Alan Titchmarsh – derrickjknight

I Have Given Up

I have ignored recent Jetpack communication from WP because I don’t understand it and am afraid to get involved with it. Until now, this seems to have been a good decision judging by the number of problems other bloggers seem to be having with it.

When I attempted to recover the pictures for

A Boozy Knight

I came across a new problem. The block of photographs I had used successfully in this original post were inaccessible. After wrestling for an hour or so with this mystery I somehow discovered that Jetpack was now demanding that I sign up to Stripe – whatever that may be – and pay for the use of images from the pub’s promotional material, which had been part of my effort to publicise the excellent, innovative, venue. Fortunately we had visited again a few weeks later when Jackie had taken several pictures. I substituted some of these.

In doing so, I found all but one of the pictures missing from

Sir John Barleycorn Revisited

I was able to recover these photographs from my iMac Photos, but even that presented its own difficulty. Try as I might I could not discover how to include what is now the last owl thatch image without it being cropped by WP – in fact I almost left it off altogether, which should tell you something. It only worked when I made it a separate tiled gallery of its own.

In the meantime my stints in nature’s gym incorporated two separate periods of weeding and dead heading, and only after finishing my rounds with the above problems, did I wander around with my camera.

Now I have given up. I cannot select the tiled gallery without the images being cropped. So the following pictures can only be seen in full when the gallery is accessed. Maybe they will sort this out, but I have had enough for one day.

The first of these two images of the Pond Bed is the view from our dining room window.

Some of our later blooming daily lilies are now flourishing.

Wedding Day rose, cropped in the second image can be seen on its are along the brick path.

Further along the brick path, on either side of the arch, can be seen more Cordyline Australis trees which, until recent clearances, have not been easily visible.

Here are two shots of the red climber along the Shady Path.

This rose coming into its own in the Dragon Bed was another of Jackie’s very cheap buys.

This veilchenblau rambler was bought very cheaply from an open day at Ferns Lodge in Cottagers Lane.

As entitled in the gallery Absolutely Fabulous, and Mamma Mia all enhance the Rose Garden.

This evening we dined on tender roast lamb; crisp croquette potatoes; firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, soft green beans, and meaty gravy with which Jackie finished the Bangla and I drank Trivento Reserve Malbec 2021.

After The Storm?

Yesterday’s winds had in fact reached gale proportions.

This morning I joined Jackie in the garden and carried out a dead heading operation.

Roses New Dawn, Alan Titchmarsh, Créme de la Créme, For Your Eyes Only, and Winchester Cathedral were among those that received my attention.

Taking a break for lunch and cutting my hair, Jackie continued until early evening. Among her achievements were

the creation of a new bed opposite the greenhouse door; bringing one of her dragons further into view by providing him with a pedestal; and progressing the clearance of the stepping stones through the Palm Bed.

This latter project could be seen from the decking on which we took our pre-dinner drinks in gathering gloom, as could

the tall sunflower, and these two garden views.

My afternoon was spent producing https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/29/a-knights-tale-6-spanish-flu/

This evening we dined on pork chops coated with mustard; new potatoes, crunchy carrots, and firm broccoli, with which Jackie drank more of the Rosé and I repeated the Recital.

Immediately afterwards, having now learned that tomorrow’s gentle breeze and light showers has transmogrified into the end of Hurricane Evert, we set about once more laying down the garden furniture raised this morning.

Breathing Space

On another rather sultry morning we made good progress in

weeding the Rose Garden, thus giving breathing space to blooms such as

roses peach/orange Mamma Mia; pure white Margaret Merrill; pinkish Alan Titchmarsh; the recently righted New Dawn; and plants such as penstemon put in for variety.

Later, I read four more chapters of David Copperfield and scanned a page containing a Charles Keeping illustration for each one.

‘It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was’

Readers who have been following this series of Keeping’s illustrations to Dickens’s novels will know that the artist uses larger figures in the foreground to indicate receding perspective. In ‘Still, nobody appeared to claim the dusty youngster from Blunderstone, Suffolk’ the diminutive such figure shows how small is the boy.

‘The wooden-legged man turned me about again, with my face to Mr Creakle, and posted himself at Mr Creakle’s side’

‘ ‘I take my leave of you’, said Mr Mell’

This afternoon I watched the Wimbledon Tennis match between Dan Evans and Sebastian Korda.

We dined this evening on the last portion of Jackie’s splendid beef pie, amplified by minced cooked with onions, mushrooms and peas; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cotes du Rhone.

I then settled down to watch the tennis match between Andy Murray and Denis Shapovalov.

