derrickjknight

Oak Tree Farm

Yesterday’s observant readers will have noticed the post was earlier than usual. This is because I pressed ‘Publish’ rather than ‘Preview’ by mistake. Once today’s posts have been set in motion there is no turning back. Some of us, of course still use what is jocularly termed ‘snail mail’, where you write on paper, place the missive in an envelope, write an address and stick a stamp on that and place it in a red box. Until placed in the box there is plenty of time to rethink and even alter what you have written. Modern technology allows you endless painless revisions, but once you have pressed the button your message is metaphorically snatched out of your hands. There are no snails in cyber space. Mind you, the normal post, be it adminstered by the Royal Mail or its commercial rivals, is pretty quick. We can still expect first class letters to arrive the next day. Once it was even quicker. In my childhood there were two deliveries a day; in Victorian times even more. It was then possible to arrange an evening’s meeting through exchange of letters beginning that morning. There was no texting in those days.

The Penny Post was introduced by Sir Robert Peel in 1841. Originally horsepower was harnessed to carry the mail. Now huge vans cart them along our motorways and special locomotive vans transport them through the night. I once knew a man who worked on the mail trains. The vans were mobile sorting offices. Bags of mail were loaded onto the carriage, their contents removed and sorted, and unloaded at the other end of the country. The system required the bags to be upturned and thoroughly shaken, to ensure that no mail had been caught in the seams. One day he had adopted this procedure when a slim sheet of paper floated to the floor. It was a postcard sent some forty years earlier from Germany. Strenuous efforts were made to seek out the parents of the young man who had sent it during the war.

Soon after our dinner of Jackie’s liver and bacon casserole David Small arrived to replace the broken garage lock. The light was fading by the time he finished.

The casserole was served with crisp vegetables and sauteed potatoes enhanced by onion and garlic. It was rather a miracle that the spuds were not limp. These hang in a bag behind the kitchen door, so they won’t turn green if you leave them too long. Yesterday’s Murphies were wizened and bendy, displaying the creases you see in a new born baby’s skin. Much of their stuffing had been drawn out by the new shoots they were sprouting. But they weren’t green. Jackie had disguised this beautifully.

As we had promised ourselves, we took another trip to Ferndene Farm Shop, joined the throng and well and truly stocked up. I have never been to a Harrods sale, but I have seen pictures in newspapers of bargain-hunters frenziedly elbowing each other out of the way to get at the goodies on display. Some of the most frail-looking customers in what is really a food supermarket of excellent quality and reasonable prices, would not be out of place at a Harrods free-for-all.

Across the road from the shop lies Oak Tree Farm, a haven for red pillar and telephone box enthusiasts. The gravelled courtyard behind a securely locked pair of entrance gates are filled with these symbols of England. A black-painted Georgian wall-mounted letterbox is set in the establishment’s brick wall. The owner is a serious collector.

Anyone interested enough in the subject of red telephone boxes may also like to read my post of 15th October last year entitled ‘Kersall Telephone Box’.

On leaving the shop we went driveabout. New Milton’s main street was closed to traffic. This made it rather difficult to reach Milford-on-Sea, but we managed it in the end and walked along the sea front past Hurst Pond Nature reserve out to Hurst Point, and back to The Needles Eye cafe (see post of 10th January).

We happened to pass a house for sale in High Ridge Crescent that we had seen on the internet. It confirmed our interest.

As we left our car in the Hurst Road car park and I announced my intention to take photographs, a woman advised me to make sure the horizon was straight. I didn’t mention that it wouldn’t matter too much because I have an editing facility which can straighten images. My picture of a crow aiming for the point of an arrow that was the water’s edge, seemed to me to be enhanced by the angle of the skyline, so I didn’t change it.

A heron on the hunt in the pond did not move for the whole time it took us to walk to the spit and back.

The area is an intriguing nature reserve because it lies at a point where freshwater from the River Dane meets tidal water coming up the gully from the spit. The sight of the seabirds swooping, manoeuvring, and diving at an alarming rate along this channeled out watercourse reminded Jackie of the X-wings speeding along the tunnel during the famous Death Star battle in ‘Star Wars’.

