Three Minutes

A sudden scary hail-like clattering seemingly about to pierce our bathroom window panes with a virulent volley at 7.10 a.m. this morning ensured that I was fully awake enough to investigate further.

A violent storm had lifted the patio parasol and, leaving the base behind, threaded it through the arms of a chair ripping the canvas top. Three minutes later all was still and silent. Jackie had righted the pot of chrysanthemums on the table before I produced my camera. Later we unthreaded the parasol pole and returned it to the base.

Fortunately the rain kept away while, returning with two reconstituted stone plinths, we transported another fifteen bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre.

The postman had delivered an admissions letter with a schedule of dates for my BCG vaccination installation procedures, beginning on Wednesday in two days time. This will mean six once weekly trips to Southampton General Hospital and some unpleasant side affects.

I had hoped to put my feet up this afternoon in preparation for some more chopping and bagging up of pruning from the section along the West Bed fence which Martin hadn’t had time for at the end of his recent visit.

Since I will probably be out of garden action for the next two months I

decided to carry out this task today and take a rest tomorrow. It needed five spent compost bags.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome shepherd’s pie; sliced fried potatoes; firm cauliflower, carrots, and Brussel’s sprouts, with which I drank Patrick Chodot cru du Beaujolais 2023.

We Are Familee

Frances’s friend David arrived at the same time as Jacqueline and Elizabeth delivering our sister-in-law.

There followed one of those enjoyable and occasionally embarrassing conversations where one person’s story sparks off another’s and snowballs ad infinitum.

One of mine appears in the following post:

An Attachment To The Gates.

My sisters stayed on for lunch after Frances and David left to drive back to Swindon. The apples from our garden appear by special request from Sheree.

Today’s title is taken from Frances’s title for the e-mail in which she sent me the two portraits in the first gallery above.

This evening we dined on breaded chicken in Katsu curry sauce; Jackie’s flavoursome vegetable rise; firm Cauliflower and carrots, with which I drank Beefsteak Club Mendoza Malbec which Elizabeth had brought.

Sun, Sea, Spray

Late this morning we received our Flu and Covid vaccinations at our GP surgery and returned home along the coast road.

Figures were silhouetted against the bright, cloudy, sky, while

turbulent seas piled pebbles up the promenade, smashing spray against glistening rocks

and dripping breakwaters.

Pinpoints of light stippled swirling seas.

I have long wondered what produces the similar patch of twinkling illumination sometimes seen on the cliffs of the Isle of Wight.

Today I discerned nothing more romantic than sunlight bouncing from stationary cars.

Jackie capped my photograph of the Isle of Wight and The Needles with her image of a yacht passing the shipping hazard and approaching the bloodshot eye of the lighthouse.

This evening we reprised yesterday’s peri-peri chicken meal, with which I drank the last of the Haut-Médoc.

Boldre To Botany Bay

Frances was driven here from Swindon by a friend, and collected by Jacqueline for lunch at Elizabeth’s where they will spend the weekend. Over coffee and cake Jackie and I enjoyed a morning of reminiscences and revelations with our sister-in-law and my sister.

This afternoon, stopping off at Otter Nursery for yet more bulbs, we took a forest drive.

We got no further than the Parish Church of St John the Baptist at Boldre which took us on a virtual journey to Sydney, Australia.

At Church Lane we stopped for me to photograph reflected trees bowing over the still stream.

Around the corner we were attracted by a banner stretched on the church fence celebrating the tercentenary of the birth of Rev William Gilpin.

Unusually the doors – a memorial to John Bousquet Field, his wife, Cecilia, and their 16 year old grandson, Thomas Mostyn Field, midshipman on HMS Mary sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 – were unlocked.

As shown by the list of incumbents on the wall, Gilpin was the vicar from 1777 – 1804.

This text from Lt Col Peter Chitty can be enlarged in the gallery, as can the following extract from Chitty’s pamphlet below.

It is Rev Richard Johnson who

takes us with the First Fleet to Botany Bay, arriving in 1788. The story, featuring in the caption beneath Brian J Down’s drawing of St Philip’s Anglican Church, can be enlarged in the gallery. When I visited Sydney in 2008 many shops carried lists of the names of those first passengers in their windows. I imagine they are still there. Please note Garrulous Gwendoline’s comments below for her important observations on both the First and Second Fleets.

Jackie produced these images of the exquisitely carved lectern

and the flower arrangements in situ.

Field horses are at home in the pastures below the church.

This evening we dined on Tesco’s Kentucky Fried Chicken; onion rings, chips, baked beans, cauliflower and its chopped leaves with which I drank more of the Haut-Médoc.

Further Along West Bed

This morning Jackie and I transported another fifteen bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre from the heap that had continued growing in the last couple of days.

In the meantime Martin made sure that what was left was more than we started with.

He cleared far more than I had left in the West Bed, and

littered the Brick Path once more,

not failing to clear and bag up the debris.

Jackie continued working in the shade of the wisteria, where she proudly inspected the lily bulbs she had found.

This evening we dined on Nando’s peri-peri sauce on Jackie’s roast chicken pieces, with her colourful savoury rice; firm cauliflower, and tender runner beans, with which I drank a deliciously smooth La Réserve de Sociando Mallet 2016 Haut-Médoc by Sylvie et Jean Geautreau which Tesco clearly hadn’t been able to sell at £28.00 so Jackie splashed out and bought it on Yellow Ticket at £15.40.

Behind The Shed

In preparation for the winter quarters of her potted plants Jackie has spent time tidying the greenhouse where she will now perch on her shower seat recently acquired from Efford Recycling Centre.

