derrickjknight

Controlled Burning 2

I carried out a little picture culling this morning.

These images from Les Landes in August 2008 were featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/04/the-gite-from-hell/

This picture from May 2009 is the header for https://derrickjknight.com/2012/06/21/raincoat-or-umbrella/

These are from John and Stephanie’s wedding: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/10/06/a-wedding/

This afternoon we took a forest drive.

Controlled burning of gorse was underway along Forest Road.

“The Forestry Commission undertakes this activity now, which aims to regenerate the heather and gorse whilst hindering invading scrub, by setting fire to the heathland. Using fire to improve the heathland may sound counter-intuitive but the burning actually encourages new growth, which is beneficial to a variety of flora and fauna, as well as providing food for the commonable livestock. It also plays an important role in reducing the risk of wildfires in the summer months that can burn out of control and have a devastating effect on vegetation and wildlife. Heathland wildfires are particularly dangerous because they can burn below ground causing long-lasting damage to the peat and the mineral soil underneath.

“Practice of controlled burning
The law permits controlled burning each year from the first working day in November until the last working day of March. However, in practice it generally starts in early February because the worst of the winter weather is over, there are no birds nesting or animals producing young, the vegetation is still quite dry and the damp ground offers protection to the peaty soil. The process is strictly controlled and only a small percentage of the heathland is burned each year (on average 400 hectares) and only then in rotation, which traditionally is once every generation (about 25 years). A firebreak is first established around the area to be burned, which is made by using a cutting machine. Visitors to the Forest often have mistaken these safety margins in the heath for tracks or footpaths. The firebreaks are used to prevent the spread of flames to other parts of the heathland. Only skilled and experienced staff are permitted to undertake controlled burning of the heathland. In times past however, the commoners often operated their own unofficial controlled burning effort because they felt that the Forestry Commission programme was ineffective or did not cover the areas of heathland they wanted rejuvenated for their animals. Happily today the programme is better coordinated and many of the Forest organisations, including the Verderers, are consulted prior to any burning programme to ensure their cooperation.

“Benefits of controlled burning
But not everyone is in favour of the controlled burning and some argue that it actually has a detrimental effect on the heathland by reducing the nutrients in the soil. Nevertheless it is a practice that is still widely used, particularly on grouse moors in northern England, to encourage new growth. It also has one additional benefit that no other type of heathland management, including cutting or swiping, can provide and that is the reduction of ticks and the risk of Lymes Disease. A traditional benefit of controlled burning, but one not practised today, was the harvesting by the commoners of the ‘blackjacks’, the burnt holly and gorse stems, to sell as firewood. What you might see today however, during the periods of controlled burning, are ponies sporting blackened criss-cross markings over their flanks and hindquarters. This is a sure sign that they have been picking their way through the blackjacks and have become striped by the charcoal stalks of the holly and gorse stems as they pass by them. These haphazard markings can give them the appearance of very odd-looking zebras.” (newforestcommoner.co.uk)

Ponies cropped the verges outside Burley.

While I unsuccessfully struggled to photograph a herd of deer in a field off Crow Lane with the low sun blinding me, a string of stags took off, crossed the side road, and leapt the fence beside us. I still couldn’t see much because my eyes remained dazzled, but I managed these two shots.

Around North Gorley we enjoyed some autumn colour, a horse drawn cart and a solitary Gloucester Old Spot sow, sensibly sticking to the

verge as, much to the amusement of oncoming car passengers, donkeys dominated the road.

This evening we dined on chicken Kiev, Southern fried chicken, and Jackie’s savoury rice with which I drank Reserva Privada Chilean Merlot 2022.

A Phenomenal Drawing

This morning we transported 17 bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre.

Later, I diverted myself from my photograph culling task by focussing

on a drawing made by Flo on the back of a noodle bar paper place mat when, believe it or not, Jackie is pretty certain our granddaughter was aged about four. Compare this with Jackie’s passport photograph from about 2010. Knowing what Florence has always been capable of, I can well believe it.

Compare this with Jackie’s passport photograph from about 2010. https://derrickjknight.com/2013/09/30/a-challenging-mood/ is the post explaining why I photographed

the image slipping out of its frame.

Unfortunately the original drawing was lost when I had to evict squatters from the house in September 2014. I printed this copy, framed it and placed it on the wall beneath Flo’s

drawing of me.

Back to culling:

My drawing of daughter Louisa and this portrait of her paternal great great grandmother both feature in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/09/01/time-to-go/

Jessica and Imogen and these other two images appear on https://derrickjknight.com/2013/09/04/anticipating-the-shot/

These four images all feature on https://derrickjknight.com/2013/09/09/the-birds/

The iMac photos tally is now 57, 317. I am really trying to delete more than I add each day.

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in barbecue sauce; Jackie’s savoury rice; broccoli and runner beans, with which I finished the Malbec.

A Dump Trip And Culling

This morning we transported 16 more bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre, and returned with

a garden table that will become a plant stand.

