Month: July 2024

88 Degrees Fahrenheit

We began the day leaving Martin in the garden while we shopped at Tesco for general stores.

It was probably hotter than this title today, and, apart from spending the day staggering up and down the garden plying him with drinks I reflected that in my not so distant youth I would have done as Martin did and worked all day. Now I was completely washed out.

This led me to search my archives for a reference to the Bolton marathon. Inserting the temperature in this title I came up with https://derrickjknight.com/2012/08/11/a-welsh-interlude/. The said race is only part of a post inspired by a hot day in France.

The Bolton course is described, the hottest one of my three events at it being the one mentioned in addition to my diversion in honour of my grandmother. On the train down from London I had met a young man of 18 proudly claiming to run a fast race. I warned him, especially in the heat, to take it steady. He wouldn’t listen. I passed him at the 5 mile point. He was walking and wringing wet. I doubt that he finished the course.

Today I have no choice. It wasn’t until 5.30 p.m. that I could face going outside to admire Martin’s work,

some of which was further clearance of the Rose Garden paths. It was no cooler in the evening.

In the meantime I began reading “The Nibelungenlied”, Part One of Book Two of Legends of the Ring.

This evening we dined on pork chops in mustard sauce scattered with almonds; pigs in blankets frozen since Christmas; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli; and meaty gravy, with which I finished the Tempranillo.

Water Fountains

I have never before experienced a sauna, but when I stepped out into our steamy garden to carry out my first dead heading of roses for the last three weeks at 11 a.m. I was greeted with a good idea of what to expect if I ever do. I had returned indoors by midday, and did not emerge again until late afternoon when I wandered around with a camera.

Jackie had achieved her gardening tasks before I came out for the first time.

She had further reduced the pile of pots on the patio awaiting planting out.

Hanging baskets and the iron urn, which she has spent 2 days clearing of a writhing ants’ nest all benefited.

While I was working in the Rose Garden a sharp droning noise alerted me to the fact that its solar powered water fountain was bone dry and screaming out for water.

The Head Gardener fixed that before serving lunch.

Waterboy tips his water into the container on the Pond Bed, where the Wonderful Grandparents rose blooms again.

Red sweet peas appear in the third picture in the Rose Garden gallery,

whereas white ones grace the arch at the corner of the Oval Path and

the Weeping Birch Bed.

Blue agapanthus stretches over the Gazebo Path from the Palm Bed,

seen here from the lawn,

while solanum hangs over the Brick Path.

This evening we watched the Olympic men’s doubles tennis matches between Rafael Nadal partnering Carlos Alcaraz and Tallon Griekspoor with Wesley Koolhof; then Andy Murray and Dan Evans against Sander Gille with Joran Vliegen; the first while dining from tables in front of the TV on roast pork, apple sauce, boiled new potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding, fried onions and mushrooms, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli stems; the second after our meal was over. I drank more of the Tempranillo.

A Knight’s Tale (97.2: Consultancy)

I so enjoyed e-Quips post Court Reporting earlier today that I spent several hours searching my own archives for a story of my own – only to come to the conclusion that I could not have published it before. This led me to realise that there was a significant body of work I have not featured – largely because I had been conscious of not breaking confidentiality of individuals.

Somewhere around 1985 I had undertaken team building group work for Lincolnshire NSPCC in our home in Newark. Memorable for the mysterious ash trays this led to several pieces of work for the county Social Services Department, one of which was the assessment of a child abuse case.

No smoking occurred in the rooms in which the team building took place. During the lunch break the members spent the time in our large sun-filled garden. Later I noticed that the ash trays in the rooms were full. The NSPCC staff and brought their stubs inside so as not to spoil the garden.

One of the tasks I had carried out for the Social Services Department had been, in partnership with one of the NSPCC Social Workers, to assess a family child abuse situation.

After some 40 years it seems reasonable to tell this story of my appearance as an expert witness in a County Court I will not name. The Department was rightly taking the position that a close relative should not have direct contact with a very young child; they were offering annual written exchanges with photographs.

The barrister for the defendant, a very beautiful, elegant, young woman with a reputation for seductive charms dressed in a long black skirt bearing a thigh length slit, dismissing the efficacy of photographs, uttered the opinion “people don’t change over time.”

I was too flabbergasted to attempt to be funny, and gave the first response that came to mind, to a man prematurely grey-haired, namely “I think they do. I had a black beard once.” (At least in 1980).

That was it. Everyone in the courtroom, including my interrogator, the judge, and all others with a part to play, collapsed with laughter – as did the case.

This evening we dined on succulent chicken thighs with crisp skin roasted with massive portobello mushrooms; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower; tender cabbage and broccoli stems, with tasty gravy. I drank more of the Tempranillo.