Sweet Summer Wine

Today was even hotter than yesterday, so we began gardening early once more.

The sweet smelling rose Summer Wine shares the entrance arch to the Rose Garden with the white Madame Alfred Carriere.

One of the casualties of the recent gales was that a number of stems of the sturdy climber were ripped from their ties, and fell across the bed beneath it, seeming to form part of Festive Jewel. Although it then enhanced the bed, our task today was to prise it from its resting place and encourage it to rejoin its thornless French partner.

I was, of course, definitely the under-gardener in this project, essentially employed to hold the ladder and keep stems in place until secured. Not only that – someone had to record the event.

This is the final result. The Head Gardener assures me that all will soon fall into the proper place.

Naturally I took the opportunity to photograph other blooms such as Mum in a Million, gladioli Byzantium, feverfew, foxgloves, and Erigeron in the first of these images; bright red Love Knot and more muted Alan Titchmarsh in the second. The rose named for our popular gardening expert also appears in the final picture in the gallery.

Here is another foxglove for which species it has been a good year. Lidl name their plants quite simply – the second picture is called a white climber.

Special Anniversary appears in the background behind Absolutely Fabulous and a few aquilegias.

Other white roses include Jacqueline du Pré and Winchester Cathedral.

We inherited this pink climber towering above the Rose Garden Arbour, and Paul’s Scarlet which shares the Wisteria Arbour. Jackie planted the blue solanum.

Peach Abundance is in the Oval Bed just outside the Rose Garden.

A wood pigeon silently lurked in the shadows,

while the buzzing bee’s activities somewhat impeded the pruning operation.

The healthy buds of stems either broken or sacrificed to the secateurs found their way to the accident pot.

I had intended to continue weeding the brick paving later, but decided it was too hot and watch England’s football match against Croatia instead.

This evening we dined on oven fish and chips with onion rings and peas, to which Jackie added a pickled onion and I, cornichons with chillis. We both drank Salento Rosato 2019.

Current Condition

Between further bouts of dis-tressing Félicité Perpétue I checked on the current condition of the rest of the garden.

In the meantime Jackie continued her weeding and clearing, leaving offerings for me to transport to the compost bin.

This climbing Cobaea Scandens, or Cup and Saucer plant is now blooming on the kitchen wall near one of the many

petunia and pelargonium planters,

all of which have perked up nicely since the storm. The ornamental grass in the first image of this pair,

like the Addams Family’s Cousin It, has returned to its righted perch.

A number of fuchsias, like Delta’s Sarah in the first of this triptych, Mrs Popple, and Garden News, have benefited from the rain

which has given this Absolutely Fabulous example pink spots, caused Alan Titchmarsh to flag a bit, refreshed Crown Princess Margareta, and kept the red climber bent over.

Nicotiana Sylvestris stands proud,

as do hollyhocks; Japanese anemones remain abundant; black eyed Susan cascades down the chimney pot; and kniphofia penetrates the gap between wooden chair struts.

We are wondering whether to replace this rather struggling little lawn with some York stone paving. Otherwise I might have to mow it before it gets out of hand.

After lunch Jackie bagged up my further rose clippings, then took over the pruning. The hard, woody, old stems we have now reached are not suitable for composting.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s toothsome cottage pie; additional fried potatoes; tender cabbage and kale; with crunchy carrots and cauliflower and tasty, meaty, gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Flores de Seligmar Rioja 2018.

They Escaped The Secateurs

Jackie spent much of the day watering the garden; my major task was dead heading roses. Here is a gallery of some of those that escaped the secateurs:

Each picture is labelled in the gallery which can be accessed by clicking on any image.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s hot, spicy, pasta arrabbiata with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Grrrrr

A recent post from Sandra had me reaching for my copy of

I will simply refer you to Sandra’s review and say that I enjoyed this short book in my 1977 paperback edition.

Taking regular rests, today I was mostly occupied with irrigation and decapitation of garden plants,

More lilies are blooming on the patio;

we have a peripatetic plethora of hemerocallis, incorrectly called day lilies.

The last of these faces this small clematis climbing the trellis in the front garden,

and stands beside this fuchsia Delta’s Sarah.

Most hanging baskets contain petunias and trailing lobelias.

Bees were particularly attracted to geranium palmatums and yellow saxifrages.

In the Rose Garden, Just Joey has matured, and Alan Titchmarsh stands proud.

Both are visible in these images also including a red carpet rose and Love Knot.

Rosa Gallica has shed a tear over a Deep Secret.

We can drink in the beauty of Hot Chocolate.