Like much of the Dorset coast this area is subject to erosion. In an attempt to stay the inevitable action of the waves, huge rocks line the shore alongside the nature reserve, providing shelter for the Californian poppies clinging to the pebbled margins. These were imported from Norway, and today the quartz they contain glinted in the sunlight.

This evening’s meal was a tender and lean roast lamb dinner. Maipo reserva merlot 2012 was my wine.

Machine Operated Hoops

On 25th June I mentioned that all the garages had been broken into. The locks need replacement. The others are all owned by separate residents. They will all deal with them individually, which seems a bit uneconomic to me. However, as a tenant, I managed to get the agent to arrange for a locksmith to make contact. He got me to photograph the lock and e-mail it to him so he could identify it. We will now have a succession of individual locksmiths descending on Minstead. There will be no consequent discount for bulk orders.

After this we had a drive. First stop was Donna-Marie in Poulner for my haircut. This chirpy pink young lady doesn’t appreciate silence. Jackie sat in the waiting area and was drawn in to respond to the questions designed to open up conversation. It was all very pleasant as long as you didn’t just come in for a quiet sit-down and snip.

When the answer to the enquiry about where Jackie had been camping turned out to be very close to where Donna lives, we were well away. Naturally this led to camping stories. My hairdresser was very amused by the tale of the keys reported in ‘An Uncomfortable Night’ posted on 26th August last year.

We then went for an accommodation window shop in Bashley Cross Road, New Milton. The house we were aiming for was very attractive inside and out at the back, but we were intrigued by the lack of a front elevation photograph. The rather twee windows, including a bay concealed behind a hedge, may have contributed to this omission. Next door is a chicken farm. We wondered how many cockerels may be on song in the mornings. Alongside the farm is Ferndene Farm Shop. Whether or not we will ever come back to look at the house properly (we have no money yet), we will revisit this excellent shop. Five tills were inadequate to cater for all the people queuing for all kinds of fresh vegetables; meats and meat products; cheese; pickles; and much more, not to mention the vast array of plants outside beside the ample car park. So many people crowded around the shelves and cooling cabinets that I felt rather in the way and stepped back to allow Jackie to get on with her task of selection. Wherever I stood I blocked someone’s passage. Actually, as we arrived at the car park, I commented on the superb quality of the plants. Since this shop is sited alongside a country road, all these shoppers would have driven here, possibly from some distance. The pies we sampled for lunch confirmed my impression that this is the best shop of its kind I have ever experienced.

Back home we turned our minds to windscreen insurance. My post of 25th May featured Ryan of Screen-Care UK carrying out a repair necessitated by a crack left by a stone thrown up by an overtaking vehicle a few days earlier. Never before had either Jackie or I been subjected to a cracked windscreen. Nevertheless, a few days ago, another was inflicted. An impatient Porsche on the M27, overtaking, came straight across our path; there was a sharp crack; and a minute horizontal dint no more than a couple of centimetres long appeared near the base of the glass on the driver’s side. As it was so small we didn’t think it worth repairing. Within the last few days, however, it has spread across most of the width of the window, and even sent a tributary skywards.

This second crack reminded Jackie that she has not yet received the cheque to cover Ryan’s express repair. Maybe, she thought, she hadn’t let Churchill, the insurance company, know her new address? She hadn’t.

So now there were three matters to be resolved. To inform the insurers of the change of address; to follow up the cheque for £40; and to report the need for a replacement windscreen. The vast improvements brought about by modern technology mean that you understand it will be a robot, albeit one sounding almost human, who will answer the phone and invite you to press a variety of numbers according to taste. I would have said choice, but I have learned that what I am dealing with is a menu. For this reason the use of an antique telephone sporting an actual dial is not to be recommended. Of the four telephone numbers given with Churchill’s policy documents, Customer Care seemed a likely bet. It was, if you were not an existing customer and wanted to be given a choice of policies for motor vehicles, houses, etc. If you were already paying your premium you were offered no way of reaching the correct destination. Claims Hotline was pretty similar. Glass Repair and Replacement was a little better. We were answered by a person. When I’d finished explaining our three concerns, Clem informed me that I had come straight through to Autoglass. He wasn’t Churchill. Neither was he Screen-Care. ‘How do I get to Churchill?’, seemed a natural question, to which he didn’t know the answer. And Screen-Care was beyond his remit. But he could organise the replacement windscreen.

