allium – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Memory Is Not Neat And Tidy

On a warm, sunny, morning, my feeble contribution to the gardening was to bag up a pile of rubble; and to transport earth from elsewhere with which to fill in the hole left by the removal of the pool in a wheelbarrow. Jackie continued with the weeding and planting, and this afternoon I did a bit of sweeping up.

Today I continued the recap on photographic series I insert into my posts. Spanning 1983 to 1985, I scanned more of the borrowed family portrait prints that Elizabeth has recently returned.

On the North Wales holiday on which Matthew had planted Sam on a cow, here he is gently giving Louisa and Sam the benefit of his knowledge about ladybirds.

The Pearson family hold an annual Family Day immediately after Christmas each year. This is hosted by Jessica’s eldest brother Nigel and his wife Judy. Since its inception in the mid 1970s, Jessica and each of her five siblings have added their own children, who have in turn, contributed theirs. Although I took the role of event photographer, this picture of Jessica was taken in the grounds of the venue, Nigel and Judy’s farmhouse at Caxton in Cambridgeshire, in 1983. Maybe sometime I will feature one of the parties.

Our mudlarking period has been featured before. Here Matthew totes a sculptural piece of driftwood he found under Putney Bridge.

We jump to 1985 and Michael practicing his golf shots in the small London garden of Gracedale Road.

My Uncle Norman and Auntie Peggy, of whom I just have one flashback memory, were one of a great many couples who, their minds and wishes for the future having been fundamentally affected by the Second World War, very soon thereafter, emigrated to Adelaide in Australia, where they were eventually joined by Uncle Darcy and Aunt Edna and their children David and Gillian. Here Norman bonds with his great niece Louisa at Rougemont Avenue on Christmas Day 1985.

Present on that occasion were, of course, Mum,

Joseph,

and Dad, seen here playing hoopla with Sam,

then conversing with Louisa on the sofa.

Seeing these two pictures of my father it seems incredible now, that, two years on to the very day, he died of stomach cancer. Christmas Day will forever have special significance.

Why, you may ask, do I skip from series to series regardless of chronology? Well, first of all that is how the spirit moves me. One day I may want to use my carefully ordered slides, and another I might be able to face identifying negatives or having a stab at the date of prints. The real reason however, is that I am reflecting the nature of memory. It is not neat and tidy. Depending on the triggers, it will hop about from period to period of any lifetime.

This evening, lowering clouds filtered the sunlight as I wandered round the garden and photographed

a viburnum on the back drive,

another new allium,

a verbena that has surprisingly overwintered,

and an azalea rescued last year.

We dined on roast pork, boiled potatoes, green beans, spring greens, and carrots, followed by profiteroles. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Parra Alta Malbec.

Out On Their Feet Amid The Confetti

Yesterday I forgot to mention the outcome of my visit to Simon Richards, the hand surgeon. That can only be a good sign. He has discharged me, but physiotherapy will continue for some time. The middle joint on the little finger remains bent rigid. He has advised me to practice straightening it with brute force from my right hand. That’s painful. And scary. Rather like holding a newborn baby, I don’t want to break it. But it seems to be working.

Wind still gusts around the garden, but we do have sunshine and showers.

A new rhododendron is in bloom;

an ant perches on the first of our colourful alliums to arrive;

the thymes I rescued from the blue sinks last year have thrived;

as has the heavily Corokia cotoneaster outside the back door;

and the clematis Niobe enlivens the kitchen wall.

The rain, reinforced by a fierce fusillade of hailstones, soon returned and watered my charges for me.

These mimuluses, hosta, heuchera, and cosmos have yet to be planted up.

I returned to the task of identifying and scanning the prints retrieved from Elizabeth.

Here, Michael and Sam are seated in the garden of Gracedale Road in June 1983.

Later that year, Sam tucks into refreshments after completing the Furzedown mini-marathon.

This was a fund-raising event for the children’s nursery school. Clearly the professional-looking number tags had been donated by the organisers of the Farnham Castle Marathon, sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken. I made a complete black and white portfolio of the occasion for the school. Some parents bought copies. If I ever find the negatives, I think the pictures would warrant their own post.

(I did find the negatives. This post and the next two feature the pictures)

Sometime in 1984, Michael appears to be watching telly in the lounge of Gracedale Road. Probably an Arsenal football match.

Also in 1984 we attended Tony and Liz’s wedding. Here is a portrait of Becky taken there.

That was the period in which I was converting colour negatives to black and white prints, using an enlarger and chemicals. Goodness knows how, I certainly don’t remember. Now I can do it at the touch of a mouse, so who cares?

This, from the same set, was scanned from a 10″ x 8″ print.

