Ramblings
This morning we drove to Southampton General Hospital for the next of this round of BCG vaccine instillations. All went smoothly and the after affects are as expected, which means I could just about manage to finish reading ‘Devices and Desires’ but not to write the review; that will have to wait a bit.
Tonight we dined on chicken Kiev, ratatouille, boiled potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and runner beans.
A tiny screw had escaped from my specs, meaning that I kept losing a lens. We took it to Boots Opticians in New Milton this morning. After a brief wait the problem was nailed. While we were in the small town which has a plethora of cheap eating houses, we stayed for brunch at The Garden Café.
This afternoon I accompanied Jackie on a visit to Ferndene Farm Shop to buy mushrooms for tonight’s dinner, and we continued on a forest drive.
The view of snowdrops along Beckley Road was blemished by the presence of crushed drink cans, so I looked skywards to bare
branches brightened by the emerging sun.
A pair of mallards now rivalled ponies for occupation of the winterbourne pool at the high point of Pound Lane. While the horses slurped their soup the ducks dived in search of sustenance.
Further down the road we glimpsed a pair of greys foraging in the darkened woodland.
On the road into Burley, her own pony tail swaying with that of her steed, and sporting a jacket bearing the legend TEAM HONG KONG CHINA, we fell in behind a young rider who let us know she was turning off and thanked us for our patience.
Controlled burning of gorse was under way on the moorland alongside Holmsley Passage.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy merguez sausage casserole; boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower and its chopped up leaves, with which I drank more of the Shiraz.
No culling was done from
My header picture today does not appear on the above post, but it shows me on my mobile phone telling the Nottingham Post newspaper the good news.
For much of this cold, overcast, day I continued reading ‘Devices and Desires’.
This evening we dined at Rokali’s where I enjoyed Naga chilli prawn and special rice, as Jackie did paneer shashlik; I drank Kingfisher and she drank Diet Coke. The food was as plentiful and perfectly cooked; the service as friendly and efficient as ever; the ambience so comforting.
Having begun the book yesterday, I read much more today of P.D. James’s ‘Devices and Desires’.
Tonight’s dinner consisted of succulent duck roasted in plum sauce, boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower; with fried chestnut mushrooms. Jackie drank Diet Coke and I drank Paarl Shiraz 2023
About 37 years ago in Newark I bought a Victorian armchair which
became my counselling seat. I had met a tax inspector on the train during my days of commuting to London four days a week. He had told me how, when he interviewed suspects he always occupied a higher perch to give him more of a sense of power. I did the opposite because I wanted to keep clients at ease. They were already giving me the power of their trust.
Not only was my chair lower on the ground but it was long in the seat and therefore just right for my legs. Why was this so?
A bustle is a padded undergarment or wire frame used to add fullness, or support the drapery, at the back of women’s dresses in the mid-to-late 19th century.[1][2] Bustles are worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. Heavy fabric tended to pull the back of a skirt down and flatten it. As a result a woman’s petticoated skirt would lose its shape during everyday wear (from merely sitting down or moving about). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bustle
This chair accommodated a behind bolstered by a bustle, the owner of which could happily dangle her legs in comfort from nearer the edge. As can be seen, I must have worn my chair to a frazzle. Particularly as there is not much call for voluminous rear ends today, this chair was now occupying too much space.
https://derrickjknight.com/2025/01/27/repairs-and-refurbishment/ contains images of the Victorian rocking chair Dillon used to rock our great-granddaughter Ellie to sleep during her first two and a half years of life. It was already very creaky, and, a twenty-first birthday present from Jessica’s mother, I had never seen it without gaping joints. The above-mentioned post features Andrew Sharp carrying it off for refurbishment.
Today he brought it back, with every joint glued tight and no creaking to be heard.
He had noticed that the triangular blocks to hold the seat at the front were rather too small for the job, and replaced them.
The iron springs beneath the hessian were intact, but the material
needed replacing. Here, in his mobile, Andrew displays this process midway;
and here is the finished article ready to be placed on the blocks.
He is always keen to explain all his careful refurbishment.
Jackie was more than happy to try it out.
Andrew returned the refurbished rocker today and took the bustle chair off to auction. He had volunteered to do this and give us the proceeds. Because he was doing us a favour and we all knew this would simply be regarded as a project for a buyer we asked him to keep the money.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome shepherd’s pie; quite white cauliflower; crunchy carrots; fried chestnut mushrooms, and tasty gravy, with which she drank Diet Coke and I drank Whole Berry Cabernet Sauvignon 2021.
On another cold-cloudy day Jackie drove me to Southampton General Hospital to begin my next round of BCG vaccine instillation. This went smoothly, but the after effects are more than somewhat inconducive to concentration.
I did manage to finish reading Juliet Barker’s ‘The Brontës’, but maintaining focus may take a day or two for a review.
This evening we dined on Bird’s Eye battered cod; oven chips, baked beans, and garden peas, with which I drank more of the Malbec.
This finger-tingling morning we transported another 14 bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre and returned with
two plant stands to replace two that have rusted away in the Westbrook Arbour. The black one between the two chairs is made of cast iron and not likely to rust.
Afterwards I culled all pictures except two from
This afternoon I read more of ‘The Brontës’, before dinner which consisted of the second half of yesterday’s roast chicken with similar fresh vegetables accompanied by Diet Coke for Jackie and Valle de Eco Malbec 2023 for me.
This morning we woke to the smell of burning oil. Once more our heating was not working.
Top temperature outside today was four degrees centigrade; I don’t know what it was inside, but I certainly wasn’t going out – so after lunch I practiced with my Nordic poles, reaching No. 21 Downton Lane before turning back. I didn’t time the walk this time, yet a stiff cold breeze added enough of a chill factor for me to travel as nippily as possible.
There is still a small supply of crab apples to nurture our regular blackbird visitor.
This afternoon Steve of Norman’s heating came to fix the boiler problem. There was a small amount of oil where it shouldn’t be in the system; Steve cleared it out.
Later, I read more of ‘The Brontës’ before dinner, which consisted of succulent roast chicken; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower with its chopped leaves for brassica; and tasty gravy with which I finished the Bordeaux while Jackie drank Diet Coke.
Early on this cold-bright morning, in readiness for a forest drive, Jackie scraped ice off the car windscreen through which
figures along the Milford-on-Sea promenade were silhouetted against the sky above the Isle of Wight.
Alongside Pilley’s Bull Hill cattle occupied the moorland
where, on the road to Beaulieu, sheet ice cracked its waterlogged surface.
Black-hued moorhens sought sustenance on one bank of Little
Hatchet Pond, while a white, reflected, egret waited, poised to dive from the other;
as I prepared to picture three cormorants engaged in similar activity on the main branch of the lake, one flew off.
As Jackie said “then there were two”.
Ponies wandered among the burnt gorse at East Boldre, where mossy
branches were reflected in another winterbourne pool.
This afternoon I watched the Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and Ireland.
Dinner this evening consisted of Jackie’s delicious chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh crusty bread, with which I drank Château Les Fermenteaux Bordeaux 2021.
Clearly not a day for going out,
photographing a few snowdrops on the circuit round the garden, I practiced with my Nordic walking poles through icy drizzle, taking the same route as yesterday, this time turning back at No. 19 Downton Lane during a total of 14 minutes.
Later I carried out a little iPhotos culling, retaining just three from
The afternoon belonged to Six Nations rugby, beginning with Italy v. Wales, followed by England v. France.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp with crusty bread rolls.