Our division of labour works like this: I go through the machine operated hoops, then pass the phone to Jackie once a real live person appears. The reason we do it this way is because I am marginally more sane by the time the obstacles have been overcome. She found Clem very helpful and particularly reassuring in his explanation that the windscreen in its current condition would not shatter. The job was booked for next week, and the £75 excess taken.

I was therefore forced to take up the other matters by e-mail. You can possibly imagine the tenor of my message, written, of course, in Jackie’s name, so she will have the pleasure of the insurers’ response.

Sir William Harcourt

This morning I finished H.C.G. Matthew’s contribution to The Oxford History that I had continued yesterday evening by the glow of the outside lighting. I went on to start reading Kenneth O. Morgan’s piece, ‘The Twentieth Century’.

Last night it had been warm enough to sit outside in shirtsleeves, and to marvel at the sight of the building, looking like, as I described in an adolescent poem, ‘cardboard cut-out houses glued on an inky sky’. A bejewelled necklace was Jackie’s solar lighting draped over the box hedge.

This morning I walked the London Minstead/Bull Lane/Football Green loop. Watching the usual group of ponies chomping away at Seamans Corner I noticed that they vary their diet with clover and buttercups.

On my return, the light tan coloured creature with the white blaze that, having no concept of personal space, had so scared the life out of Becky last Christmas day, looking much sleeker than the bedraggled animal it was then, approached me in its usual deliberate manner. I wasn’t able to upload her video from her Facebook page, but if you are a friend of hers I recommend you watch it with your volume turned up (25.12.12). Tee hee.

In London Minstead, using the gentle tones of the man I had heard talking to his donkey in Sigoules on 17th May, a resident was attending to his horse’s shoe.

The camera obscura affect noted yesterday works on tarmac too. This time my shot was in focus.

We have William Ewart Gladstone’s Chancellor of the Exchequer to thank for the beautiful place in which we live. The lawyer and Liberal politician had the house built in 1880 and became Chancellor in 1886. In this post Sir William Harcourt was responsible for the introduction of death duties as they are today. At that time the Liberals, a different party than the one we recognise, were seeking measures to increase taxation in a more acceptable way than income tax. The modern bereaved inheritors may have a view on that.

The great Victorian Prime Minister planted a sequoia in the garden during one of his visits here. That tree now stands above the others which crowd the land beyond our rhododendron hedges, in an area that now merges with the forest. It is so tall it has become a local landmark.

Jackie was back home this evening, and we dined on the last of the chicken curry, this time garnished with fresh coriander direct from one of the garden pots. She drank her customary Hoegaarden, and I opened bottle number 010166 of the Terres de Galets. We were more than somewhat distracted at the beginning of our meal by a very noisy hornet that seemed unable to find its way out of an open window. It is a strange phenomenon that flying insects can find their way into houses through no gap at all, but cannot locate any mode of egress.

Covent Garden & Gerrard Street

Last night I finished reading Christopher Harvie’s ‘Revolution and the Rule of Law’ in The Oxford History, and began H.G.C. Matthew’s ‘The Liberal Age’.

Soon after midday I walked through the farm underpass, into the forest alongside the wire fence that surrounds the pasturage, and, crossing the sandbagged ford followed the stream for a while, traversed it, and walked back along the other side. Regular readers will know that this demonstrates a certain, almost well-placed, confidence somewhat lacking in the past.

Castle Malwood Farm has always been visible from quite some distance, but I didn’t previously know what I was looking at, and one wire fence was the same as any other. Now it and the sandbags are an infallible guide.

