Jackie and I undertook a Tesco’s shopping trip today, after she had made purchases at Ferndene Farm Shop.
After lunch I conducted a long dead heading session with my new Wilkinson’s secateurs given to me on my birthday by Flo and Dillon. Later, I produced a few garden photographs.
On the near corner of Flo’s Fairy Garden stand a little patio seating set waiting for a permanent place when some healthy plants have been thinned out and the elfin gravel paths have been cleared a bit.
One cluster of day lilies stands beside the Shady Path
Gazebo and Brick Paths all now cleared,
attention has now been given to footpaths across the beds like these to the Orange Shed and through the West Bed;
and to the decking area cleaned and potted up.
Tall lilies tower over even climbers like Shropshire Lad in the Rose Garden.
We have ubiquitous varieties of day lilies and hot lips throughout the beds.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in pleasant conversation with the ladies of all ages in the household.
This evening we all dined on superb pork and chive sausages with creamy mash and fried onions, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Sierra Los Andes Mendoza Malbec 2022.
Dawn skies over Downton presaged similar weather to yesterday,
especially when casting its light on Becky’s aptly named painting of a ‘Troll in a Storm’ – although when brightening Giles’s stained glass it appeared more optimistic.
The elements did follow yesterday’s pattern although without the rain which only threatened with the occasional forbidding frown.
While Jackie completed her work on the Brick Path
I concentrated my clearing and bagging up of refuse, my dead heading, and my weeding on the Back Drive where
day lilies, honeysuckle, and roses now look somewhat tidier; and
insect life, like Red Admiral butterflies
and crickets, seems to be returning.
Tired as she was, Jackie was able to bale out yesterday’s waterlogged wheelbarrow and continue her planting after lunch.
This morning I received by Facebook Messenger the pictures taken by Danny’s sister of the “human train across the stones” and added them, amending the text, to
They feature Dan helping me across the stepping stones with his mother bringing up the rear.
Jackie and I each spent two good sessions weeding, sweeping, bagging up refuse, and dead heading in the garden on this cooler day on which the sun on brief occasions peeped nervously round clusters of cotton clouds, and the avian chorus was replaced by the whoosh of the stiff breeze on its way to thump into our ears as it sent arboreal foliage and flowering plants alike quivering up, down, round, and about.
The Head Gardener continued work around the Brick Path which had begun with the circle around the filled old well.
These petunias are in the iron urn shown above;
others are included in numerous hanging baskets,
one of which features in this first picture of the red Bottle Brush plant.
The pond bed contains more petunias, French marigolds, phlox, and day lilies,
of which we now have a number of flowering varieties.
This clematis climbs in the Dragon Bed; the Weeping Birch leaves are apparently prematurely ageing.
Elizabeth spent the afternoon with us, having brought another timely bag of clothes for Ellie.
This afternoon she returned to her home and the rest of us dined on Red Chilli’s excellent home delivered fare. Our choices of main meals were lamb korma, chicken dansak, chicken dopiaza, and prawn pathia; rices were pilau and egg fried; a paneer tikka and peshwari naan were shared, Having opened another bottIe of it I drank more of the Shiraz.
While I carried out a deal of dead heading this morning,
Jackie and Martin continued path clearance, coming together at
the T junction formed by Jackie’s Brick and Martin’s Phantom Paths.
This afternoon I finished reading ‘Monsieur’ by Laurence Durrell, and posted https://derrickjknight.com/2023/06/29/monsieur/
This evening we all dined on tasty roast duck; crisp Yorkshire pudding; roast potatoes, some crisp, some soft and sweet; crunchy carrots, and firm broccoli, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the chianti.
the clematis Montana obscuring Laraine and David’s exit from next door. Often exceeding the 40 m.p.h. speed limit, vehicles of all shapes and sizes do not slow down when passing me at work. It is somewhat scary.
Jackie continued planting pots.
Later, I converted the gallery in https://derrickjknight.com/2022/09/10/broadlands-breakdown-burger-bar/ from Tiled to ordinary in order to recover the pictures.
This evening we all dined at The Smugglers Inn, Milford on Sea. As usual, the food was plentiful, perfectly cooked, and of excellent quality; the staff were welcoming, friendly, and efficient; even shortly after 6 p.m. the spacious establishment was fully occupied, although we were given a table presumably reserved for later, and a high chair was rapidly provided for Ellie, who readily engaged with staff and customers.
Jackie enjoyed her crisp fish, chips, and garden peas; Dillon and I our tender, lean, steak and mushroom pies;
Flo and Ellie shared massive, meaty, spare ribs.
From the dessert menu Dillon selected splendid spotted dick and vanilla ice cream; Flo a flavoursome toffee waffle, also with ice cream; and I a traditional merangue, cream, and strawberry Eton mess. Ellie appreciated her shares of all our puds.
Working backwards this morning to 16th I converted another batch of Galleries in June 2014 posts.
This afternoon we joined Helen, Bill, Shelly, and Ron at 22 Avon Avenue, Avon Court, where we viewed their splendid garden open for the National Gardens Scheme.
Water was the dominant theme here, as paths with well stocked
borders encircled a central man-made lake, lined with bags of cement which set as the water was added.
On this very hot day the many visitors welcomed the shade offered by the numerous trees.
Dragonflies darted, azaleas and arum lilies abounded; a locked door added Tardis-like mystery.
While I stood pondering whether I dared try my balance on stepping stones across deep water
a gentleman keeping upright with the aid of two sticks ventured across.
It was then that Dan came to my aid.
I had been enjoying conversation with him and his mother including speculation about whether we both had Viking ancestry, when he suggested going across ahead of me with my hands resting on his shoulders. This is what we did. His sister then joined us.
