A337 – derrickjknight

The Roadside Meadow

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Municipal planting has been one of the facilities offered by Local Authorities in these straitened times to have fallen by the wayside. In the metaphorical sense this is not true of New Forest District Council. Last autumn seeds were sown by the side of the A337 and covered with a protective netting. They have now sprung into life.

This is the location of the nearest site to our home, no more than a mile away.

We have been waiting an opportune moment to photograph the most amazing display that is currently swaying in the breeze and buzzing with bees.

For once, I cannot say any more than the plants do themselves. This array would enhance any cottage garden.

Having feasted our eyes on these floral delights, we drove on to Barton on Sea to have a look at Christchurch Bay.

The unstable cliffs sign is not new,

but it has perhaps moved inland a little more.

Only the gliding gulls can travel over the clifftop with equanimity.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s marvellous boeuf bourguignon with swede and potato mash and mange touts. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while I drank more of the Saint Emilion.

Lunch At The Village Shop

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Today, Jackie drove us to and from Upper Dicker to visit Mat, Tess, and Poppy. We had the added bonus that Becky was staying there for the weekend.

Our house stands beside the A337 which takes us all the way to the Cadnam roundabout where we join the M/A27 to Mat and Tess’s home. I amused myself photographing the A337 through the car windscreen.

After a large group of walkers had completed their meal in the shop cafe, we all took our places at the large pine table.

We can’t remember the name of Jackie’s choice of avocado, bacon, tomatoes, and perfect fried eggs on toast.

Becky enjoyed burger, chips, and salad;

while my selection was coq au vin.

Matthew was happy with a couple of massive, meaty, sausage rolls. He and I both drank an Oyster Bay merlot 2013. The others drank coffee and water.

Poppy received a selection from Tess’s chicken goujons, but preferred what she plundered from Becky’s plate. She was given a fork, but used it in the well-tried method of her age group, namely spearing the food with the tines in one hand and taking it off and stuffing it into her mouth with the other. It was, of course, soon abandoned. After all, you can’t hold a delicacy in each hand if one is holding an item of cutlery. When she was replete, Poppy wiped the surface clean with a tissue, looking very pleased with herself.

Our happy, and contented, granddaughter then posed for a family group photograph with her parents. On Tess’s Specials Board behind them can be glimpsed her little bilingual joke.

The sun was setting above Coldharbour Lane as we set off for home. We needed no evening meal.

The Periodic Table

I began the day as a traffic director. There had very recently been an accident along the A337 further along the road to Lymington. I wandered out to see what was causing the tailback past our house, and the number of vehicles turning round and going back the way they had come. Very soon drivers, one after the other, were asking me questions such as ‘How can I get out of this?’. Especially those booked onto the ferry desperately needing an alternative route. I surprised myself by realising that I knew one. One woman carried a tray of home-made jam tarts on her passenger seat. They looked rather inviting.

Soon a recovery vehicle appeared with one damaged car on board, and all reverted to normal. We have always wondered why there are not more accidents on this winding road on which many people drive far too fast.

Afterwards I dug out a wide trench, and lined it with a weed suppressant membrane and sand, for the brick platform for the bench purchased yesterday. Rain set in at lunchtime so I had to stop. Later, during a brief lull, I placed the bricks. Further rain delayed trimming the edges of the membrane.

Elizabeth’s unidentified rose is now in bloom. It is coral pink, and has a good scent.

Cryptic crossword setters are a devious breed. One of the devices used for clueing is the use of abbreviations. During my Mordred decades, Chambers XWD, a Dictionary of Crossword Abbreviations, is one of the books I co-wrote with Michael Kindred. I won’t bore readers with an explanation of how and why we adopted a two way approach, but during the the process we had recourse to a list of chemical elements, where we could check that the abbreviation for potassium is K, not P as one might think.

The Periodic Table is a list of chemical elements arranged in order of their atomic number. Major dictionaries present a supplement of these in alphabetical order according to their abbreviations Silver, being abbreviated as Ag, is therefore second on a dictionary list, even though its atomic number is 47. That exhausts my knowledge of the scientist’s Periodic Table which I wouldn’t have the first idea how to apply.

Silver is one of the chapter headings to Primo Levi’s autobiographical work, The Periodic Table which I finished reading today. The chapters are not numbered. Each one bears the title of a chemical element. In the last, Carbon, the author states that his book is neither a chemical treatise nor an autobiography, but ‘in some fashion a history’. Most are interesting autobiographical stories featuring a particular element and following a chronological sequence. A couple, in italics in my Folio Society edition, concern other individuals from long ago.

The book is well written and holds the interest of this reader who has no interest in chemistry. I was able to understand Levi’s explanations until that final chapter where he rather lost me. I was struck by the humanity the writer showed in the Vanadium chapter towards a German scientist who he had met in Auschwitz.