In my less than wholly successful attempts to avoid the boggy bits, and the necessary detours around fallen trees, I had a few diversions, but I always knew where I was. Almost. I have to confess one nasty moment when I realised the buildings I was headed for were not the aforesaid familiar farm. I had unwittingly begun to follow a tributary and realised that what I was looking at were the also, sadly, familiar dwellings of Brook. A quick turn around and I headed through the trees to the line of the stream which I will call Malwood.

When I took my driving test in 1966 I felt the jolt of the kerb as I demonstrated my skill in reversing around a corner. My calmness in stopping at the touch, straightening up, and doing it again got me through. So it was today. No panic, just go back and pick up where I left off. I sometimes wish I could always remember that.

When walking beneath the trees on a day blessed with dappled sunlight, one is treated to little circles of light that have penetrated the boughs, projecting the images of leaves they have passed on their way down. This particular camera obscura has not been provided with a focussing ring.

In the olden days of the 1970s and ’80s, when one had to use chemicals and an enlarger to make photographic prints, I would place the negatives in the device, sharpen the focus, expose the image on the paper for the requisite amount of time, take it out, stick it in various baths of stuff, and hang it up to dry, like David Hemmings in the superb 1966 cinematographic film ‘Blow-Up’.

One such piece of work was a favourite photo of Matthew and Becky taken around 1979. I could be more precise if I were prepared to search for the negative, but my print slipped down in its frame some years ago, and I thought if I photographed that today I could kill two birds with one stone and also centre the picture with an application of fresh adhesive. That’s my excuse anyway. Our children loved to spend their pocket money during their visits in the Soho years in the Chinese bookshops in Gerrard Street and the craft markets of Covent Garden. In this particular photograph they are deliberating their purchases from a craftperson’s stall.

The Gerrard Street shops in those days were Aladdin’s Caves for children. Very good hand-made cards were on sale for a matter of pennies. They would spend hours simply enjoying the ambience. I still have a Dads Day card Matthew sent me.

The favourite outlet had a fascinating window with, usually pastoral, scenes featuring such as running streams framed with a glass front. I don’t know how it was done, but the water actually seemed to flow, and movement was also imparted to other elements in the tableaux. I was standing watching one of these one evening when an Oriental gentleman stood alongside me, equally fascinated. ‘Devilish clever, these Chinese’, I uttered. Fortunately he saw the joke.

I spent a very enjoyable evening with Maureen and John who live at number 5. We talked about many things, and found we had much in common career-wise. The plan had been that I would give them the benefit of my experience of France, but we moved beyond that. Maureen provided a smoked salmon starter, followed by succulent steak in pepper sauce and crunchy apricot crumble with ice cream. Bergerac and Bordeaux wines were an excellent accompaniment.

The Soho Festival

In The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain this morning I finished reading Paul Langford’s ‘The Eighteenth Century’, and progressed to begin ‘Revolution and the Rule of Law’ by Christopher Harvie.

It was a beautiful balmy day as I walked the two fords loop peaking at Forest Road. Sheep grazed against the backdrop of a mast that is the reason we are so fortunate with internet and mobile phone signals where we live. An uninterrupted reception is rare in the New Forest. I was later to appreciate just how lucky we are.

Through a gap in the hedge on Furzey Gardens road could be seen a horse favoured with a fly sheet. Perhaps its uncovered companion stayed close for shelter from the pestilential insects.

As I Ieft the first ford and was about to veer left towards Newtown, I fell in with a tall, elegant, lively, and attractive South African woman named Yolanda, and her elderly dog, Trigger. She was making her way to her place of employment at the far end of the bridle path. I chose to change my route and accompany her. Yolanda is a freelance live-in companion for elderly people. We naturally spoke about Social Work. She has no signal where she is living.

A golden labrador that now ignores my passing, barked with intent through gaps in its fencing. It clearly wasn’t Trigger happy. Being hard of hearing, Yolanda’s old boy quietly ignored the noisy young whipper-snapper.

I was delighted to note the name of the house in which my conversationalist was working. Two days ago, a district nurse, driving up and down Running Hill, had asked me if I knew Skymer. She was the person I had been unable to direct on that day, and was a long way from her goal. There, today, at the entrance to the splendid house at which we had stopped, was the sign, Skymers. Yolanda confirmed that the nurse had indeed arrived, but it had taken her a long time to find the place.

