The Catch

Giles had left his cap at our house on his last visit. This morning we drove round to return it. As he appeared to be out, after knocking, I pushed the headgear through the letter box and prepared to leave. A giant snail on the window sill caught my attention and I paused to photograph it. Giles then appeared. He had been chopping logs down the garden.

Snail by Giles

Our friend is very creative with driftwood and pine cones.

Pillar Box

We also had a birthday card to post. The Victorian pillar box nearby was pretty full, and the slot wasn’t really large enough for our item, so we travelled to the post office to leave it in their box.

An about turn took us on to Purewell, near Christchurch where we bought a present at Motorists’ Discount Supplies. We had some difficulty finding this establishment at 5a Sanpit. We could have been spared this, had we parked at Mudeford Quay before our search. This is because, printed on the back of our parking receipt, was a map advertising and locating the outlet.

In the event, we didn’t go to Mudeford until after buying a freezer at Curry’s. This was required because the Cook and Caterer in Chief had realised that we couldn’t stock up for all the Christmas guests we are expecting without something larger than our current equipment.

The weather is still very mild, and although it was high tide the water was calm enough to caress the sea wall with a gentle susurration. Jackie repaired to the cafe whilst I wandered in search of photographic material.

Crow 1

A vociferous crow cawed atop the crab baskets, then,

Gulls in flight 1Gulls in flight 2Gulls in flight 3Gull in flightGulls in flight 4

the air was filled with flocks apparently auditioning for a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic ‘The Birds’. They were squabbling gulls wheeling, screeching, and treading air just beyond the quayside.

Gulls around boat 1Gulls around boat 3

Gulls in flight 5

Gulls around boat 2

I walked round the rows of heaped baskets to see that a fishing boat had come in.

Fishermen with catch

Two fishermen were sorting their catch, boxing up what they wished to keep, and discarding the rest.

Fishermen on boat 1

Since the fishers were definitely both men, I wondered whether they had borrowed the boat from Chloe and Christie out of Poole.

Gull 2Gull 3

Some of the hopeful scavengers made their presence known from the concrete kerb. The noisy fellow was really rather large;

Fisheman and gulls 1Gulls and fishermanGulls and fisherman 2

others, still airborne, scrambled over each other in their eagerness to catch scaly pickings.

Lunch at Haven Cafe

It didn’t take me long to take three dozen pictures, then join Jackie in the Haven Cafe where we lunched on mixed seafood platter, chips, peas, and salad for me, and a jacket potato heaped with cheese and coleslaw for Jackie.

Despite our capacious cafe repast, we managed to dine on a little of Jackie’s splendid pork paprika and special fried rice, followed by chocolate eclairs, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I imbibed more of the malbec, still drinkable after the best part of a week.

That, of course, was after we had installed the new freezer.

The Run Up To Christmas

Dawn

Such is the speed of light changes, especially at this time of the year, that, in the two minutes it took me to sling on a dressing gown, get downstairs, and grab the camera this morning, the completely red dawn sky had streaked, but still looked dramatic.

Christmas tree

Today the usual division of labour between Jackie and me applied as we continued the run up to Christmas. The creatively practical member of the partnership decorated the tree, and the administrator wrote the cards.

Christmas lights 1

Santa Christmas lights

The last collection is at 4.45 p.m. As I walked to the post box in the dark, I noticed that a couple of our neighbours have also festooned their facades with festive lights.

This evening we dined at The Royal China restaurant in Lymington, where we enjoyed our usual plentiful meal with very friendly service. We both drank Tsingtao beer.

Christmas 'tree'

I also had the opportunity to photograph the ‘Christmas tree’ formed from lights forming   streamers suspended from a star-topped maypole. I had forgotten my camera when we were here yesterday.

A Precocious Hellebore

We are still enjoying temperatures in double figures, and the rain was easier today.

This morning we left a large photographic print for mounting with 4Most Framing in Old Milton. We returned home via Barton on Sea where

Isle of Wight

the waves were choppy and a layer of spray around the dimly visible Isle of Wight gave it the appearance of a Hovercraft skimming over the surface of the water.

Walkers on shore

The weather was still mild enough for walkers to venture onto the shore down below the crumbling cliff.

This afternoon we brought our Christmas decorations downstairs and prepared a space for the tree which still occupies the boot of the car.

Hellebore

Jackie picked a precocious hellebore bloom and placed it in a little brown Victorian cream jug gathered by Matthew during our mudlarking days.

Christmas lights

Later, she trailed a string of coloured lights along the front garden trellis.

The Christmas lights at Lymington, where we dined at Lal Quilla, were inviting, but I forgot my camera. Although it is several months since we last visited the restaurant we received our usual warm welcome and excellent meals with Kingfisher beer.