My copy is translated by Raymond Rosenthal, introduced by Ian Thompson, and imaginatively illustrated by Mark Smith.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent sausage casserole and new potatoes, followed by fruit salad, strawberries, and Swiss roll. The Cook drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Marques de Carano gran reserva 2008.

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On 11th May I described Imogen’s continuation of the Easter egg hunt. Once she had reprised the hunt several times, she forgot where she’d hidden all the little chocolate rabbits. Jackie found another one this morning.

We ventured on another property window shop today. The first option, at Cadnam, was within walking distance for me, so I set off earlier than Jackie who drove there to meet me. This involved me walking along the A337, which, by virtue of the trees all being in leaf; the verges being covered in summer growth; and wide caravans being driven along the road that has no footpath, is getting pretty dicey for a pedestrian. I decided to take a chance across country at the first opportunity. This was the grounds of Cadnam Cricket Club that could be entered by crossing a cattle grid. The rest of this A road as far as the Cadnam roundabout is fenced off from the forest in order to prevent ponies from straying on to it. It is one thing for them to take possession of the lanes and minor roads, quite another for them to exercise their right of way on major ones.

Where a youthful forest pony cannot pass, a human septuagenarian would best not try. So, leaving the cricket club area I set off into uncharted waters. There was no slip of the keyboard there. Waters it was. Boggy streams criss-crossed the terrain. I was, however, encouraged by a makeshift wooden bridge over one, and pursued the route. Miraculously it bore my weight. The land was a bit boggy, and there were no more bridges, but I did come to an old established footpath that left the line of the road and took its own diagonal off to the right. I was aiming for a property on Romsey Road, which was one of the turnings off the Cadnam roundabout. I figured that this path might just bring me to somewhere on that road and all I would have to do is turn left or right. As everyone knows, I can always be relied upon to guess the correct choice.

A jogger approached me and, without causing him to break his stride, I asked him if I was headed for Romsey Road. ‘I don’t know, I’m not from around here’, was his easy breathing reply. Isn’t that always the way? Soon I could see a road ahead with an optimistic number of cars on it. Old Cross Road at the end of my path took me to what could possibly be Romsey Road. On the other hand………

I crossed the road and enquired at the Cadnam Conservative Centre, to learn that I was in Southampton Road. Ah…… All, however, was not lost. I could see the roundabout on my left. It was but a short distance to my landmark and Romsey Road. All in all, I’d say that was a result. I’d like to claim that it was a little more than sheer good fortune. But I don’t suppose anyone would believe me.

Jackie drove into The White Hart car park as I reached it, then we motored on to the dwelling we wished to see. As always she had walked the walk on the internet and knew that the house was opposite Fran’s Flowers.

A few day’s ago Helen Eale’s posted a photograph of a menu board exemplifying the phenomenon of the wandering apostrophe. Its a problem thats always intrigued me, too. As we tried to park, avoiding Frans dropped kerb, we noticed a beautifully painted sign advertising the establishments ware’s. Jackie felt it needed a bit of amendment, and suggested a nocturnal visit to remove jams punctuation mark. Especially as the handmade sign’s to the left of the professional board, and some of the other produce on that advertisement displayed a certain lack of consistency, I favoured sneaking along with red and white paint and a black permanent marker to make the necessary addition’s.

Having torn ourselves away from this little diversion, we had a look at the house opposite. Unfortunately the estate agent had forgotten to mention that it was faced by a large static caravan, and the photographer had, of course positioned him- or herself so as to ensure that no prospective buyer could imagine that that would be thrown in.

Our next visit was to Bransgore and 93 Burley Road. This is a rather old thatched cottage that from the outside looks pretty attractive. Bransgore is a large village with all the necessary amenities and set in the heart of the forest. Having ogled that, we went on to Sopley for lunch at The Woolpack. Certain visible changes and a notice at the bar informed us that there has been a change of ownership. So, sisters and brothers-in-law, if you have any wine vouchers, you can recycle them, for they are no longer legal tender in The Woolpack. The previous owners had encouraged customers to save tokens for conversion into wine with a meal. Any that have been hoarded are, like Sainsbury’s money off vouchers after a couple of days, obsolete. ‘For the time being’, according to our barmaid, the food will remain unchanged. The chef is still there.

I enjoyed a steak, mushroom, and Guinness pie with chips and vegetables. Jackie’s choice was the gammon steak with egg, pineapple, chips and salad. I drank Doom Bar, she drank Stella. A light salad, accompanied in my case by Piccini chianti riserva 2009, and in Jackie’s by Hoegaarden completed our day’s sustenance in the evening.

P.S.: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39459831?SThisFB