To cap this I was able to achieve 100% success rate in my traffic directing role. As two separate drivers waited their turn for my information, one for Tom’s Lane and the other for Furzey Gardens, the man who had kindly deferred to an elderly woman, said, with a smile: ‘You’ve got a queue’.

It was not until I worked on the Ondekoza photographs yesterday that I realised the large Romeo and Juliettas for the Soho Festival cigar smoking contest had coincidentally been provided by a supplier called Knight. The idea was that you smoked one of these lengthy monsters for as long as you could without losing the ash. When I entered in 1977, I actually had the longest ash, but mine was bent. I came second to a woman whose was straight. You can imagine the ribaldry that provoked.

When we lived in Horse and Dolphin Yard during the 1970s this was a new and popular event, and, held in September usually enjoyed perfect weather. A Punch and Judy show in 1976 gave entertainment for all ages. One photograph I took of the audience featured on the cover of the Social Care Association’s monthly magazine. Becky, on this occasion, was distracted from the puppets by the sight of my lens. A little boy nearby, was engaged in that familiar comforting exercise of thumb-sucking combined with ear-twiddling. Another had lost one of his front incisors.

The first family member to have the courage to enter a spaghetti eating competition was Michael.

As the dry spaghetti was ladled onto his plate, he looked as if he was about to bite off more that he could chew. The thin coating of tomato sauce, looking no more appetising than ketchup, didn’t seem to do much to improve the digestion. My son soon got stuck in. He and one of his rivals seemed to think the nearer the dish they got, the better their chances.

An elderly gentleman, eating at a leisurely pace, had probably just come along for his dinner.

The 39th Soho Festival is to be held this September. Details can be obtained from the Soho Society at 55 Dean St., W1.

For my evening meal I enjoyed Jackie’s delicious chicken curry, savoury rice, and samosas so much that I paid scant attention to the last of the Terre de Galets which was meant to accompany it.

Ondekoza

Although it brightened up enough around noon to add a glow to vibrant magenta roses intertwined with honeysuckle in a Minstead hedgerow, the day dawned dull and dank as I walked the Seamans Lane/Shave Wood loop. I did not venture off the tarmac.

The blossom I had seen on the edge of the forest leading to Football Green was indeed apple, as evidenced by the little green fruit on the boughs.

Until I met Anne in Minstead, I had the road to myself. The elderly woman has been away for a while whilst her dilapidated house with its waterlogged garden, photographed on 21st April, was being refurbished. It was good to see her back home and looking well.

On 24th February I posted information about Elizabeth’s Open Studios exhibition to take place in August. There I mentioned that I was to submit some photographs of drumming that I took in September 1976, of the stunning Japanese band of timpanists that entertained the Soho Festival that year. This afternoon I made a start by unearthing the original colour slides, scanning them and uploading (if that’s the right word) them to my computer. There was a fairly considerable amount of retouching to take out tiny blemishes in these little rectangles of positive film almost 37 years old. They do not have the sharp clarity of today’s digital images, but maybe they are none the worse for that. One I have even managed to crop, yet still retain enough of a focus to show the speed of the drumstick fanned across the drummer’s face. We’ll see what I manage to do when I come to print them tomorrow.

Jackie is camping at Corfe Castle with Helen and Shelly, but she still fed me this evening. She has left me enough cooked meals and cold meats, pies and bread to last me a fortnight, let alone the four days she will be away. This evening I made a little impression on the large casserole of chicken curry, and ate one of the beautifully served dishes of savoury rice with a vegetable samosa and a nan, accompanied by a bottle of Kingfisher. I did have to microwave the home-cooked dishes and heat the samosa and bread in the oven, but that wasn’t really any hardship.

Righting The Beetle

Impersonating a man with a great deal of local knowledge as I walked through Minstead this morning to pick up my route through the two underpasses turning at the Sir Walter Tyrrell pub, there was only one visitor I was unable to direct. One of two, that is. Just a 50% success rate. Not very impressive really.