She had photographed this activity from the other side of the lake and Danny, later, sent them to me by Facebook Messenger.
I also photographed Bill.
After this visit we all repaired to Helen and Bill’s home at Fordingbridge, where Jackie’s sister provided an excellent repast of cold meats, boiled potatoes, coleslaw, and fresh salad with flavoursome bread she had made from a recipe book provided by Shelly who made a superb trifle topped with strawberries. Beers and red wine were quaffed.
Soothed by today’s gentler avian chorus, Jackie, Martin, and I all worked in the garden this morning.
The Head Gardener freed a couple more metres of the bricks on the eponymous path of their green packing, leaving a few more for future treatment.
After loading the rest of the refuse on the Back Drive into his van to remove when he left, Martin completed his meticulous weeding of Fiveways and the Shady Path;
then opened up the completely overgrown Head Gardener’s Walk for wobbly legs, enabling me to reach more spent roses from The Generous Gardener, in addition to which I did the same for Arthur Bell
and New Dawn;
then snipped secateurs, strapped straying stems in the Rose Garden, extracted weeds, and transported trugs of further refuse to add to Martin’s van load.
Later, working backwards from 6th July to 28th June 2014 I changed pictures to the normal Gallery, thus recovering them to the posts, which results in cropping of some images on each post which can nevertheless be viewed in full in the galleries. This is more annoying than excessively time consuming.
This evening we all dined on beef and chicken burgers, fried onions, and fresh salad with which I drank more of the Appassimento and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.
Accompanied by a shrill avian chorus that, apart from the occasional baleful wood pigeon, could have done with a bass tenor from Langholm, our division of labour in the garden this morning continued apace. It hadn’t been good idea for me to wear a sun-absorbing black T-shirt.
Perched in the Weeping Birch high above the eponymous flower bed
a pair of chaffinches kept up an incessant two note whistle lending a discordant jarring to the harmony. Was this a war cry or a serenade, I wondered?
To the left of Jackie, who was continuing her work on the Brick Path,
an owl roosted on a branched stand sporting a clematis fascinator in readiness for
Wedding Day festooning the Agriframes Arch with a certain amount of Compassion shown.
Another clematis adorns the Palm Bed, while two more owls are draped in ferns in the Pond Bed,
which also contains blue lobelia, pastel petunias, and rose campion.
Golden Day lilies star in the Dragon Bed.
Roses are represented by the red climber ascending the opposite side of the lopped cypress to The Generous Gardener; lofty Altissimo; and Rosa Gallica, being entered by a working bee.
This evening we dined on spicy lemon piri-piri chicken and various rices with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Selone Puglia Rosso Appassimento 2021.
Jackie spent the early part of the day completing her weeding of the Brick Circle and continuing along the Brick Path. I began my later stint of dead heading and pulling up weeds by gathering up her refuse and adding it to the compost bins.
Before eventually settling down at my computer I staggered around with my camera.
I photographed a variety of our clematises – on the patio, in the Rose Garden, and on the kitchen wall.
Wallflowers and miniature kniphofias blend well in the Pond Bed.
Roses include New Dawn on the Palm Bed;
in the Rose Garden Madame Alfred Carrière, Lady Emma Hamilton; the third picture containing the red Love Knot, pansies, Alan Titchmarsh, and Just Joey;
and finally the red climber along the Shady Path.
Day lilies appear on the corner of Margery’s Bed and in the Dragon Bed.
This evening we all dined on oven fish, chips, and onion rings; garden peas, pickled onions and gherkins, with with Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Waters Edge Moldovan Pinot Grigio, part of Becky and Ian’s Father’s Day selection.
I have ignored recent Jetpack communication from WP because I don’t understand it and am afraid to get involved with it. Until now, this seems to have been a good decision judging by the number of problems other bloggers seem to be having with it.
I came across a new problem. The block of photographs I had used successfully in this original post were inaccessible. After wrestling for an hour or so with this mystery I somehow discovered that Jetpack was now demanding that I sign up to Stripe – whatever that may be – and pay for the use of images from the pub’s promotional material, which had been part of my effort to publicise the excellent, innovative, venue. Fortunately we had visited again a few weeks later when Jackie had taken several pictures. I substituted some of these.
In doing so, I found all but one of the pictures missing from
I was able to recover these photographs from my iMac Photos, but even that presented its own difficulty. Try as I might I could not discover how to include what is now the last owl thatch image without it being cropped by WP – in fact I almost left it off altogether, which should tell you something. It only worked when I made it a separate tiled gallery of its own.
In the meantime my stints in nature’s gym incorporated two separate periods of weeding and dead heading, and only after finishing my rounds with the above problems, did I wander around with my camera.
Now I have given up. I cannot select the tiled gallery without the images being cropped. So the following pictures can only be seen in full when the gallery is accessed. Maybe they will sort this out, but I have had enough for one day.
The first of these two images of the Pond Bed is the view from our dining room window.
Some of our later blooming daily lilies are now flourishing.
Wedding Day rose, cropped in the second image can be seen on its are along the brick path.
Further along the brick path, on either side of the arch, can be seen more Cordyline Australis trees which, until recent clearances, have not been easily visible.
Here are two shots of the red climber along the Shady Path.
This rose coming into its own in the Dragon Bed was another of Jackie’s very cheap buys.
This veilchenblau rambler was bought very cheaply from an open day at Ferns Lodge in Cottagers Lane.
As entitled in the gallery Absolutely Fabulous, and Mamma Mia all enhance the Rose Garden.
This evening we dined on tender roast lamb; crisp croquette potatoes; firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, soft green beans, and meaty gravy with which Jackie finished the Bangla and I drank Trivento Reserve Malbec 2021.
