derrickjknight

Fisherton Mill Arts Centre

This morning, Jackie drove us to Salisbury where we met Frances and her friend Jenny for lunch at Fisherton Mill.

We arrived in good time. This was fortunate, because we walked the wrong way out of Central car park and took forty minutes, which was eight times what it would have taken had we gone the right way. Our problem was compounded by being directed to The Mill public house on the river Avon which flowed round the car park.

Leaving the parking area we crossed a bridge over the stream in which a moorhen preened its plumage, snaking its serpentine grey neck and burying its red and yellow beak into motley wing feathers.

The banks of the river were lined with lichen-covered trees.

Our venue was located in Fisherton Street. Since we found ourselves at the wrong end of it we were able to take in a little tour.

Salisbury’s municipal hanging baskets splendidly flaunt the sometimes reviled begonias.

A young woman eyeing Foxtrot Vintage Clothing window looked as if she may have just stepped out of it. I wondered if the original mart may have been owned by unknown ancestors of mine. Another passer-by seemed more interested in the gold and silver on offer next door.

Water Lane’s pavement runs alongside the river, which flows under Fisherton Street.

On a wall on the opposite side is fixed an old sign advertising Dick Barton’s.

Dick Barton was the hero of required radio listening in my ’40s and ’50s childhood. Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Dick Barton – Special Agent was a popular radio thriller serial broadcast in the BBC Light Programme between 7 October 1946 and 30 March 1951. Produced and directed by such well-known British radio broadcasters as Raymond Raikes, Neil Tuson, and Charles Lefaux, it was aired in 15-minute episodes at 6.45 (later 6.15) each weekday evening. From 11 January 1947 an additional “omnibus” edition repeated all of the week’s programmes each Saturday morning between 11.00 and 12.00. In all, 711 episodes were produced and the serial achieved a peak audience of 15 million.^[1] Its end was marked by a leading article in The Times.^[2]

The serial followed the adventures of ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton MC (Noel Johnson, later Duncan Carse and Gordon Davies) who, with his mates Jock Anderson (Alex McCrindle) and Snowy White (John Mann), solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations, and saved the nation from disaster time and again.

Mum joined Chris and me in listening during those pre-television days.

It was very good to see Frances after so many months of incapacity of one kind or another. We enjoyed wide-ranging conversation with her and Jenny over an excellent lunch.

My roast beef sandwich consisted of well filled home made bread. It was delicious.

Jenny photographed Frances, Jackie, and me.

Fisherton Mill also contains galleries of top-quality artwork on two floors. Notices throughout ask us to respect the artists’ copyright and refrain from taking photographs.

It seemed acceptable to photograph the alfresco dining area through an upstairs gallery window.

On our return we nipped off to Otter nurseries and bought winter pansies and chrysanthemums for planting tomorrow.

Mr Pink’s fish and chips, picked onions and gherkins constituted our evening meal with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Shepherd Neame’s Spitfire Kentish ale.

The Plantation House And Garden

A visitor just inside the front door this morning somewhat deterred Jackie from leaving the house by that route. Well, it was suspended at just about head height.

Yesterday the Head Gardener pronounced sentence of death on a ficus which was far too close to the patio, and too big for the plot it occupied. She made a valiant start on carrying out the punishment which I continued today. Working in steady drizzle, I just managed to complete the task before heavy rain set in for the day. The two pieces of trellis in the background of the photograph were taken from the recently freed cast iron gate. A scented jasmine has already been planted to make its way up them.

In the days following Sam’s arrival into Port St Charles, Barbados in May 2004, I continued to photograph the island and scanned a dozen more slides today.

The two boys were very keen to meet the new celebrity. They were Jay and Sol, the sons of Peter Milnes, who lived in a former plantation house. An introduction was arranged and we made our way to their home, where their delight was patent.

The family lived in a former plantation house. Better appointed than most they date from the colonial days when rich men could keep the poorly paid servants to run the establishments. The house was impressive and situated in an idyllic spot.