The bracken on the other side of the A31 has almost obscured some of the tracks I took last time I trod a diagonal to Rufus Stone (see post of 19th November last year). However, my friends will be relieved to learn that I was unerring in my direction. Maybe they won’t. Had I erred they may have had a laugh.

Some of the fallen trees have degraded enough to be flaking and blending well with last year’s autumn leaves.

The forest was very quiet today. Just two sounds interrupted my silence. The first was a sudden neighing. This is very unusual. Ponies don’t usually waste that much energy. I turned to see four of them making their way to the Rufus Stone car park, where they no doubt hoped to perform some scam on eager tourists. I could have told them that the visitors hadn’t arrived yet. A little later, a scuttling in the crispness underfoot, had me turning to spy a scut scooting through the undergrowth. It was the tail of either a small deer or a very large rabbit.

Fallen forest giants blocked the pathways and lent their own prehistoric ambience to the wooded landscape.

A primeval swamp creature metamorphosed into a moss-covered stump and its roots.

I’m sure there is a name for the step-thingies that climbers inset into sheer rock faces so that they may scale them. Bracket fungi on a dead tree looked to me to be the prehistoric climber’s version of these.

It is sometimes amazing what one finds in the forest. Today’s gem was a pair of inappropriate footwear. I speculated about who may have left them. Had it been an eighteenth century beau? Had it been Sybil Leek, whose story was told on 22nd of this month? If so, where was her pointed hat? Or was it one of the young women who had participated in the orgy mentioned on 22nd May? And why were they placed so neatly?

Soon after finding these, I heard siren song, and was tempted by glimpses of diaphanous material wafting across a comparatively open space, to investigate. This led me into very boggy terrain in which I expected to be stranded. Never having been daft enough to venture into a quagmire before moving to Minstead, I had not seen this white fabric before, and looked it up on Google when I got home. It was, of course, bog cotton.

Back on dry ground, I found a pair of sloughed wings.

As I clambered up the gravel path from the Malwood Farm underpass, I encountered a small stag beetle struggling across the stones. This took me back to the long hot summers of my childhood in the dry and dusty suburbs of Raynes Park and Wimbledon. There may, of course, have only been one such summer, but, as we know, anything that happens once in a child’s life is magnified in later life into a regular occurrence.

However often it was, a regular sight was a, usually much larger, (but then it would be to a child, wouldn’t it?) beetle lying on its back, its legs twitching away. Chris and I, like all other boys, kind and generous to all living creatures, always put these insects out of their misery and back onto their feet. This required a certain amount of nerve, and a lever. After all, we were not going to put our fingers near those grasping claws. If we were eating an ice lolly at the time there was no problem. We just had to watch the squirming animal while we finished our refreshment, and we then had a ready-made implement or two. If not, we had to search out a twig. These were not in plentiful supply in our streets. Or a used match. There were loads of them, but they were a bit short, which meant fingers near the grabbers. It was okay if we shifted the beetle through 180 degrees first time. It would then stagger to its feet and make off sharpish. If, however, we applied to much force, the poor creature went through 360 degrees and the procedure had to be repeated. Probably we should have carried forceps around with us. I do hope the beetles were eternally grateful.

Tonight we dined on a superb mixed grill casserole with twice cooked swede and potato mash and virgin cauliflower. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I began Terres de Galets bottle number 010165.

The Nuthatch

Back down to earth after yesterday’s Mottisfont display, we were nevertheless delighted to note the progression of Jackie’s south side garden, begun some time after the kitchen one. With few exceptions, her plants are benefitting from her love and attention, and the warmer weather.

Jackie was running out of certain specific items of bird food. They now take precedence over shopping for human nutriment. So we had to go to In-eXcess near Poulner on the A31 for replenishments. While she bought the avian fodder and sat with her newspaper in the establishment’s cafe waiting for me, I walked a loop taking in Hangersley, Linford, and Shobley. This consisted of sometimes steeply undulating lanes, harbouring idyllic homes, and offering views of sweeping woodland and hillside pasturage. The thick hedgerows are decked with dog rose, bramble blossom, and honeysuckle, attracting much insect life.