Later I culled photographs through August 2013.

These two images are from https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/01/the-eye-patch/

and these two of our late brother Chris, in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/02/the-entertainers/

These lilies are one of many images from https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/04/aviemore-revisited/

Images of me at Leicester in 1943 and my Father and Maternal Grandfather photographed at Staines in August 1968 appear in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/14/naming-the-children/

My Grandpa (in 1917 First World War uniform) and Grandma Knight and Great Aunt Evelyn appear in The Norwood School for the sons of Gentlemen in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/15/one-for-rebekah/

as do three of my own teenage Christmas Cards.

Billingford Mill, Diss features in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/08/26/the-answer-must-lie-in-the-postcodes/

This afternoon Elizabeth visited and stayed to join us for dinner which consisted of our usual prawn preparations on a bed of Jackie’ s savoury rice with which I drank Reserva Privada Chilean Malbec 2022.

Front Drive Clearance And Survivors From July 2013

These London images are from https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/04/the-abdication/

Pictures of this dead trunk feature in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/09/a-precarious-career/

These ponies stampeded to https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/11/the-watering-hole/

The actions of https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/12/the-good-samaritans/ enabled us to watch these hang gliders at Barton on Sea.

These two views of Little Venice feature in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/16/this-train-is-not-stopping-at/

These five women asked me to photograph them on a London trip in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/17/that-was-worth-fighting-for/

A London trip from https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/19/back-to-the-akash/

Here are two views of https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/26/the-dragonfly/ at The Firs in West End

and this bee on a marigold https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/31/planted-in-the-i-mac/

Over the last two days Jackie has completed and photographed her clearance of the east side of the Front Drive.

This was the last stretch before she continued the work, revealing a

clean corner we have never seen before.

She also photographed a couple of her planted urns.

The iMac pictures now tally 57,332.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips, Mrs Elswood’s sandwich gherkins, and Garner’s pickled onions.

Gardening Spanning Eleven Years

Here is another batch of photographs which have escaped my cull of those in my iMac Photos:

While spending the weekend of 15-16 June 2013 with the Thompson Family we helped them lay out their garden in Mapperley: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/06/16/nits-2/ has more.

The next weekend saw us tending Elizabeth’s garden in West End: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/06/24/pick-the-bucket/

Then, the following day, Jackie’s garden around the side of our flat in Castle Malwood Lodge, Minstead,

before taking a trip to Mottisfont at Romsey: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/06/25/graham-stuart-thomas/

This horse having its hoof attended to in London Minstead features in: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/07/01/sir-william-harcourt/

The total in iMac now stands at 57,336. I have some way to go.

Now Jackie has added some from her work today:

New Dawn rose and spent rudbeckia flower heads;

and this mushroom sprouting from the top of the Weeping Birch trunk.

This evening we repeated last night’s Chicken and vegetables stewp and focaccia meal.

More Survivors

As I battle with the insistence of the side effects from this morning’s BCG vaccine installation at Southampton General Hospital, carried out by Fiona, an equally friendly and careful colleague of Anna’s, I am relieved that I still have more of yesterday’s cull survivors to post.

These sturdy farm horses were our neighbours in Minstead, and appear in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/02/rabbit-proof-fence/

Cuff Billet’s New Europa Jazz Band performed at Bishop’s Waltham Garden Fair featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/05/it-has-come-in-useful/

The first of these pictures is of the garden at Castle Malwood Lodge where we rented a flat while seeking a house of our own; we went from there to visit Elizabeth, at her bookbinding, and Danni who photographed us, featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/05/it-has-come-in-useful/

One of my regular visits to visit both Norman and Carol in London coincided with the state opening of Parliament, a world away from Church Road Market in the London Borough of Brent. https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/08/a-splendid-occasion/

These photographs of Louisa, Errol, Jessica and Imogen feature in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/11/follow-grandpa-he-knows-the-forest/

Three different images all appear in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/05/23/a-vigil/

We visited Minstead’s Furzey Gardens: https://derrickjknight.com/2013/06/04/furzey-gardens/ at peak rhododendron time.

My whopper burger was consumed in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/06/16/nits/

That is enough for today. There are still a few more pictures to occupy me tomorrow when I will still be subject to frequent urgency of micturition, although the bleeding will have ceased.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetables stewp with Louisa’s focaccia bread still fresh from the freezer.

A Collection Cull

With close to 58,000 photographs in my iMac Photo collection, and thousands more in colour slides and negative format from 1942 to 2012, today I grasped the nettle and began a long overdue cull.