Hibiscus

and breadfruit were among the plants.

This evening Jackie and I dined on her scrumptious cottage pie, carrots, and cauliflower. She drank Blanche de Namur and I drank Cimarosa Reserva Privada malbec 2013.

Battle Of Britain Day

Today the wind has dropped to a mere 23 m.p.h. The good news is that there was minimal damage in the rose garden.

Today, Daphne and Ray Salinger share their 70th anniversary with Battle of Britain Day.

Yesterday the Isle of Wight County Press reported:

“BATTLE of Britain Day will be marked by a flypast that will include the Isle of Wight tomorrow (Tuesday).

September 15 is the 75th anniversary of the largest and fiercest attack by the German Luftwaffe over the skies of Southern England and London.

Around 1,500 aircraft took part in aerial battles, which raged throughout the day.

As evening arrived a group of German fast bombers were spotted off Cherbourg on their way to attack a Southampton Spitfire factory.

The Luftwaffe planes were later spotted over St Catherine’s and fighters from 607 and 609 Squadrons were sent to intercept.

The Germans made it to Southampton, but missed the Spitfire factory. However they dropped tonnes of bombs on the city, killing nine people and damaging the harbour and houses.

As they headed back past the Isle of Wight, close to the Needles, the British fighters engaged, shooting down four of the 20 bombers.

On Tuesday, World War Two fighters will again be in the skies over the Isle of Wight, thankfully in more peaceful circumstances.

A group of 40 Spitfire, Hurricanes and Blenheim light bombers are due to take part in flypasts, leaving from Goodwood Aerodrome in West Sussex.

They will be split into ten sections, before taking to the skies across Britain.

Two sections are due to fly over the south of the Island and their routes can be seen below.

The first section is due to leave at noon, with four minute gaps between subsequent sections.”

In the event the weather caused some delay and there were route alterations.

Jackie drove us to Hordle Cliff West car park, where we arrived, shortly before noon, to find it almost completely full. We sought no further confirmation that we had chosen the best vantage point from which to witness spitfires and hurricanes flying inland over The Needles. This car park usually belongs to the gulls at this time of the year.

The people came in coaches, they came in cars, they came on bicycles, they came on foot, to witness the flypast, due at about 12.10.

News soon filtered through the crowds, informing us that take-off would be delayed by two hours because of the strong winds. There wasn’t much point in returning home for a while, because we would have lost our place.

Possibly this gentleman is being advised that the gulls overhead are not planes.

We settled down for a wait during which I had a few chats with other would-be watchers and Jackie queued at the kiosk for an excellent choice of egg and bacon rolls, pasties and chips. We were fortunate to be so early, for a couple of hours later the queue stretched to the cliff edge. Clearly the woman in charge made a killing today, but she was managing alone because her husband was ill. Nevertheless she would acknowledge that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

Some people wandered off in search of other eating places. Others, like me, struck up conversations with strangers. One gentleman did a little dance on the clifftop, alarming everyone when he tripped over his own feet.

As the latest expected time of arrival drew near, we all fixed our eyes on The Needles, that row of rocks to the West of the Isle of Wight, over which the historic planes were to thread their way.

Had Jackie not been looking in the other direction, and alerted me, I would have been one of the disappointed multitude who missed the sight. The planes flew over the centre of the island, and aimed for Southampton. The itinerary had changed at the request of that city because of their association with Spitfires.

I managed to photograph eight specks gliding silently across the sky. I cropped and enlarged the first picture. The clouds behind the planes can be located again in the next shot, indicating the progression across the skies. Clicking on the images may make this easier to discern. One woman, returning to her car, exclaimed ‘Well, that was a damp squib’. ‘No imagination’, I thought.

Given that I was born in 1943, had there been a different outcome to the airborne battle, I may very well never have existed.

