aquilegias – Page 3 – derrickjknight

There’s Some Corner Of An English Churchyard

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Over breakfast this morning, I photographed two more angles of view through the kitchen window;

and afterwards, The Rose Garden.

We have many banks of aquilegias.

Compassion blooms on the Dead End Path arch,

And we have our first bottle brush flower.

A Painted Lady butterfly availed itself of the gravel camouflage.

This afternoon we visited St Nicholas’s church in Brockenhurst. Jackie and Sheila led the way into the exhibition inside;

Jackie pausing to inspect the eighteenth century gravestones.

I wandered around the beautiful landscaped graveyard, where light glinted through trees and the ground fell away allowing the monuments to ramble down the hillside.

After my following exploration, I joined the ladies inside where a couple of volunteers within were giving them an explanatory history of the World War One burials in the churchyard.

They told Jackie that this yew tree dated from the twelfth century.

This sculptured stump must also have been a substantial giant.

Past the tree I came to a set of steps and a path leading down to level ground.

Flashes of red against clean, cream background suggested I was approaching the memorial symbolised by the sculpture at the entrance to the church. This was a brilliant fern cut out from weathered metal, familiar to anyone familiar with an All Blacks rugby jersey. The brilliance lay in the figures silhouetted in the work. I crouched a bit to ensure that the background grass made this clear.

Indeed, I had. Ninety three members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force soldiers from World War One lie buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery attached to this church.

The farming village of Brockenhurst soon became a World War 1 hospital village, from 1914 caring for wounded and sick Indian troops, and from 1916 the No. 1 HQ New Zealand hospital. Those who died therein were buried in this churchyard.

Of the 93 New Zealanders, 12 were Maoris, only one of whom died from wounds. This was Private Kiri Rapona. Clare Church’s book, which I bought, gives this young man five more years of life than does this gravestone. One other drowned and the rest succumbed to illness.

One Indian is Sukha.

There are also three unknown Belgian civilians who share a plot.

These plots are very well tended and maintained by New Zealanders in UK.

Of the three hospitals from those years, the only one still standing is now the Balmer Lawn Hotel, which keeps its own living lawnmowers.

The very friendly couple who were very informative about the church and this particular section of its history, pointed out the Victorian stained glass in the twelfth century stonework of the windows.

This evening Jackie produced succulent chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potato, and crisp carrots and runner beans for our dinner. Sheila’s dessert was rice pudding, and Jackie’s profiteroles. As I had consumed two pieces of chicken I passed on this. But I did drink more of the Fleurie. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and Sheila, sparkling water.

It was Rupert Brooke, an Englishman who did die in 1915, who is immortalised by his own verse: ‘And if I should die, think only this of me, that there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. I have adapted his words for today’s title.

Perseverance Rewarded

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Until 2.30 p.m. when Jackie drove us to Brockenhurst to collect our friend Sheila who is staying with us for a few days, she continued sterling maintenance in the garden while Aaron and Robin continued with the fencing.

The erigeron outside the French windows featured as part of yesterday’s kitchen door shot. Here is a close-up of some of them.

Walking down the back drive to open the gate for our two marvellous garden maintenance men, I admired, on the bordering beds,

snapdragons;

wallflowers and valerian;

and rose Féliticé Perpetué, now draping the dead stumps.

The heucheras in the Rose Garden provide stiff competition for the roses themselves.

Here, the geranium palmatums lead us in,

and aquilegias front Schoolgirl and Golden Showers.

Ballerina dances with honeysuckle alongside the entrance arch.

The rose Hot Chocolate in the front garden is, however, just ahead of that in the back.

Festooning the front trellis are two different depths of pink roses.

Here is a view across the Cryptomeria Bed to Elizabeth’s Bed.

The peach coloured rose photographed yesterday is further open today.

The smallest hoverfly I have ever seen landed on For Your Eyes Only.

I have striven for a long time to capture a bee in flight. Today my perseverance was rewarded.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s lemon chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I drank more of the Fleurie, and Sheila drank water.

In The May Garden

My gardening task today was cutting the grass.

It is as well that I did carried that out before photographing this symphony in red provided by tellimas, rhododendron, pieris, mimuluses and petunias.

Another rhododendron that I photographed last week in a still closed and soggy state is now fully open and looking well refreshed;

as are the red and white tulips at the front of the house.

New arrivals are clematises

Niobe

and Marie Boisselot;

yet more Crane’s bill geraniums;

Pheasant’s eye, perhaps the last of the narcissi;

naturalised aquilegias;

and different alliums.

As has been noted before, the Hordle Chinese Take Away set meal for two can always be extended into the next day. So it was with yesterday’s, the seconds of which we enjoyed this evening, with profiteroles to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the Bordeaux.

I’ve Received An Award

There was not much sunshine today, so it paid off to have been up and dawn to watch its pink tints filtering across the road, turning the cool blue exterior of the house into a warm watercolour, and piercing a new pair of windows into my study wall. An amble round the garden revealed

two different deutzias;

a variety of verbena;

and a quantity of aquilegias from seed scattered last autumn.

This clematis Niobe, now thriving against the front fence, was a spindly twig trampled into gravelly soil when we arrived a year ago. It has responded well to Jackie’s winter care.

We have a saying which I had never understood until meeting Priscilla. This is ‘smelling like a petunia’, used to describe someone wearing perhaps too much perfume. Almost very variety of the range of cultivated versions of the plant has had the scent bred out of it.