Happy Christmas, Mum

A wood pigeon’s plaintive mating call filled the air this mild morning. When, at mid-morning, he ceased his mournful cry, it seemed to be more to do with the steady downpour of rain that set in for the day, than to do with his luck having changed.

Jackie and I made a start on Christmas cards, and, Ferndene Farm Shop having sold out,  bought a tree at Redcliffe Nurseries.

Jackie, Ron, Helen, Bill and ShellyBill, Helen. Shelly, Jackie, Derrick

This afternoon we joined Shelly and Helen and their husbands Ron and Bill, for the annual laying of a wreath on the sisters’ mother’s plot in the Woodland Burial Ground at Walkford. Rain poured down all the time. We had a few words, then wished Mum a Happy Christmas and repaired to Shelly and Ron’s nearby home where we enjoyed sandwiches, pork pie, canapés, cakes, mince pies, mulled wine, red and white wine, and coffee. We reminisced into the evening. I was still wet through when we returned home at about 7.30.

There was a general agreement that Mum Rivett would have questioned our sanity in weathering such elements.

Agnes Miller Parker

Jackie drove me to and from New Milton for me to lunch with Norman at Tas, in The Cut, EC1.

Leycesteria

In the rather neglected station garden a Leycesteria is blooming rather early. Note the dumped supermarket trolley visible beyond the stems.

The Cut SE1

From Waterloo Station I approached The Cut, as congested as ever, via Lower Marsh

Food stall 2

with its cosmopolitan food stalls preparing for the lunchtime custom.

Food stall 1

I wasn’t the only photographer focussing on food.

Tas Special meal

Norman and I had our usual enjoyable discussion over the Anatolian cuisine. We both chose the Tas Special lamb meal, which was very tender and tasty. Before that we had each chosen soups. Mine was fish with coriander and ginger. For dessert we each enjoyed baklava, and shared a bottle of the house red. We finished with coffee before I made my way back to Waterloo for my return home. Further sustenance was not required this evening.

Two days ago, I featured the dust jacket of Eiluned Lewis’s ‘Honey Pots and Brandy Bottles’. This was to display the work of Agnes Miller Parker. I had bought this 1954 publication some forty years ago, essentially for the illustrations. Perhaps, I thought, it was time I got around to reading it. I finished it on the train today.

The book is a collection of essays and poems gathered to represent the four seasons of the year. Published by Country Life the writing is pleasant, if, for this reader, unexciting.

What lifts the publication well beyond the ordinary are the wood engravings of a woman I regard as one of the best illustrators of her day.

SpringSummerAutumnWinter

The clarity, perspective, and depth of field evident in these masterpieces would be impressive if they were simply pen and ink drawings. When one considers the technical skill required to bring light and life to images worked into blocks of wood, admiration can only be enhanced.

Santa’s Little Helper

Bathroom door 1Bathroom door 2When Aaron, continuing his work on the bathroom, engaged Jackie and me in a debate about whether or not he should paint both sides of the bathroom door, he observed that he loved a difference of opinion. Jackie said he could do what he liked – the other side of the door will be painted anyway when he does its companions on the landing. I pointed out that that left him in the position of having to choose between us, and likened it to Christmas at Mat and Tess’s a few years ago.

I have two Antipodean daughters in law. Tess is from New Zealand, and Holly is an Aussie. They each presented me with a bottle of their native wines, asking which I would like to open first. I was between the rock of Marlborough and the hard place of Margaret River. Aaron suggested I might have taken a nice French one out of the cupboard. Sitting firmly on the fence, I said we would no doubt drink them both, so I would open them together – a somewhat difficult manoeuvre, especially for one who is not exactly a dab hand with a corkscrew.

Yesterday afternoon in New Milton, and today in Lyndhurst, we had far more success with Christmas presents than hitherto.

Lyndhurst, the tourist hub of The New Forest, was very busy.

Post Boxes and Santa's little helper

Santa’s Little Helper stood by the twin post boxes, keeping her eye on a cardboard container on the wall surrounding the Christmas tree. I imagine this was for the collection of letters to Father Christmas. (In truth she was selling cup cakes, but let’s not allow the truth to spoil an idiotic idea.)

It is normal for our post boxes to bear a bas-relief of the sovereign’s initials. The one against which our subject is leaning is embellished with GR and the other with EIIR. I don’t know which of the six Georges was on the throne when the first was installed; and since there were no such amenities during the reign of the first Elizabeth, the II on the second is probably a little superfluous.

Skyscape

On our way home, as the sun was thinking about calling it a day, we diverted to Milford on Sea. The concave section of the cliff edge in this shot, is where another section has fallen away.