There was plenty of food left over from the Spice of India takeaway we enjoyed two days ago for tonight’s dinner. My accompaniment was the last of the Cuvée St Jainé; Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.

The Peacock Spring

A welcome visit from Shelly and Ron, to collect the platinum anniversary photographs, broke the monotony of a morning spent on too-long-deferred paperwork. We enjoyed the usual ensuing conversation, naturally involving a certain amount of reminiscing.

Afterwards, beset by the raging gale-force winds, I visited the postbox.

Despite Jackie’s distressed efforts to bring the hanging baskets and raised pots to protective ground level

some were repeatedly blown over and their contents broken.

We haven’t dared approach the rose garden.

In 1975 I bought a first edition of Rumer Godden’s ‘The Peacock Spring’. In 1996 the novel was filmed for television. Directed by Christopher Morahan and starring Peter Egan, Nareen Andrews, Hattie Morahan, Ravi Kapoor, with Madhur Jaffrey, this production was well received. It still took me until this year to read the book. I finished it today.

Set in 1959, a slow fuse burns with ever-increasing tension, until the explosive finale of the tale of a tragic relationship. The author’s trademark poetic description and insightful characterisation enables her to build an enthralling story of a flawed family and the conflict of cultural mores. I will not give away details, but can say that the picture to the left here shows the father with his two English daughters who have been brought to India to provide a veneer of respect to his relationship with the woman portrayed.

MacMillan’s publications comes in a striking book jacket designed by David Baxter.

It is not unusual for me to take forty years to read a book in my possession. As with this one, I sometimes wonder why it took me so long.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sublime cottage pie, crisp orange carrots and green cabbage. I drank more of the Cuvée St Jainé and Jackie enjoyed Blanche de Namur, a different Belgian wheat beer. The filmy quality of the above photograph comes from the wisps of steam rising from the dish, possibly encouraged by the layer of smoked cheddar cheese over the mashed potato topping.

The Print Room

Aaron’s main task this morning was the freeing and repairing of a side gate. In order to set a new post in concrete, he needed a bag of postcrete, a quick-drying material produced for the purpose. When Jackie and I went off to buy it, he directed us to a marvellous outlet, now Moles Country Stores, that he still knows as Scats. I have written before about how long it takes – sometimes several generations – to change long-established names in the popular mind.

Our gardening treasure also dug out a dead stump from the grass patch, filled in the hole, and reseeded the area.

Today’s garden view is looking from the corner of the Heligan Path towards the Fiveways chimney pot.

As I have managed to recover most of the iPhotos I lost last week, I was able to print, for Jackie to frame, a Poppy photo. We turned the image through 90%. Our granddaughter is not a vampire. Her fangs are reflections on the glass.

It has taken me several months to find the right kind of frame for ease of changing the content in order to display the Warwinter set of prints Becky gave me in April. Today I hung the first of the series. The idea is to replace each image with the next one. The corner magnets hold the acrylic cover in place over the picture, and can easily be removed for the replacement. This model is made by Adventa.

These works join others in the which is the downstairs loo, so named because all the pictures in it are prints, from the obvious photographic ones, to book illustrations. There is an original lino-cut, and a couple of favourite greetings cards.

A Spice of India Takeaway provided our evening meal. We shared poppadoms, paratha, and onion and mushroom bhajis. My choice of main course was lamb naga and special fried rice. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cuvée St Jainé red table wine.

Imperial Leather

Jackie spent the morning weeding and planting. I chipped in with an hour of clearing up the leaves and other debris from our recent burning session.

After lunch I received a call from BT level 2. This is a more experienced adviser than the poor cannon fodder who field the first problem calls. Since we have had no interruption for the past eighteen hours or so, and I am convinced the problem is outside the house, I was not willing to waste my time or hers by going through the checks all over again, whilst I hung on to the phone when I could be doing something else. We compromised. I hung up. She asked me a few questions, then ran the checks, and called me back.