As I vainly wafted my ordnance survey map and watched horses switching their tails, I discovered why they are equipped with fly sheets.

The Surrealist artist Rene Magritte’s 1929 painting, ‘The Treachery of Images’ is of a pipe beneath which is the phrase ‘this is not a pipe’. The philosopher was correct. It was not actually a pipe, but the image of one.

Similarly, the insect that alighted on the dog rose, was not what it looks like. This was a harmless individual that masquerades as something else much more harmful, no doubt to scare off the opposition. Not a bee, not a wasp, it was a hoverfly.

Whilst she was preparing our dinner of delicious sausage, bacon, and liver casserole, Jackie was startled by a thud from outside, as of a bird hitting glass. She looked outside and saw a nuthatch on the welcome mat, with metaphoric stars in a speech bubble above its dazed head. It was then her turn to bang on a window as she came round outside the sitting room and I handed her the camera. On her return her little friend had recovered sufficiently to fly, but was disoriented enough to be perched at the top of the kitchen window blind. I don’t think it still had limited vision. It soon disappeared.

The aforementioned casserole was enjoyed with potato, carrot and swede mash; cauliflower; and, by me, the last of the Terres de Galets.

Graham Stuart Thomas

This warm and changeable day turned out to be perfect for a visit to a National Trust garden. We drove quite smoothly through Romsey, and past the Mountbatten home of Broadlands, where we would normally expect to encounter queues of traffic. It was, however, as we neared our goal that we met the queues. Cars formed lines in each direction at the entrance to the overflow car park. The main one was already full at midday. Rather harassed young men with SECURITY stamped on their jerkins waved us in one by one. As we alighted we were told we were in the wrong place and likely to cause a bottleneck. It wasn’t immediately clear how we could do that, but Jackie, adopting the usual placid persona she reserves for anything to do with the car, calmly and collectedly moved her Modus to the far corner of the uncut meadow which served as a parking area.

What could possibly have brought all these vehicles to a National Trust house on a Tuesday in term-time? Ah. All was soon revealed. The aged of the nation had descended en masse on Mottisfont. We have now joined those privileged senior citizens who have done their time in their offices, factories, or whatever workplaces, and have the opportunity to litter the countryside with their presence. I posted a previous visit to Mottisfont on 7th September. This time, we were earlier in the season and able to enjoy the rose garden for which the house is justifiably famous.

For more than 800 years people have lived and worked on the Mottisfont estate. The name comes from a Saxon moot, or meeting place, by a fountain. This site remains in the grounds, and is still a clear spring.

Crossing one of the several threads of the River Test, one sees the house across rolling lawns. Meadows are retained on the edges and the area is home to many a massive tree. Benches are dotted about and their shady situations offer places for rest or contemplation. Motorised buggies transport those less mobile.

We immediately made our way to the walled garden that contains many roses itself, and leads into the showpiece.

Last September there were still some roses in bloom, so I was familiar with the garden created by the Gardens Adviser to the National Trust, but I was totally unprepared for the magnificent display that greeted us as we made our way through the ancient brick walls to the gravel and stone paths laid amongst the profusion and variety of colourful flora. That the sun had chosen to light up the garden, filled with pensioners, some of whose clothing matched the horticultural hues, completed the picture.

I think Monet would have loved it.

Whether one focussed on the whole landscape picture with the figures of those of a certain age dotted about amongst the flowers, or on the blooms themselves, there was much to delight the eye.

Among the roses can been seen other plants such as peonies, irises, delphiniums, or allium. All clearly benefitting from well-nurtured soil.

The aforementioned Gardens Adviser was Graham Stuart Thomas. He moved his outstanding collection of old-fashioned shrub roses to Mottisfont’s walled garden during 1972 and 1973.

A fine yellow rose bears his name.

We chose not to visit the house today, and went for a walk along the river bank. Last September there was an exhibition in the house of E.H.Shepard’s illustrations to Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Shepard’s drawings include an iron bridge much like the one you must cross to reach the riverside walk. Indeed, to accompany the exhibition, a rowing boat such as Toad may have used, had been moored by the bridge.