Lady Emma Hamilton and Absolutely Fabulous converse with Crown Princess Margareta in the background;

and red valerian introduces

the deep red potted geranium at the edge of the Oval Path.

WordPress took note of my paperback’s title and flushed out everything that followed as soon as I had completed this post, so I was forced to do it all again. Grrrrr.

This evening I dined on Jackie’s glorious chicken jalfrezi; pilau rice; and onion bahji, with which I drank Peroni.

Survivors

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

My very good blogging friend G.P. Cox had a good laugh yesterday at my statement that ‘surely nothing could go wrong’, concerning my dental teeth cleaning appointment today. Well, GP, I do hope you are ready for another. I received a telephone call at lunchtime today cancelling the visit because the hygienist is ill. I guess I’ll just have to carry on doing it myself.

In complete contrast to yesterday, we enjoyed fine weather today.

Jackie continued taking tender plants and cuttings into protective custody in the greenhouse.

I tidied up a bit and photographed more survivors of the recent light frost.

Some, like this pansy, bore blisters of precipitation.

I am not sure which

of our many

fuchsias

is hardy

but at the moment they all seem to be.

Heucheras continue to flower,

as do clematises such as Polish Spirit.

Even The Duchess of Albany, long past her best, is capable of creating excitement.

Roses like Compassion,

Penny Lane,

Little Rambler,

and the ever ebullient Alan Titchmarsh remain in full bloom;

we have thick piles of carpet roses.

Pelargoniums glow with colour.

Some may be seen in the stone urns at the end of the brick path where solanum swathes the dead tree;

and more in the stone urns in the Rose Garden.

The red maple at one end of

the Shady Path will recover from its wind burns.

Here is a view from the end nearest the house.

Outside the utility room are just a few of the ubiquitous verbena bonarensis paying homage to the regal red climber on the wisteria arbour.

reds, pinks, and greens predominate in the Kitchen Bed.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips, pickled onions, and gherkins. I finished the toro, which was a bit strong for fish and chips, but never mind.

I Was Transfixed

Ace Reclamation delivered our rose garden furniture this morning, and Jackie and I set it up.

Rose Alan Titchmarsh has bloomed.

Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE, DL, (b. 2.5.49) , was the subject of quite a bit of banter on yesterday’s post, but, in all seriousness, if anyone deserves to have a rose named after him it is this well known garden expert. An English gardener, broadcaster, and novelist after working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he has established himself as a media personality through appearances on TV gardening programmes, the current one being ‘Love Your Garden’. In this series, members of the public who have been nominated by others for his garden makeover are the recipients of an instant, themed, creation.

Elsewhere in the garden many scented roses, like Compassion are well into their second flowering.

Here is a view of the Shady Path across the Dragon’s Bed:

Elizabeth visited briefly for lunch.

This afternoon Aaron finished his paving, by carefully inserting fiddly bits he had cut out with an angle grinder. Along the eastern fence lies old timber and spikes for him to build a support for climbers on that side. The lighter wood just visible is our old stair rail. The view is from the bench.

Others are from the entrance; from the rose arch; from Elizabeth’s bed; and from the second armchair.

Whilst digging a hole for a rose, quite some way down, Jackie unearthed another historic coin of the realm. What’s historic about a 1983 £1? If thirty two years doesn’t seem a particularly long time ago, you may well ask.

When was the first £1 coin issued? You’ve guessed it. Jackie may well have dug up one of the very first minted. It bears a young head of the current Queen, Elizabeth II, and has clearly not benefited from perhaps more than three decades underground. When this piece was shiny and new in April 1983 it would have bought a packet of 20 cigarettes, five pints of milk or 30 minutes at a Manchester United match. Today you pay closer to £8 for the fags, £2.50 for the milk and see only three minutes of the football. But some things are cheaper: while £1 would only get you four minutes on a landline phone call at peak time in 1983, today it would give you at least 10 minutes.

Kept in a soil, gravel, and clay safe, its value has not really been enhanced.

Throughout my first 41 years £1 sterling was paper money. It wasn’t even the lowest denomination note. Until decimalisation in 1971, that was ten shillings or 50% of £1. These notes both feature in ‘Then The Tableau Spoke’. I found two at different times before about 1952. It was then worth taking one to the police station and handing them in as found property. If such items were unclaimed after one month, they were yours. I recovered each one.

Nowadays, I doubt whether anyone would consider £5 to be worth going to that trouble. Our current £5 note is a pathetic little scrap in comparison with the “White Fiver” of my first fifteen years. The 1793 design, with black printing on white paper, remained in circulation essentially unchanged until 21 February 1957, when the multicoloured notes were first introduced. You could still use the old note until it was withdrawn on 13 March 1961.