Well. What do you know? The problem is outside the house. Something I have been saying for a fortnight. There was a term for this, which I didn’t catch, since it was spoken in an Indian accent. There are three possible areas of difficulty: the exchange, the cabinet in the street, or underground. At least that is what I understood. An engineer is to be given the task of investigating this, and I will receive a phone call in three to four days time.

I was at last being given some sense, but we won’t hold our breath.

Our new bath was delivered on Thursday when I was in London. The man who brought it would not help take it upstairs because he wasn’t insured for that. At least he put bit in the hall, which is where it stayed until Jackie and I took it up ourselves. It helped me relax after yet another long distance technical conversation.

We then planted up yesterday’s three rose purchases and gave the whole of the rose garden a good sprinkling.

These are two views from the bench by the orange shed.

The clerodendrum trichotomum undergoes quite a metamorphosis during its flowering. In future posts I will demonstrate this.

Butterflies, such as the Speckled Wood, are enjoying the sunshine.

When our new bath is installed our visitors may well be supplied with Imperial Leather soap. Alexander Tom Cussons 14.7.1875 – 20.8.51, chairman of the eponymous company, is best known for manufacturing this body cleansing agent. He also manufactured a number of others which have since been discontinued. These included Apple Blossom, Linden Blossom, Lilac Blossom, Blue Hyacinth, and beautiful rose perfumed soap that led to the naming of the famous Wendy Cussons Rose. The rose was bred by Gregory & Sons of Nottingham, and was intended to be named after Tom’s daughter Marjorie, but instead she asked for it to be named after her brother’s wife, Wendy as she bore the name Cussons. This extremely successful fragrant hybrid tea has won many awards, and is still available today, over 50 years after its introduction.

Ours is now blooming.

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in spicy barbecue sauce, savoury rice, and boiled new potatoes, followed by vanilla ice cream. Neither of us imbibed.

Three Roses

It is now 9.30 p.m. I f I finish this post this evening it will be a miracle, because, so far, much of it has been spent having useless and frustrating conversations with someone in India about lack of BT Broadband connection.

This morning Jackie drove us to Helen’s home in Poulner where we decanted into Helen’s car, in which she drove us to Lavender Farm at Landford, just inside Wiltshire. Taking in lunch we spent the best part of the day enjoying another splendid late summer’s day, before reversing the process.

The farm is an outlet for many wonderful plants, seen at their best on such a beautiful day.

There was, of course, a plentiful supply of lavender, but also very much more.

From the moment we entered, it was clear that the displays for sale were all as attractive as this one for cacti.

The three of us wandered around the gardens. I photographed the two ladies.

Sometimes just the beds;

or other people, like these two admiring the vegetables;

and these taking tea.

A couple I noticed sitting among the flowers were Brian and Sandra. Having taken the first picture from some distance away, as is my wont when I have not asked for permission, I walked along the narrow path to their bench, and sought it in retrospect. A very pleasant conversation ensued and they happily posed for a second picture. Brian turned out to have a collection of some 3,000 colour slides, mostly of historic Southampton, and was wondering how to digitise them. I described my scanner and advised them how to go about the task.

The garden was clearly troubled by wasps in July.

There is no charge for enjoying this haven, but charitable donations are encouraged.

Of course we bought some plants. Apart from smaller ones like heucheras and salvias, three roses on Jackie’s collection list just had to be acquired.

The first was Gertrude Jekyll, named after the famous gardener.

This is from the website in her honour: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), created some 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and America; her influence on garden design has been pervasive to this day. She spent most of her life in Surrey, England, latterly at Munstead Wood, Godalming. She ran a garden centre there and bred many new plants. Some of her gardens have been faithfully restored, wholly or partly, and can be visited. Godalming Museum has many of her notebooks and copies of all her garden drawings, (compiled and sorted by members of the Surrey Gardens Trust); the original drawings are in the University of California, Berkeley.