The Mythological Poems Of The Elder Edda

This is Part Four of Book One of Legends of the Ring; like the Heroic ones it has been translated by Patricia Terry. I read it today.

“The mythological poems feature all the well-known Norse gods: Odin [often disguised, as for example a ferryman in the Lay of Harbard.], Fridge, Frey and Freyja, Thor, Loki and the fair god Balder. Giants and dwarfs have their share too. Sometimes the poems tell genuine stories about these characters. Both the ‘Lay of Thrym’ and the ‘Lay of Hymir’ are comic tales involving Thor, and the ‘Lay of Skirmir’ succeeds as a tale of romance.

“….knowledge is at the hub of the majority of these poems…..[which] convey knowledge of places, people, and events throughout the cosmos. They act as guides to the beginning of the universe, and its end, and contain the names and doings of all the major players on its many worlds.

“As with the heroic poems, much of the poetry takes the form of speech. Gods, giants and dwarfs, in turn act as the poems’ mouthpiece, climaxing in the great cosmic vision of the vala or sybil. Consequently knowledge, too, comes in spoken form: sometimes in monologue, more often in dialogue, principally in question-and-answer exchanges.” (Magee)

The first set of these poems is entitled WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.

‘The High One’ who offers the opening monologues ‘Sayings’ and the ‘Lay of Lloddfafnir’ is Odin, who, disguised as Gagnrad enters into a full dialogue with the giant Vafthrudnir in that eponymous lay. The advice given in the first of these reflects those given by Snorri, for example “if a man takes with him a mind full of sense/ he can carry nothing better;/ nothing is worse to carrot your way/ than a head heavy with beer.” The repetition of the first lines of a string of these verses is a common element in these lays. “Don’t stay for ever when you visit friends,/ know when it’s time to leave;/ love turns to loathing if you sit too long/ on someone else’s bench.” contains the now familiar penchant for alliteration. There are some nice similes in this verse: “Thus you’ll find the love of a faithless woman:/ like a smooth shod horse on slippery ice – / a sprightly two-year-old not yet trained,/ or sailing with no rudder in a frantic storm/ or a lame man on an icy hill running after reindeer.”

Then we have COMEDY AND INSULT.

“The Eddic interpretation of comedy is many-faceted: incongruous, preposterous, ridiculous; sometimes salacious, often insulting, and occasionally spiteful or downright cruel.”

In ‘The Lay of Thrym’ “Thunder-weilding Thor woke in a rage – / someone had made off with his mighty hammer;/ his hair stood upright, his beard shook with wrath,/ wild for his weapon the god groped around” (Again the alliteration).

The final selection represents QUEST AND PROPHESY.

This closes with ‘Sybil’s Prophesy’ quoted in “The Prose Edda”, describing the creation of the cosmos, its disastrous destruction by fire and tempest, and its ultimate hope of regeneration.

These two of Simon Brett’s engravings are relevant to this last section.

This evening, from tables in front of the TV while watching the Women’s rugby sevens Olympic match between Australia and Great Britain; the first round Olympic tennis doubles match between Britain’s Andy Murray and Dan Evans and Japan’s Taro Daniel and Kei Nishikori; followed by highlights of the third day of the third cricket test match between England and West Indies, we dined on roast pork, brambly apple sauce, Yorkshire pudding, boiled new potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and meaty gravy cooked perfectly by the Culinary Queen, with which I drank Bajoz Tempranillo 2022.

Cattle, Ponies,Donkeys

A couple of weeks ago I had not even been able to reach Elizabeth’s Bed against our southern fence, such was the jungle beyond

the Shady Path.

In addition to all else he managed yesterday, Martin completed his

clearance of this area, around which I walked with ease on this cooler, breezier morning. The top centre of the last image shows that he has also continued into the Rose Garden.

This afternoon, after buying a cucumber and other vegetables at Ferndene Farm Shop, we continued into the forest.

Burley was swarming with both ponies and tourists.

How, I wondered had this grey received slashed flanks.

Jackie produced this image of a foal sleeping beside the War Memorial.

We followed a veteran vehicle along Gorley Road until it turned off in the direction of Fordingbridge.

The donkey family at Hyde hadn’t moved far since our last visit.

Ponies in traffic at North Gorley amused a pair of cyclists who had to ride round them.

Cattle, ponies, and foals shared the green, although

the soggy pools were left to equine adults.

This evening, seated on the sofa while watching the Gold Medal Olympic rugby sevens competition between France and Fiji; then the highlights of the second day of the third Cricket Test match between England and West Indies, we dined on pizza and plentiful salad with which I finished The Reprobates Italian red wine.

