ancient hedgerows – derrickjknight

How Many Centuries?

Jackie drove me to Lymington where I spent the morning in the EE showroom. I had been two days without a service on O2. There is no other supplier’s showroom within several miles of us, and I could not telephone O2.

Cutting a long story short, I decided to transfer to EE, where it is possible to speak to a real person in an accessible building. My old Samsung, a good 10 years old, is now obsolete, so I also upgraded to the current model.

Miraculously, my O2 account worked this afternoon.

Late this afternoon, we took a short forest drive.

I stepped out on Holmsley Passage

and photographed autumn bracken in surrounding woodland

and undulating landscape.

Voices of the two young women on the winding road had carried way up the hill behind me.

Further on, I wondered for how many centuries had shafts of sunlight outlined the mossy mounds of the ancient hedgerow banks along Bisterne Close, or

the backs of generations of smiling young pigs,

gleefully guzzling

acorns on the steep slopes leading out of Burley.

This evening we dined on second helpings of last night’s takeaway with the same beverages.

Along Church Lane

Ten years ago yesterday I began this blog as a daily diary in order to keep my children up to date with my activities. Since then I have taken, different additional directions, largely stimulated by the encouragement and interests of a quite unexpected number of followers and friends from all over the world. Until comparatively recently all posts were uncategorised, making some subjects difficult for new and longer standing readers to track.

One development has been writing about books, often illustrated. This morning I embarked upon the task of changing the category of posts featuring observations about them. “Books” entries will often be found contained within the other activities of the day. A simple example of this is https://derrickjknight.com/2013/09/05/carthage/

Since I have to trawl through almost 4,000 posts to find these, I might take some time.

This afternoon Jackie drove me into the forest for a short trip.

We took the Sandy Down route to

Church Lane. The second of the above images shows a gentleman making good progress on his postprandial constitution; the first is a section at right angles to

a bridge over the stream reflected in the water’s surface.

The lane slopes up to St John the Baptist parish church, where the Ukrainian flag heard flapping in the churchyard on this otherwise silent afternoon adds an extra poignancy to the many others flying in our locality.

Beside the church, ponies crop the verdant fields.

English bluebells still thrive along the way,

between the ancient hedgerow banks along which gnarled roots are exposed.

This evening we dined on well cooked roast lamb; crisp roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, and Yorkshire pudding; crunchy carrots; firm broccoli and cauliflower; mint sauce and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

A Better Perspective

Just before lunch I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/04/29/a-knights-tale-129-waiting-on-barbados-part-two/

After lunch we took the Barnes Lane route to Milford on Sea pharmacy where ferns unfurled by the roadside.

Afterwards we continued into the forest

On Lymore Lane Jackie parked beside this field of golden oilseed rape flanked by dandelions and cow parsley. Once I had produced my images, in search of a better perspective, she climbed onto a concrete post designed to prevent infiltrating vehicles, and produced the final entry into this gallery, with its strip of housing, trees, and telegraph wires.

Many of our centuries old lanes have high banked verges gouged out over many years. Those beside Lower Sandy Down are no exceptions. Here ferns and bluebells scale the slopes and settle in fields and woodland beyond.

Just outside Brockenhurst a bovine trio basked in the warming sunshine casting long shadows.

For dinner this evening Becky produced another sitting of Jackie’s sausages in red wine, with her own creamy mashed potato, and fresh firm broccoli. This was followed by apple pie and cream. My wife drank Hoegaarden, I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon, and our daughter drank Diet Coke. Our granddaughter abstained.

“A Lovely Autumny Day”

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

We began the day with a trip to Everton Nurseries to buy four more slabs of reconstituted stone for the new bench base. Sadly, artificial Halloween pumpkins and other scary things were being arrayed at the entrance. What has happened to the pleasure of making your own carving? Sadder still, I noticed a heap of dog turds in the car park. Someone had allowed their dog to dump where others may wish to tread. I informed a staff member who picked up the offending material with a plastic bag.

I soon cheered up as we drove through the forest.

Somewhere near Bramsgore an Austin 7 was being carried on a low trailer.

We stopped on Charles’s Lane near Ringwood, where Jackie had noticed rows of gnarled boles of trees that had lived and died over centuries of accumulated hedgerow boundaries. I spent a pleasant time wandering up and down photographing these,

and the forest scenes beyond them. Leaves are just beginning to fall and ferns are turning brown.

I have been unable to discover any history of this lane, but we feel that, judging by the ancient hedgerows, it is a very early one.

One cyclist ascended the slight incline and disappeared round a bend in the road;

another whirred into sight and whizzed downhill.

The rapid machine gun fire that was acorns spattering the tarmac had me ducking for cover.

Soon, even this rattling was eclipsed by the clopping of horses’ hooves. I stood on the verge, expecting perhaps a couple of equestrian carriages to round the distant bend. What appeared were a group of riders who slowed as they approached,

and thinned out to a string, the young lady bringing up the rear being led by a rope.

Having, I thought, exhausted photographic possibilities I returned to the car. On the way the familiar clip clop indicated that the riders were returning.

Their leader paused for a chat, a comment that it was “a lovely autumny day”, and a wave goodbye.

Off they returned, on past

the walls of a now demolished railway bridge, an overgrown example of ‘Beechingisation’.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent cottage pie, crunchy carrots and cauliflower, with most flavoursome first Brussels sprouts of the season. I finished the malbec.