Her own books about gardening are widely read in modern editions; much has been written about her by others. She contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines. A complete list of every book and article written by her is in the Bookshop section of this site. A talented painter, photographer, designer and craftswoman; she was much influenced by Arts & Crafts principles.

(c) Elizabeth Banks; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

William Nicholson painted this portrait of her in October 1920.

Next came Lady Emma Hamilton.

Wikipedia tells us that:

Emma, Lady Hamilton (26 April 1765; baptised 12 May 1765 – 15 January 1815) is best remembered as the mistressof Lord Nelson and as the muse of George Romney. She was born Amy Lyon in Ness near Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of Henry Lyon, a blacksmith who died when she was two months old. She was raised by her mother, the former Mary Kidd, at Hawarden, and received no formal education. She later changed her name to Emma Hart.

Finally, has the rose Mamma Mia anything to do with Abba?

Readers may be amused to learn the reason that my first attempts at photographing these last two roses produced very bleary images. This is because a very small insect had become ensnared in Helen’s chutney. Not being able to identify it with the naked eye, I thought that if I photographed it with the macro facility it would be possible to do so. The creature turned out to be a small wasp. But I had poked the lens into the chutney, with the obvious results. My handkerchief was not adequate for the task of cleaning the glass, so I had to use a lens cloth when we got home, and photograph the roses here.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice, with chicken samosas. I finished the cabernet sauvignon.

Phew! 11.35 and all done.

Taking Charge

Jackie drove me to and from New Milton today for me to lunch with Norman at Tas in The Cut.

The Cut, forming part of the B300 has perforce become a main thoroughfare linking Waterloo and Blackfriars Roads, roughly parallel with Waterloo East Station. Far too narrow for its current usage, this road is severely congested at the best of times. As I walked along it in the direction of the restaurant, I became aware that all traffic was at a complete standstill. A car horn cacophony rose to a crescendo. Perhaps the loudest, more like a fog-horn, emanated from the longest articulated lorry I have ever seen.

At the corner of the unfortunately named Short Street was not a good place for this vehicle to have become stuck. There was no way round the corner until a small white van parked in front of the cab was moved. The fog horn only succeeded in drawing the proprietor of the tapas bar to his doorway. No transport could move in either direction along The Cut. Passers by passed on by. Drivers of both streams of private cars, taxis, and delivery vans turned off their engines and sat and waited.

I told the lorry driver that I would ask the restaurateur, who carried a mobile phone, to phone the police to have the van removed. This man must have had contacts with local police, but was not prepared to do it. He said the driver should do it. Acting as a go-between by now, I conveyed this to the driver. English was not his first language, but he asked me if I could move the traffic, so he could reverse and go by a different route which I was able to give him.

Suddenly feeling like Oliver Hardy, I realised I’d got myself into a fine mess. Nevertheless, I said I could move the traffic.

The solution was clear. The small car immediately behind the lorry had to get round it. The van behind the small car had to stay where it was, leaving the lorry room to reverse.

On the opposite side of the road the taxi at the head of the queue needed to make room for the moving car. This meant reversing into the vacant lane on the left of the picture above. The taxi driver wasn’t prepared to do it. The stalemate continued for what seemed an age, until the taxi mounted the populated pavement and continued on his way. I managed to get the van behind that to stay put so the small car could get round. As I turned to tell the first car he could move off, another private car passed the van and filled the space. I got him out of the way by suggesting he, too, mounted the pavement.

Well, someone had to take charge.

This gave the lorry driver the room he needed. I have to take my hat off to the man for manoeuvring that vehicle in any conditions at all, let alone this one.

Norman and I enjoyed lunch at Tas, an Anatolian restaurant. My choices were calamari and mushroom starters, chicken casserole, and baklava, accompanied by the house red wine, and finally Turkish coffee, without the sugar.

Having a little extra time, I wandered around these little Victorian streets and came across one that reminded me of Mary Tang of Life Is But This , a blog I can warmly recommend.