Another Warm Sunny Day

Because we had been dilatory in dumping the garden refuse, Martin, while waiting for the spent compost bags, has been piling the green waste wherever he can until today, when he began

collecting up some rather rich smelling material.

In the meantime, I wandered around the garden on another fine, sunny, day and photographed this gallery.

Later, despite having a plethora of plants seeking permanent positions into which to be squeezed, Jackie, to quote her, had been “allowed out unsupervised to escape to Otter Nurseries and come back with three more” for which Martin managed to find room in the already packed Palm Bed.

At the end of the afternoon Max from Peacock Computers visited to make some adjustments to the settings of our telephone system. We ended up having a most convivial conversation.

This evening we dined on our usual three prawn preparations and Jackie’s mushroom and onion rice with the addition of leftover sweet and sour chicken and pancake roll from our last Royal Chinese Takeaway with which I drank more of The Reprobates.

Damp And Hazy

After stocking up on sausages and salad ingredients at Ferndene Farm Shop we ventured into a soggy forest where steady rain fell in an ever increasing crescendo keeping windscreen wipers in work.

The weather was nevertheless sultry enough for the few ponies we

encountered, despite being decidedly damp,

to continue to be plagued by flies.

Headlights gleamed in the haze of Pound Lane, as heather on the verges did its best to brighten the dreary views.

Later, I published:

The Prose Edda

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in BBQ sauce from Tesco and chipotle from Lidl, with Jackie’s mushroom and onion rice and tender green and runner beans, with which I drank Castellore The Reprobates Italian red wine.

The Prose Edda

This is Part Three of Book One of Legends of The Ring: The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) “an Icelander living during the remarkable literary flowering of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries which produced among other things the great Icelandic sagas” (Magee).

The translation is by Jean I. Young.

It was the rich heritage of poetry, much of which he quotes, that provided Snorri’s material for his Edda. He blends Norse history and mythology in this work. “His opening ‘Delusion of Gylfi’, in which the main mythological events and characters are depicted, is presented inside an elaborate framework of illusion and deception, conforming to the Church image of heathendom as trickery.” (Magee)

“King Gylfi ruled the lands that are now called Sweden….[he] was a wise man and skilled in magic” says Snorri. Disguised as an old man he visited Asgard (home of the gods) to discover the secrets of the Aesir (the main body of the Norse gods). By question and answer he is fooled by Loki, the mischief maker, as a device for explaining the creation and ultimate destruction of the universe. Taking the poem “Sibyl’s Prophesy” as his source we learn that ‘In the beginning/ not anything existed,/ there was no sand nor sea/ nor cooling waves;/ earth was unknown/ and heaven above/ only Ginnungagap [primal void] / was – there was no grass’. Thus the sun and stars, the seasons, the winds, humanity, and everything else. The main Aesir are named and their stories told.

We learn of Yggdrasil and its meaning. This is the ash tree “the best and greatest of all trees; its branches spread out over the whole world and reach up over heaven. The tree is held in position by three roots that spread far out; one is among the Aesir, the second among the frost ogres where once was Ginnungagap, and the third extends over Niflheim [the Underworld]….[the serpent] Nidhogg gnaws at the root from below….the hart devours it from above…”

Here are more of Simon Brett’s powerful engravings.

Predictions of the end of the world include “Surt will fling fire over the earth and burn up the whole world” and “the serpent churns up waves”, but there is hope that “While the world is being burned by Surt, in a place called Hoddmimir’s Forest, will be concealed two human beings called Lif and Lifthrasir [Life and Desire for Life]. Their food will be the morning dews, and from these men will come so great a stock that the whole world will be peopled…..”

The second part of The Prose Edda tells of the deaths of Fafnir, Regin, Sigurd, Brynhild, and the last of the Volsungs.

Cutting In

Today Nick applied the second coats of paint to the east gable end wall, thus completing this stage of the work.

Cutting in is the term for lining up two levels of paintwork which most people I believe would use masking tape to ensure a smooth line.

As shown in these images Nick uses his hand and eye to produce

this clean line.

Later I began drafting the next section of Legends of the Ring which I expect to publish tomorrow.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s Butter Chicken frozen after our last meal with the Grandfamily and Special Rice and paratha brought back from our recent visit to Rokali’s, with which I finished the Malbec.

Look How He Holds The Brush

This morning we transported another car load of garden refuse and entomological stowaways to the Efford Recycling Centre.

There was no further rain and the day was rather cooler, so Nick was able to make an early start and spend an uninterrupted day

applying the first coat of paint to our east gable end. When I observed how he guided and controlled the brush with his fingers he replied that he didn’t know he was doing it, especially after 40 years.

This evening we dined on chicken Kiev; creamy mashed potatoes; tender spinach and green beans; firm carrots and cauliflower, with which I drank more of the Malbec.