Jogger on shore

A number of joggers were about. Here one runs along the shoreline.

This evening we enjoyed a dinner of Jackie’s glorious sausage casserole; crisp carrots and Brussels sprouts; boiled potatoes; and fried leeks. I drank Old Crafty Hen.

A Shropshire Lad

Last year’s Folio Society edition of ‘A Shropshire Lad’ by A. E. Housman contains Agnes Miller Parker’s 1940 wood engravings to this timeless set of poems. Much as I admire this superb artist’s work, I already possessed the Society’s 1986 edition illustrated in a more modern vein, so, I was not tempted to buy it. Well, not greatly. It is the latter version I finished reading today.

Here is the book jacket to another of my treasures, illustrated by the great engraver:

Agnes Miller Parker book jacket

This is how The Folio Society publicise their latest edition:

“Beloved by both scholars and general readers, A Shropshire Lad was self-published in 1896 and has been continuously in print ever since. Housman, who was also the greatest classical scholar of his age, wrote the cycle of 63 poems after the death of his friend Adalbert Jackson. Among his themes are the transience of youth, the sorrow of death, the loss of friendship and the beauty of the English countryside. The poems’ depiction of young, brave soldiers made them widely popular during and after the Boer War and the First World War. They also captured the imagination of many composers, with George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Samuel Barber among those to set them to music.

Housman evokes a semi-imaginary pastoral landscape, his tone often rueful and elegiac as he evokes the ‘golden’ years of youth and the realm of classical myth. But it is perhaps for the directness and poignancy of his language that the poems have endured. On the vagaries of feeling and the fragility of human kinship, he is at once emotional and unsentimental, lyrical and frank.”

I enjoyed the poems and would concur with the above blurb.

Patrick Procktor’s illustrations suitably complement the text.

A Shropshire Lad

Here is the frontispiece;

A Shropshire Lad endpaper

and here the design for the endpapers.

For many years now, Folio Society publications have come in stiff cardboard slipcases. These are mostly unembellished. This one, however, has this portrait on the back:

A Shropshire Lad slipcase

Does it represent Adalbert Jackson?

This evening we dined on Jackie’s perfect pork paprika, savoury rice, and green beans, followed by lemon and lime merengue tart. The Cook drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the malbec.

12342653_490921431079669_5710528345196685012_nP.S. I am indebted to Judith Munns for the information and Barrie Haynes for the photograph of this statue of Housman that stands in Bromsgrove, where Judith once lived:

‘Strike While The Iron’s Hot…….’

A comment from my blogging friend, Mary Tang, on yesterday’s post led me to contemplate first names. Mary has met many people who share her prenomen. Apart from my Uncle Derrick, I have only come across three others who share my spelling. Strangely enough, they also all had the same surname.

The first Derrick Knight to create a certain amount of confusion was a documentary film maker who began working in the 1950s. Some of his films were used in Social Work training. I never met him, and I didn’t make films. But I needed to convince a certain amount of Social Workers that it wasn’t my name on the credits. The above photograph is borrowed from Guy Coté’s site.

When my picture appeared on Google’s images page heading the story of a man on Death Row, this causes a little consternation for half a day. As a black American footballer he may have shared my name, but not my appearance.

The one namesake I did actually meet put a flier through our letterbox sometime in the 1970s when we lived in Soho. He was the proprietor of a new shop called Knight Games, just opened in Dean Street. I just had to walk round to meet him. Imagine our joint amazement when I entered the establishment and we found ourselves staring at our doppelgangers. We were the same height, the same build, the same hair colouring, with similar features, and wearing similarly framed spectacles.

This morning a courier called Phil delivered my brother Chris’s chair which Frances has sent me from Wroughton in Wiltshire.

On a warm, wet, and overcast afternoon, after visiting the bank in New Milton, Jackie drove us out to Ace Reclamation at Parley, beyond Christchurch.

As we negotiated the bumpy potholes of the mile and a half long track to this architectural salvage outlet, Jackie observed that ‘you must really want to get to this place to come down here’.

Once we had parked outside the truth of this came home to me as we clambered over a pallet laid alongside a large puddle in the entrance. I was reminded of Walter Raleigh spreading his splendid cloak over one such, so that Queen Elizabeth I wouldn’t spoil her shoes.

The yard and and the sheds comprise a cornucopia of reclaimed artefacts. A giant cock perches above an old telephone box. New corrugated iron sheets are piles alongside covered planks. Pub and Post Office signs are suspended above various garden ornaments of dubious provenance. Just opposite The Crown, for the past two years, has stood a very tasteful item of garden statuary. Not so today. The figure I had intended for Jackie’s Christmas present had been sold.