When I was about seven, I found myself in a shop, probably queueing. I really don’t know what the establishment was, or who was with me. But I can still see the large, thin, sheet of printed paper measuring, I now know, 211mm x 133mm, brandished by a gentleman. ‘Know what that is, boy?’ he asked. The question was rhetorical. He quickly followed up with the answer. ‘A £5 note’. So transfixed was I by that object that I have no idea what the man looked like. I’d never heard of such a sum, and never saw another “White Fiver”.

This evening I watched the highlights of the second day of the Edgbaston Ashes Test. England completed their first innings with a lead of 145. Australia followed this with 168 for 7. In other words, a five day match was virtually over in two days.

Our dinner consisted of chicken Kiev, chips, and baked beans. I know, It sounds dicey, but it was delicious, especially with the Georges du Beuf beujolais 3 villages 2013 Danni and Andy gave me for my birthday. Jackie, of course, drank Hoegaarden.

P.S. After posting this, we watched a TV adaptation of Agatha Christie’s ‘A Secret Adversary’, starring Jessica Raine and David Walliams. Very early on, Jessica Raine’s character had her mouth stuffed with screwed up flimsy paper I instantly recognised as a “White Fiver”.

Mumbai

As I sat down in the London train to which Jackie had delivered me this morning I was greeted by a beaming smile, reminiscent of Tenniel’s Cheshire Cat, from the gentleman diagonally opposite. I knew immediately what I was in for. It only took a few seconds for me to learn that he was travelling to Winchester. I calculated that I could probably tolerate the open, friendly, naive, vulnerable chap’s conversation for the requisite seven minutes. He belonged to a local history society and was bound for an event at Winchester cathedral, the Dean of which he knew personally. He was able to tell me what he had eaten on the last such occasion two years ago. This congenial 73 year old fellow keeps himself active through his interests. As he fished inside his raincoat for his ticket I noticed the tell-tale collection of badges affixed to his jacket lapel.

Soon after my recent acquaintance’s departure, a sleepy bee dropped onto my lapel. I flicked it off. Straight into a blonde woman’s hair. Making an immediate bee-line for that I dashed the creature to the floor with the flat of my hand. The lady was a little surprised. The furry little insect landed beneath a family occupying the seats behind. The father scooped it up with a piece of card, and, with two of his young progeny, one sucking her thumb, in his wake, went off in search of a window. He wasn’t going to find one he could open. Indeed, he didn’t. As he returned he announced that the bee had just changed carriages. I said he had adopted the technique of someone I know, who shall be nameless, with snails which are chucked over the garden fence. This must be an acceptable activity because we saw Alan Titchmarsh do it on his latest garden creation television programme.

From Waterloo I took the tube to Queensway whence I walked to Sutherland Place for the next book-packing session. When this was finished I retraced this journey to Southampton where Jackie was waiting to drive me home.

Queensway’s opening hours and its O2 shop stopped me panicking in 2007. During Jessica’s last months my mobile phone was indispensable. It suddenly packed up on me one evening. I hot-footed it to this shop where it was replaced and I was back in long-distance communication.

I can never pass Whiteley’s department store without thinking of Shirley and Edward. I often wonder whatever happened to them. Edward was the small son, contemporary with Michael, of the Whiteley heiress who was the partner of Ivan who was my friend forty five years ago. Jackie, Michael and I were invited to join them on holiday in Shanklin. On one of our days on the beach, complying with his request, Jackie buried her stepson up to his waist in the sand.

The differing child care practices of the two families proved rather stressful.

Deviating a little on my journey today, I was fortunate to be walking through Leinster Square when a brief storm struck. I was able to shelter on the steps of a grand colonnaded terrace and watch stair rods descend on a rack of Boris’s Bikes. When the rain abated somewhat I saw a swarthy gentleman emerge from a basement flat bearing an armful of new umbrellas packed in cellophane, no doubt intending to take advantage of the weather on some stall somewhere. By then the gutters were flowing with water and evasive action was required to avoid a supplementary shower thrown up by the wheels of buses along Westbourne Grove.

In my post ‘Curry, A Biography’ of 31st October last year I mentioned the reluctance of the proprietor of ‘Star of Bombay’ to alter the city’s name to Mumbai, which, to me, seemed appropriate. I see his mind remains unaltered.

On our way back from Southampton we stopped at Goodies in Netley Marsh for fish and chips. I drank tea and Jackie had diet coke.