Louisa was there too. Here, putting me in mind of the bridesmaid from 1970, she, too, seems to be out on her feet, and contemplating whether the confetti would soften the paving stones sufficiently to provide a feather bed.

There was more than enough of Jackie’s delicious beef stew for my meal this evening. I also finished the Madiran wine.

Sharing A Meal

When we arrived in Downton on 31st March last year, clumps of large leaves were present in the front garden. Following our policy of giving unrecognised plants time to make themselves known, we refrained from disturbing them. These produced nothing more until now. We don’t know what they are. Does anyone? The holly leaf in the first picture gives the scale of the small blue flowers that have poked their heads out. The next two offer enlargements as an aid to identification. The fresh foliage is much smaller than it will be in the summer.

Today I took a slightly longer and more gainly hobble around the garden than yesterday. Other new arrivals are different varieties of primula, and the first of the numerous alliums which will crop up everywhere as the year goes on. These latter are very welcome in the beds, but far too many of them pierce the gravel and brick paths. As the weather warms up their heady aroma is nowhere near as appetising as that of the frying onions that tempt you to stop at a hot dog stall. Indeed, when we first savoured it we thought there must be a problem with our septic tank.

Among the new daffodils are tiny tete-a-tetes.

A single layer of bricks that, last week, Aaron placed at the end of the back drive in order to deter offending vehicles, has survived unscathed.

During our lunch we watched others enjoying theirs. Through the kitchen window I was able to photograph the avian diners.

First, a pair of greenfinches sat opposite each other, as did Jackie and I.

When I reached the window, one flew off, leaving its less timid mate in sole possession.

It is not usual at the moment for different species to share a meal, but our then unaccompanied visitor seemed content to accommodate a blue tit.

Once this little creature hopped down to a lower perch,

The more cautious greenfinch joined the party, the couple remaining on the alert to repel any more boarders, but allowing their companion to continue lunching.

Finally, the smaller bird having had its fill and flown off, the braver greenfinch took its place on the lower berth, whilst its mate emulated the cow in the hedge.

My egg and bacon wasn’t too congealed by the end of this little interlude.

This evening, for our dinner, Jackie produced her classic cottage pie, cauliflower, carrots, and brussels sprouts, followed by a juicy raspberry crumble. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank Heritage de Calvet Cotes du Rhone Villages 2013.

P.S. Jackie thought the plant was possibly borage, and Vicki Haynes confirmed it. This enabled my lady to do further internet research, establishing it as a perennial borage, boraginaceae trachystemon orientalis. In UK it is termed Oriental Borage. In Turkey the plant is eaten as a vegetable.

A Fatal Error

Whilst Jackie drove the well used route to Shelly and Ron’s this morning, I, like Wordsworth’s Lucy, ‘dwelt among the untrodden ways’. Well, untrodden for a very long time. And, apart from lunch, I trod them all day.

Yesterday’s clearances had revealed the presence of another hidden gravel path, which I determined to open up and refurbish.

The camellia mentioned yesterday is now fully visible through the cleared area.
I began by planting the two forgotten items from yesterday – a lilac and a fern. The lilac was to be placed alongside this path, and required the usual clearance of weeds, brambles, and ivy.

Sneaking up behind and to the right beneath the allium in this next photograph can be seen the tentacles of the ubiquitous grasping gallium aperine.

Poppies of various hues are cropping up all over the place.

I have not featured the deutzia before because I could not identify it, but, happily, Jackie has done so.

Although its leaves bear the dreaded black spot, that curse of pirates and rose-growers, the pink climbing rose at the front of the house is beautiful and abundant.
Well, that’s enough of wandering around the garden. I’ve done the planting and had a look at the flowers. Now I must get down to business.

A few yards into the rediscovered path, some quarry tiles had been laid as a point of interest. A few were broken. A little further on, and to the right of these, is a smaller, linking, and also overgrown stretch of lined gravel. This has a similar feature of four tiles. I therefore diverted from my main objective, cleared that route, and took up the tiles and used them to repair the other set on the longer, meandering pathway. In this photograph of the first opened thoroughfare the rake at the far end lies on this arrangement. I have left a few little violets in situ.
Jackie had not, of course, been idle on her return. She continued with curtains, and has now made and hung curtains for the whole house, often fixing the rails as well.

After lunch, I allowed myself a little diversion to pull out two thistles like those of yesterday, and to plant a little round tree/bush in place of one of them. Jackie had unsuccessfully tried to persuade me to take it easy this afternoon. Whilst I was engaged in removing the second of the thistles she came out and asked, in that mock accusative tone that indicates that the speaker thinks you are overdoing it: ‘What are you doing now?’. When she saw what I was engaged in, she gasped, and her expression turned to horror. ‘You’ve pulled up the acanthus!’ she exclaimed.