In a very small plot in Sydney, Mary grows a veritable potted arboretum.

I wondered what she would think of Isabella Street. This is full of restaurants, runs alongside railway arches, and is lined on both sides with huge tubs of trees.

What Would You Save?

Using mostly out-of-focus prints ranging from 12cm x 7cm to 8cm x 10cm in size, I aimed today to produce the rest of the A4 prints of the wedding of the parents of Ron and his sister Jackie, in Highcliffe on 15th September 1945. The originals could not be removed from the septuagenarian album, so I had to scan them in situ, balancing one side of the volume on the handle of a conveniently placed hole punch. Scanning a page at a time meant that there were two or three to be copied at once. I then had to duplicate the pages and crop one photo at a time. The resultant images vary somewhat in quality, but I am reasonably pleased with them.

Here are the final half dozen:

An unknown photographer did well to make this image of the ceremony using the available light inside St Mark’s Church, Highcliffe. I left this one alone, feeling that the creases accompanied the shafts of sunlight in a rather charming manner.

I imagine Captain Raymond Salinger is here accompanied by his best man. The photographer had clearly developed a list. I straightened to picture as much as I could without shaving the gentleman on our right. Daphne’s parents were the licensees of The Walkford which was closed to the public for the reception.

As the bride and groom leave the church, a Wren unwittingly steals the picture, which I would have been pleased to have taken.

Group photos in the garden of The Walkford perhaps caused one gentleman to be impatient

for Daphne and Ray to lead the way into the reception.

A conversation piece is often the question: ‘what would you save if your house was burning down’. Very often the answer is ‘photographs’.

Had Mr and Mrs Salinger not saved their wedding album when, some twenty years later, their house burnt to the ground with most of its contents, this post would not have been possible. Not that that would have entered their heads. Or mine.

After this continuation of a task begun yesterday, I all but completed another. This was incinerating branches and clippings. Heaps of leaves remain for another session.

Having spent the day on garden maintenance, Jackie produced her famous chicken jalfrezi (recipe) with mushroom rice for this evening’s dinner. She drank Hoegaarden and I quaffed more of the cabernet sauvignon.

Make Love, Not War

Now that our garden possesses better flooring than that inside the house, we cannot light bonfires in overflowing, legless, rusty, wheelbarrows any more. On another gloriously sunny morning we therefore went on a galvanised garden incinerator search. Beginning with Otter nurseries we performed a local tour, ending up where we had started. The bin we had been shown earlier had just been sold. The only alternative one was being used to display other goods because it had no lid. The assistant had obviously forgiven us for spurning her earlier offer, because she went hunting and found a lid. This evening, we tried out the pyre, which produced an intense, contained, heat.

Furry bees are stocking up for winter.

Behind Jackie’s new owl they scour the sedums,

as the sun casts its light across the garden.

Weeding of the paths has to be done with a certain amount of circumspection if one wishes to preserve self-seeded violas.

On 15th September 1945, one month after VJ day, the date that signalled the final conclusion of the Second World War, escorts of uniformed Wrens and soldiers lined up at the wedding of Miss Daphne V. Mitchell, Wren, with Captain Raymond J. Salinger, R.E.M.E. This took place at St Mark’s Church, Highcliffe, after which guests were invited to a reception at The Walkford Hotel. Throughout the globe, brides and grooms at that time must truly have felt they had been given a licence to make love, not war.

Seventy years on, Daphne and Ray, who still live in Walkford, are about to celebrate their platinum anniversary.

This was the event celebrated in the album from which their son Ron has asked me to produce a selection of 10″ x 8″ prints. Because most of the photographs are small, and all need quite a lot of retouching in the scanning, I began with just two today.

This evening we dined on chicken Kiev, boiled new potatoes and cauliflower, and a melange of peppers, mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes fried in olive oil. Custard tarts were to follow. I drank Louis de Companac cabernet sauvignon 2014.