A number of couples walked along the water’s edge. Some ventured even further, into a vast meadow where cows lowed.

Ready for a sudden insecticidal leap to the surface, large trout lurked like U-boats among the underwater reeds that were flattened and fanned out by the swift flowing current that forced the ducks to paddle furiously just to persist in their desire to swim against it.

As we made our way past an enormous sylvan structure that is two ancient plane trees in one, a troop of children that must have had very little impact on the average age of today’s visitors, fell over each other to be the first to reach the subject of their field trip. Their escorts struggled to keep them to order.

Back home we learned that all the garages had been broken into overnight. We lost nothing. One man lost a torch, and another, two golf clubs. It was rather difficult to see the point of the burglary.

Jackie made a juicy liver casserole as an excuse to use the giant cauliflower she had bought a couple of days ago. This was enjoyed on my part with the last of bottle number 012919 of the Terres de Galets and the first of number 000198.

Pick The Bucket

Just a week away from July, I was actually cold as I walked down to Seamans Corner and back this morning to post a letter. For a city dweller it may seem hardly worth recording such a trip, but it does take twenty minutes. I reflected on a far more painful crawl to a post box described in ‘The London Marathon’ on 25th September last year. I omitted to mention that that receptacle was just two or three hundred yards away.

This afternoon we motored to The Firs to continue work begun yesterday. Jackie finished trimming the edges and did a lot more planting; I performed some maintenance work on the compost bins and finished the mowing; and Elizabeth spent the afternoon tidying up the debris corner and packing her car so that she and I could do a dump trip.

Many plants are now thriving as a result of last year’s work, be it the planting of fresh flowers or the nurturing of existing shrubs and smaller flora.

The Rosa Glauca, Verbascum, Geum, and Old English scented rose I have photographed were chosen almost at random.

In the early evening Elizabeth and I took her second car-load to the municipal dump. The main purpose was to transport much rubble from the house’s recently repaired chimney stack. We also found room for the rotting innards of a beehive; a wooden ladder that had lost most of its rungs; several bagfuls of pruned shrubbery and brambles; and even Jackie’s wheelie shopping bag that had finally collapsed under one of its loads of bags of compost.

I have previously mentioned my sister’s propensity for bringing at least one souvenir with her back from the dump. Today was to be no exception. She had placed the rubble in various buckets and other receptacles and loaded them into the car. It must have been very difficult for her to have lifted them over the rim of the boot. Possibly as difficult as it was for me to lift them rather higher into the enormous skip labelled ‘Soil and Rubble’. I recommend anyone trying this at home to test lift anything to go into a Council skip at least to shoulder height before attempting the task. If you can’t lift the container, reduce its contents.

We travelled back with an extra bucket, Elizabeth’s, for £2 for cash. A prize is offered for the reader who correctly identifies the new bucket. Answers in a comment please.

Whilst I was waiting for Jackie, Elizabeth and Danni to change for a trip to the Masala Lounge in Chandler’s Ford for our evening meal, I amused myself watching the still toiling bees crawling in and out of foxgloves in search of honey. They would fly in their ungainly manner, loaded to the thighs already, silently disappear up the trumpet-shaped petals, take their fill, stagger out, and move on to another.

Our meal was excellent, and the service, albeit a little slow, friendly and efficient. Danni, who had found the restaurant some time ago, had often suggested we go there. It was a good recommendation. She drank a Chilean merlot, whilst the rest of us imbibed Cobra beer.

On the way there I travelled with Elizabeth, whilst Jackie drove Danni. At one point my driver, addressing no-one in particular, announced that she had to charge up her eye pads this evening. As I hadn’t realised she had an ocular problem, other than the family short-sightedness, I wondered why she needed such appliances. After all, she was at the wheel and had my life in her hands. This sent her into helpless laughter which made me all the more nervous since she appeared likely to lose control altogether. When able to gather herself together she explained that she now possessed two i-Pads, one specifically for work, and they both needed recharging.