The head gardener was very forgiving, and most encouraging. She estimated that what was left of it would reach maturity in about seven years. The fatality, in this case, was therefore not the plant, but the tool that I had broken in trying to uproot the very stubborn sections of the acanthus. The plant should revive. Not so the fork handle. I wonder if Ronnie Corbett has any in stock? (Anyone who doesn’t know this reference is highly recommended to look up the Fork Handles sketch on Youtube. It is The Two Ronnies at their very best).

To return to the main path. I will need a heavy duty axe to remove a holly stump from the far end of it. Someone has cut it down in the past, and it had bushed up. I trimmed off the shoots but otherwise cannot shift it, even with the aforementioned fork when it was still intact.

Two photographs will not suffice for the finished article, but here they are.
We are promised rain this evening, to continue into tomorrow. This will be a welcome relief because I will be forced to take a break.
I do ache a bit.

Two of the delights of Indian food are the aromas and the colours. Jackie adheres to these in her presentation, which is why she produced a special variety of red cabbage as a suitable compliment to her succulent roast pork, crackling, and vegetable rice (recipe).
For cabbage with a suitable gentle piquancy for this meat:
Take 1/2 small red cabbage, 1 large red onion, 1/2 a cooking apple (this one was Bramley`) cored, but not peeled.
Thinly slice all ingredients. Stir fry with big nob of butter and splash of olive oil. When part cooked add a splash of white vinegar and a good glug of red wine.
Stir it all up, turn the heat down, whack the lid on and let it cook a little while longer until soft but not soggy.
Try it. It was perfect.
With it I drank Dino shiraz Terre Siciliane 2012 and Jackie didn’t. I would have given her some but she doesn’t like red wine, except in cooking.

Spot The Dummies

Before tackling shelf-filling again I took a wander round the garden. I here present two plants for my readers, please, to identify. The first is the white one originally featured on 28th April:
It is from a bulb and has trefoil petals. Maybe this photograph will aid recognition better than the last.

Secondly, can anyone name this allium?

Another complete day in the library probably progressed the project, although at times it looked as if we had more boxes to empty than we had when we started. However, by lunchtime the Zola novels were in place. This gave impetus to the afternoon’s work, and poetry, plays, literary criticism, and history were all on their shelves by early evening. We might have been even quicker had we not kept coming across more containers labelled history, and another of poetry and plays just when we thought they were all done.

The discovery of the day for me was an annual report cover. In the 1970s and ’80s I was a member of the `Committee of the Queens Park Family Service Unit. I designed several of the covers of the Charity’s Annual Report. As with other drawings for such purposes, I never kept the originals which were retained by the organisations concerned. One summer, a few years ago, I found myself walking past the said FSU and popped in to see if they had a spare copy of a particular publication. I was told that the unit was moving the following week and I could help myself from a box of annual reports that were about to be binned.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I found exactly what I was looking for. This was the annual report for 1980-1981, featuring Sam reaching for a daisy being handed to him by Jessica. Our son is on the back, with the two hands on the front. The drawing is taken from a black and white photograph taken late in 1980 at the Owl House Garden at Lamberhurst in Kent. The Annual Report is a bit grubby and I have left it that way.

I thought I had lost it again, and found it sandwiched between two history books.

There has been the occasional moment when Jackie has politely requested that I remove myself from her china shop. This I believe is a reference to the phrase ‘like a bull in a china shop’ applied to someone who rushes in without thinking and messes everything up. It seems a little unfair to me, but I have to admit that Shelly reminded me yesterday that she had witnessed one such event. We have some tiles on the kitchen wall which had been covered en bloc by a large sheet of cork tiling. we thought this ugly, so I took the said bull by the horns and started stripping it off. We then discovered what the cork was doing there. There were two tiles missing.

The glue used to stick the offending cork in place was pretty strong, so there were bits of it stuck to the remaining tiles. This bull had, in fact, made a right pig’s ear of it.

Among my art materials is a stock of variously coloured card, and an assortment of pastels. Jackie has used some of these to produce dummy tiles, and fixed them in place with contact patches made from carpet tape.

Are you able to spot the dummies?

This evening’s dinner consisted of a delicious liver casserole Jackie produced, with crisp carrots, cauliflower and boiled potatoes in their skins. Afterwards we enjoyed a Post House Pud. This is what I erroneously called Post House Mess yesterday. In my defence I submit that it is prepared in the same way as The Firs Mess. It has now been given the benefit of alliteration. One of today’s ingredients was breakfast apricots from a tin. I don’t suppose it matters that we consumed them at the other end of the day.