Suddenly the pink climbing rose on the front trellis is blooming.

This morning Martin first retrained the jasmine against the new fence, whilst I dead headed and weeded,

albeit lacking the ability to kneel or the staying power he demonstrated later.

I also produced three other garden views labelled in the gallery. The Wonderful Grandparents rose in the bottom lefthand corner of the first has four clusters of healthy buds.

This evening we repeated last night’s menu and beverage.

A Growth Spurt

Today was warmer than yesterday, but largely overcast until after lunch when I wandered around the garden with my camera taking advantage of the diffused light.

Before then I made considerable further progress with “Kristin Lavransdatter”.

The very hardy Erigeron plants are popping up everywhere, as are the yellow Welsh poppies now in need of my deadheading duties.

Clusters of libertia, like these beneath the wisteria, are quite prolific.

Our bright red varieties of rhododendron thrust themselves into view whichever way we look.

Fine blue irises stand proud.

Jackie’s greenhouse cuttings are burgeoning.

Peonies are becoming massive.

Shrubs such as spirea, vibernum plicata, weigela, and the last, now identified by Martin with the aid of an App on his phone, as a deutzia, are in full bloom.

Ferns, including those acting as backdrop for the orange tip butterfly, are fully unfurled.

Bees also visited such as the vinca.

This antirrhinum sat well in front of a red maple fading from view.

The Rose Garden is beginning to prosper.

The copper beech is in good leaf after its recent trimming,

and the clematis against the fence between us and North Breeze is bursting into stellar shape.

After such a wet April the current warmth has made for a sudden growth spurt.

This evening we dined on spicy beef burgers, chunky chips, chestnut mushrooms, baked beans and onion rings, with which I drank a Reserva Privado Chilean Merlot 2022.

Rippling Highland Water

On the first morning of a predicted run of warm, sunny, weather, we took a drive into the forest.

This car that wound up in a ditch on Lymore Lane had probably been driven by someone pulling over to let someone pass on the other side without realising that the verge would drop.

Roadworks holding up Traffic on Christchurch Road enabled me to photograph buttercups, dandelions, their clocks, and cow parsley on the verges.

Cattle occupied the moorland at one end of Beaulieu Station Road; thereafter ponies roamed among the gorse until they suddenly took off in the direction of Lyndhurst.

We stopped at the dappled Balmer Lawn where I kept a diplomatic distance from the couple on the ground, and discretely focussed on

the now receded rippling Highland Water.

This afternoon I published

The Mistress Of Husaby

We had been regulars at The Wheel Inn, Pennington, when It had been a community pub; Covid lockdowns destroyed it. This evening we visited The New Wheel Inn under its new management.

We had been somewhat disconcerted when we couldn’t find a spot in the car park which was packed with vehicles. I entered the bar to investigate and found, when I was greeted most warmly that most of the cars belonged to people who had just popped in for a drink. Very soon their cars departed, leaving space for Jackie. We were given a choice of tables and I was engaged in conversation with a very friendly couple while Jackie scanned the menu and ordered her glass of San Miguel.

My chosen beverage was an excellent Merlot served at the right temperature.

As usual in such locations Jackie photographed the interior ambience including various menus and an Only Fools and Horses poster signed by Sir David Jason.

The Assistant Photographer thoroughly enjoyed her chicken Katsu curry, rice, and a poppadom, as did I

my well filled chicken and ham pie with chunky chips in a basket, seasonal vegetables, and tasty gravy.

It is clearly still a very friendly pub with first rate food, delightful service, and no piped music. We are pleased to have returned.

The Mistress Of Husaby

Already on the first page of this second part of the “Kristin Lavransdatter” trilogy, the author demonstrates the range of her descriptive skills incorporating all the senses: “The ground sounded hollow under the horses’ hoofs, for the earth was as hard as iron with the black frost. The air was full of steam from the men and the horses; the bodies of the beasts and the men’s hair and furs were white with rime. Erland seemed as white-haired as the Abbot; his face glowed from his morning draught and the biting wind” evokes the harsh weather which is itself a significant protagonist in the saga. All the seasons are similarly expressed.

This longest, central, section explores the position of the medieval Catholic Church, to which Sigrid Undset had recently converted in her own time; and its interface with still extant ancient mythology. The Church dominated the calendar operating from one saint’s day mass to another, and feast days like Christmas.

Priests were seen as the arbiters of conflict and upholders of morals, especially relating to sex, love, and marriage; these last demonstrated significant struggles with punitive conscience and lax desire over strict mores. Loyalty through periods of trying times is seen as paramount.

Children born out of wedlock or subject to step-parents were of lesser standing than the offspring of legitimate marriage, leading to significant family issues for the major characters.

Childbirth was a difficult process taking its toll on mothers constantly pregnant. Medical care of all kinds was in very early stages, resulting in deaths which could be saved today.

There is much on politics, warfare, and international relations in this episode of the work; we have a failed revolution and its consequences, including torture. Punishments differed according to the social and economic status of miscreants.

We learn how people at all levels lived; their hardships, their dwellings, their clothing, their jewellery, and their weaponry.

Undset’s deep understanding of human nature; her ability to convey conversation and to detail unspoken thoughts, is put to good use in her characterisation, with which she conveys the ebb and flow of relationships between the main personnel.

The fluent, often poetic, prose carries us along with it. “From the gateway a pack of farm-dogs rushed out barking at the newcomer. Inside the courtyard a flock of shaggy goats were picking their way about, dark in the clear dusk – they were tugging at a heap of pine-branches in the midst of the yard. Three little children in thick winter clothes ran about amongst them” conveys everyday action in addition to the more significant exploits.

“Now the sun was below the mountaintop, the golden radiance grew paler and the red more rosy and soft. After the bells had fallen silent, the soughing of the woods seemed to grow again and spread abroad; the noise of the little beck that ran through the leafwoods down in the valley sounded louder on the ear. From the close nearby came the well-known clinking of the bells of the home cattle; a flying beetle hummed half-way round about her, and was gone” incorporates both sight and sound.

Bank Holiday Weather

Completing a typical English Bank Holiday weekend in the usual manner rain drizzled throughout the day. Incidentally, since most of our bank branches are permanently closed to customers – Lyndhurst’s NatWest, for example now converted to a top market car showroom – it is probably time we dropped the term for our Public Holidays.

“The Mistress of Husaby” is the translated title of the second novel incorporated into my copy of Kristin Lavransdatter. I finished reading it today and will review it tomorrow.

Bringing bread for our dinner this evening, Elizabeth visited this afternoon. After much convivial conversation she returned home for her meal and did not join us for more helpings of Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp.

Back In Action

On a morning as overcast and drizzly as yesterday had been warm and sunny, Jackie drove us to Hockey’s Farmhouse Café for brunch.

First, we had collected a repeat prescription from Milford on Sea pharmacy, which had worked very well with the old-fashioned paper method.

Jackie photographed a raincloud over the Isle of Wight, indicating that the island would be covered by

haze we were to blink through over Deadman Hill. As, having ventured onto the moor, I dried raindrops coating my camera and lens, I reflected that at least I no longer needed specs for distance viewing, as they would have really needed wipers.

Two women walking beneath an umbrella looked, from the black bin bag one carried, to be volunteer litter pickers along the verge of Roger Penny Way.

Occupancy of the green at the Brook end of this road was shared by a flock of horned sheep with their lambs and ponies.

A magpie picked its way among the woolly beasts possibly in search of nesting material from their prey’s clothing.

Jackie also photographed this ovine and equine group. When she captioned the second of her shots including me “back in action” she provided me with both title and header picture.