Survivors include me in 1942 and my Dad and me in 1943 produced by my maternal grandfather in Leicester where I was born;

this was taken by a crane driver with whom I conversed in Soho Square Gardens, featured in: https://derrickjknight.com/2012/10/17/meandering-through-soho/

Sam, Holly, Malachi and Orlaith visited us at Minstead on https://derrickjknight.com/2013/03/13/a-hunting-we-will-go/ One of the pictures on that post was produced by Malachi;

this car sent up spray in Minstead on https://derrickjknight.com/2013/03/18/6868/

this was the view of Hampshire fields from the plane on 17th April 2013 when I was returning from Sigoules where https://derrickjknight.com/2013/04/17/she-snatched-my-wallet/

I wasn’t quite so high up when I photographed this scene outside Waterloo Station. It is contained in

https://derrickjknight.com/2013/04/23/taking-a-hint/ – this Pastel Painter in St James’s Park gave me the title of the post;

Jackie bought this hydrangea in Romsey Market on 27th April 2013, https://derrickjknight.com/2013/04/27/just-to-wind-me-up/

this horse drawn cart rounded Minstead in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/04/29/the-benefits-of-hearing/

The total of my digital images has been reduced to 57,343, but perhaps that is enough links for now for anyone who wishes to delve into the archives.

Meanwhile Jackie is continuing with her cull of the shrubs on the Front Drive.

Later, I began reading ‘The Heart of the Family’ by Elizabeth Goudge.

This evening we enjoyed the second shepherd’s pie Jackie had made yesterday, with similar vegetables.

The Last Two

‘The Dream’ and ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ are the last two of the Entrées in the Crime Club Choice selection of Agatha Christie’s 1973 stories in ‘The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding’.

The Author’s two most popular sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple are therefore linked – one following the other among the pages. Each murder also involves the deception of fabricating a false identity exposed in the first case by the Belgian Detective, and in the second by a dear elderly aunt.

The Dream is a recurring nightmare related to Poirot by Benedict Farley and seemingly predicting his demise. The detective was flummoxed. “He was puzzled. His busy mind was going over and over the story he had been told. Yet in the midst of his mental preoccupation, a nagging sense of something wrong obtruded itself. And that something had to do with himself – not with Benedict Farley.”

“That dream was very important” said Poirot, who was told “If we hadn’t got your word for it….” the implication would have been “that [Mr Farley] had committed suicide.

Greenshaw’s Folly opens with a typically engaging sequence catching the reader’s interest:

“The two men rounded the corner of the shrubbery.

” “Well, there you are,” said Raymond West. “That’s it.”

“Horace Bindler took a deep, appreciative breath.

” “But my dear,” he cried, “how wonderful.” His voice rose in a high screech of aesthetic delight, then deepened in reverent awe…….”

Folly itself is a double entendre in that it refers to the remarkable building, about which “One wonders how he ever got hold of an architect to carry out these ideas.” and to his own unfortunate activity.

“with her mouth pursed up very prunes and prisms” displays both the author’s partiality for alliteration and her liking for humorous description.

Possibly the first reader of this book, to use as a bookmark, tore the corner off a page of the Daily Telegraph a few days after this library copy entered circulation. We can also see from the line of text above the use that Miss Marple makes of her memory of someone from her past to inform her about likely traits of those she currently contemplates.

This reminds me of the story of Crocker’s Folly which I once frequented that features in

A Screwdriver Comes In Handy

Referring to ‘The Dream’ above the Marylebone mistake also involved suicide.

Traditionally roast lamb leftovers were minced up on Monday to provide the meat for shepherd’s pie, so it was appropriate that Jackie added to bought mince the leftovers from the recent roast lamb we had enjoyed with Louisa for tonight’s meal which also included pure white cauliflower, orange carrots, and green beans, with which I finished the pinotage.

More On The Front Drive

Today Jackie spent two more long sessions on clearing the east side

of the Front Drive; the first in the morning, taking her about half way;

the second after lunch, taming a stretch of rose Félicité Perpétue.

I rendered minimal assistance in chopping and bagging some of the clippings.

This morning I had posted

Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds

This evening we dined on a rack of pork spare ribs in barbecue sauce with Jackie’s savoury rice and melange of onions, mushrooms, runner and broad beans flavoured with oregano and basil. I drank South African Coastal Region Pinotage 2022

Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds

The twist in this, the fourth story in the Crime Club Choice selection is that Hercule Poirot appears to anticipate a murder – all on account of a blackberry pie reminiscent of the Four-and-Twenty blackbirds in the “Sing a Song of Sixpence” English nursery rhyme that inspired Agatha Christie to write the piece.

The regular waitress of the Gallant Endeavour at which the Belgian Detective dined one day with his friend Bonnington, shared the friend’s impression that men, like me, rarely change their meals in their favourite restaurants, so, when she told these two men that ‘Old Father Time’ had suddenly done so, and what is more, deviated from one of his normal two particular days a week over ten years, this piqued Poirot’s interest.

We were kept waiting and wondering how Hercule could have predicted the crime, the victim, and the perpetrator, until he confronted the killer with definite proof.

“They nodded to each other, swaying about, hanging on to adjacent straps. Then at Piccadilly Circus there was a general exodus……” is just one example of Dame Agatha’s descriptive encapsulation of location as she presents the two friends travelling in a crowded tube train.