The area behind the adjacent garden shed had become a dumping ground for various artefacts no longer in use, for forgotten trays of bulbs such as tête-à-têtes, and for a now collapsed table, all standing on uneven ground harbouring twisting tree roots and prolific stinging nettles. Jackie has also cleared this, uprooting the nettles and having suffered a number of painful stings in the process.

Martin, this morning, opened up the area around the bay and holly trees by lopping branches in order to lift the canopies of these, thus revealing ornaments like dragons which have been obscured for a couple of years.

Between them our two proper gardeners have filled many more bags of refuse to add to those of mine.

Later I read more of ‘The People’s Act of Love’.

Giles had been admitted to Lymington Hospital following a fall last Wednesday. We therefore visited him early this evening. He is out of bed and mobile.

Afterwards we dined on Mr Pink’s first class fish and chips with baby plum tomatoes and cold baked beans, with which I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Finishing Off (For Now)

Now that the fierce winds have eased off the day was warm enough for T-shirts and bees; although the autumn crocuses have taken a battering Rosa Siluetta Lavender, grateful for the rain, continues its rapid climb up the Weeping Birch trunk.

Jackie was able to clear the Cordyline leaves, brambles, and stinging nettles from behind the Australian tree this morning and leave them for me to bag up this afternoon,

along with a few clippings in a trug.

I filled five and a half bags then swept up the debris.

After drafting this I received a most helpful call from Natalie, one of the nurses in the Southampton General Hospital urology department. She was very friendly and clear in her explanation of the reason for, the procedure, the follow up and the after effects of the BCG vaccine installation, confirming that I would be sent a letter with relevant dates. Interestingly she had the results of my recent blood test which she told me was normal, and that the symptoms I have been continuing post-procedure are quite usual, clarifying why.

This evening we dined on spicy peri-peri chicken (milder than last time); Jackie’s colourful savoury rice; carrots, cauliflower, spinach, and broccoli, with which I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cordyline Australis Leaves

We have three large Cordyline Australis trees in our garden. This one is in what we call the Palm Bed from the days when we didn’t know the name of the tree.

Especially when beset by the fiercely blustering winds we are still experiencing, these antipodean arboreal specimens shed their leaves littering the garden with powerfully woody material more suitable for the Efford Recycling Centre than for our compost so that is where we take them. I tackled these in two stints each in excess of an hour – one in the morning and one after a good lunchtime rest, including dozing over The Antiques Road Show.

Their concentrations are on the beds containing them and the adjacent paths.

I couldn’t quite reach every piece on the West Bed, but, by sitting on the bench visible in the second picture in this gallery and stretching across with a grabber I did clear the Cryptomeria Bed.

I cleared the Brick Path;

the gravel path beside the tree in the first picture above;

and the footpath leading into its eponymous bed.

They filled four bags which I added to the growing pile for the next dump run.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome shepherd’s pie (always better on the second day); potato slices roasted in olive oil; pure white cauliflower; crunchy carrots; and firm broccoli – vegetables fresh from Ferndene Farm Shop are always in perfect, full flavoured, condition. I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2022.

A Soggy-Cloud Day

When yesterday I photographed apples on the tree in the Rose Garden, this was a gentle reminder to Jackie to pick them because I can’t get into the plot. She took the hint and plucked all seven today.

We normally eat our lunch from plates resting on our knees on the sofa while watching Antiques Road Trip, through which I invariably doze off. Today we watched the final episode of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, for which I kept awake, and later posted

Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams

On another miserably wet, windy, soggy-cloud day the parasols once again were tied up and chairs laid on the ground. I then read more of ‘The People’s Act of Love’.

This evening we dined on Shepherd’s pie topped with potato slices; tasty Brussels sprouts; crunchy carrots; and tender spinach, with which I finished the Cötes du Rhöne Villages

Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams

Anyone with an interest in cricket would have known from his prowess on the field that Andrew Flintoff has a big heart. By the end of the 2005 Ashes series there was no doubting its generosity

when this iconic photograph of him consoling Brett Lee went round the world after the Australian had narrowly missed winning the last game.

To appreciate the truly inspirational six part BBC iPlayer Television series named in this title neither understanding nor sympathy for the game is required.

Flintoff, identifying with a disparate group of underprivileged and underachieving boys from his native Preston, gathers them together and forges a supportive and ambitious collective from youngsters with a range of difficulties and conditions through the experiences and challenges he gives them, never forgetting where he came from, and treating them as equal human beings. With his honest style he is both challenging and supportive in encouraging them to find their own potential.

Many of the youngsters had presented behaviour resulting in school exclusion or difficulties impeding their learning; one in particular had managed alone to battle his way as a fifteen year old non-English speaking immigrant to this country; their ethnic and religious backgrounds vary.

None has ever played cricket before. Most challenged Freddie and his friend Kyle with disruptive or isolating stances. The two men’s straightforward approach, especially Flintoff’s well-timed one-to-ones with struggling individuals makes the game a metaphor for life.

Slowly we see a bunch of hopeless and isolated young men meld into a group looking out for each other and for Freddie himself as he battles to come back from an almost fatal, life changing, injury that set back his programme and delayed the planned trip to India for more than a year.

Flintoff was honest with the group about how much he was himself learning about other worlds and cultures from the trip to India into which he and the lads fully engaged. Indian food, beliefs, customs, and every aspect of culture were so alien to boys from Preston council estates, yet they all learned so much from their experiences and returned to England with self-confidence and hope they had never experienced before. The programme closes with an update on the success most of them had begun to experience on their chosen paths in life.

Freddie’s message had been that it was up to each of them to find their own wishes and strengths, regardless of what these were. Months after their return these had not been abandoned. Just two are likely to have a career in cricket – others are embarking on different metiers. They continue to meet as a group.

Although some may need to become accustomed to the Yorkshire accent no viewers will miss the warmth and ultimate joy of this series.