We had a look around anyway, if only to confirm that we had aimed for the best piece there. The red Egyptian replica bearing implausible bare breasts didn’t quite cut the mustard, although one of the staff members did suggest she might.

Neither did we fancy the two huge dogs standing between an assortment of vacuum cleaners and an ancient bath. They appeared to be guarding an assortment of doors, roof tiles, and paving.

Another hound, set up a warning clamour when I presumed to photograph a jumble of chairs, radiators, bath, mirror, and fireplaces. Fortunately, he was penned in.

Autumn leaves adorned part of a carding machine

and a heap of rusting grates.

Wooden planks and metal posts stood opposite them.

Some items are deemed requiring protection from the elements. These are kept inside,

which can get rather dusty.

A string of fairground horses line up alongside everything including the kitchen sink.

Finally, pinned to an arrangement of doors was a sign pertinent to our predicament today. Examples of various fireplaces were also displayed.

As a parting quip the manager advised me to ‘strike while the iron is hot next time’.

We drove on to Lyndhurst where we intended to buy another present. We didn’t find that either.

Never mind, we dined on a juicy chicken and bacon pasta bake, with a medley of roasted vegetables. I drank Cimarosa Reserva Privado malbec 2013.

Roanoke

You know when you buy a new car and for some time thereafter you seem to see others of the same model every time you venture out?

Well, I haven’t bought a Chesapeake, but, ever since my mention of Chesapeake Mill on 4th, it has followed me around. First, Barrie Haynes sent me details of how the mill got its name, with a picture of USS Chesapeake, which I added to my post; then Chesapeake Bay turned up in a book I have just finished reading.

The volume is a history of the first thirty years of England’s attempts to colonise Virginia. This, ‘Big Chief Elizabeth’, by Giles Milton, is no dry tome. It reads as the rollicking adventure story that it is. It is also a mystery tale concerning the fate of the first settlers on Roanoke Island. The reader is gripped from the start. The writing is fluid, with judicious use of quotations that enhance the text rather than simply fill it out. More than half a millennium on, and in full knowledge of the European taking of America, we really want to know the outcome. That, of course, is why I can give no more detail. It is perhaps fortuitous that I should have begun reading this at Thanksgiving time.

My Folio Society edition is well illustrated, with photographs,

Chief's wife and daughterChief Wingina

such as these of John White’s portraits from 1485,

Roanoke map 001Roanoke map 002

and useful maps by Reginald Piggot;

Big Chief Elizabeth001

and sports a front board decoration by Gavin Morris.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb sausage casserole; mashed potato; boiled carrots, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts. I consumed more of the cabernet sauvignon.

Reflecting On Centuries Of Building

Jackie drove me to and from New Milton for me to travel to The Tas Turkish restaurant in The Cut to lunch with Carol.

For a little variety I walked from Waterloo Station through the early Victorian terraced streets to the East of Waterloo Road.

Roupell Street SE1Roupell Street SE1 2Cornwall Road SE!

Typical is Roupell Street which has Valentino Hairdressers on one corner and Konditor and Cook’s attractive bakers on the other. Typical of the mid-nineteenth century, these dwellings have no front gardens and a narrow hall leading to the rooms inside. These two bedroomed properties can be found on the market for more than £1,000,000. I can assure those readers across The Pond that the correct number of noughts is shown here. The street lamps are probably reproductions.

Victorian chimneys and modern block

Modern glass fronted blocks tower above the London stock brickwork and terra cotta chimneys of their older neighbours. Since London is a smoke free zone the chimneys are probably retained for cosmetic purposes.

Chimneys, aerials, cables

Telephone cables and television aerials add touches of two further centuries to the original buildings.

Wootton Street Railway arch

These side streets are lined with railway arches over which lines run into the terminal railway station. This proximity renders the tranquil nature of the historic little streets, off the bottlenecked The Cut, quite surprising.

Reflected terraces

In Cornwall Road a shorter wall of glass reflects the terraces opposite,

Reflections of blocks

and in Webber Street, alongside The Old Vic, a more lofty block carries the images of others on the opposite side.

Puddle

The flats in The Cut, reflected in a puddle on which float recently fallen autumn leaves, were built in the period between the new and the old. The soggy dog end spilling tobacco into the bottom left of the picture is a common sight, now that smoking is prohibited in workplaces or public buildings.

Crane

A working crane, like this one beyond the end of Short Street, is not an uncommon sight.

Carol and I enjoyed an excellent meal with our usual pleasurable conversation. Although we chose different starters, we both savoured the tasty chicken casserole, and moist baklavas, with a glass each of the house wines.