Priscilla, however, carries the pristine aroma.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday evening to receive:from Alex Raphael, who certainly deserved one himself. Thank you Alex.

As part of the award, I have to say 7 things about me and nominate 15 other cool bloggers.

Here goes:

1. I will be 73 in July, and am enjoying a full and active life, qualified somewhat by 7 below.

2. I had secure and stable childhood which gave me the strength to survive several adult bereavements, all of which have contributed to who I am today. For example, being widowed and a single parent at 22 brought about an entire change of career.

3. I have 5 children by three different wives, two of whom have died. To date there are 8 grandchildren.

4. My interests include art, literature and photography.

5. It is fascinating how my enthusiasms have changed over the years. Having been a keen sportsman of generally average ability, I now don’t even know who is playing what. Similarly, I set top level cryptic crosswords for twenty years, until losing interest three years ago. Blogging has taken over – for as long as it may last.

6. Having spent a lifetime living and/or working in London, I am enjoying retirement between The New Forest and the south coast.

7. A problem with my right knee has curtailed my long walks for the moment, but I am an optimist, and hope to resume them in due course.

Of all the awards which float around WordPress, Alex has chosen the one I would most have coveted. This is because I do try to vary my material.

I follow almost 200 other blogs, but, I cannot nominate 15 for versatility. Sticking to that criterion, and avoiding those Alex has already nominated, this is my list:

Baffled Baboon

ireland2day: according to my lens

Implied Spaces

Dark Pines Photo

Life is But This

The World according to Dina

handmade. homegrown. beautiful life

The Proto Star

Oak Trees Studio

Of course I couldn’t follow the instructions without technical help from Alex through an e-mail. Thank you for that too, Alex. Patiently and carefully, Aaron made further impressive progress in laying the paths for the new rose garden. The succulent piece of pork Jackie had bought a couple of days ago was far to big for yesterday’s meal. She therefore cut it in half and cooked the second for our dinner tonight. Boiled potatoes, carrots and cabbage were served with it. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbeck.

Streets Of London

Again, the early morning sun, casting shadows across the gravel to meet grasses on the other side of the path, worked it’s magic

on the peonies;

on new rambling red roses;

on rose tinted aquilegias;

on the clematis Doctor Ruppel;

on a somewhat nibbled geranium palmatum;

and warming the stone of a frog’s back on which a bluebottle hitched a ride.

I have mentioned before, my, as yet unpublished, Streets of London Series. From March 2004 until some time in 2008, I conducted this exercise, wandering around during breaks in my working day. The constraint I set myself was that the street signs should appear in the shots. There are many hundreds of these colour slides taken with my Olympus OM2, so I decided to embark upon scanning them. I entered the first dozen, from March to April 2004, today.

From Hanover Gate, NW1 can be seen the burnished dome of Regent’s Park mosque.

Warwick Place W9 stands on the corner of Warwick Avenue. The mind boggles at the van’s signage.

The ubiquitous McDonald’s has an outlet on the corner of York Way N1. Perhaps Securitas is coming to collect the takings.

A spindly young London Plane comes into leaf on Castellain Road W9.

Maida Avenue W2 runs alongside the Little Venice stretch of the Regent’s Canal, forming a junction with Warwick Avenue which spans the bridge. The white building on our left is The Bridge House, featured in ‘Time To Go’.

This corner of Gray’s Inn Road, WC1 stands diagonally opposite Kings Cross Station. The area is always clogged with traffic.

The station itself stands on the corner of Euston Road and York Way, N1.

The subject of the witty window cleaner sculpture in Chapel Street, NW1, scratches his head in contemplation of the task of cleaning Marks and Spencer’s glass fronted tower standing alongside Edgware Road Metropolitan Line station.

From this corner of Warwick Avenue, W2, narrow boats on the Regent’s canal are visible through the railings.

In Sardinia Street WC2, Angelo advertises his hairdressing, whilst thespians trip the tango.

The eponymous Church Street Market runs from Edgware Road. At this far end it is joined by Penfold Street, NW8.

The sign for Gracedale Road, SW, is now many miles from Furzedown, so I have inserted it in a more appropriate post.

Margery and Paul popped in for a very welcome surprise visit, ‘to check up on’ me. This was, as usual, great fun. Paul put me right on the jackdaws I had recently incorrectly identified as hooded crows. I amended the post accordingly. Thanks, Paul.

Jackie returned home early this evening, and we dined on her superb chicken and egg jalfrezi with special fried rice. She drank Hoegaarden whist I opened another bottle of the Madiran and drank some of it.

Emily Goes Wandering

On a warm, overcast, morning I repeated yesterday’s promenade matinale. The staccato stabbing of a staple gun applied by a young man working on the ‘massive’ project of Hallmark builders in the grounds of The Spinney, followed me down the lane.

Having been prompted by two WordPress friends, who thought yesterday’s blossom may be apple, I probed further into the hedgerow and came to the conclusion that they were right. There appear to be two espaliered trees. Perhaps there was once an orchard here.

For a while during the 1990s I returned to using negative, as opposed to positive, film. These negatives became jumbled and possibly lost during the move from Lindum House. I therefore used a print from one of my vast collection of photo albums for the VE Day 50th anniversary picture published yesterday. During that May of 1995 we enjoyed particularly fine weather. Today I scanned a batch of prints of photographs taken that month. Our Newark garden was a typical Victorian one, and therefore boasted an orchard.

I wonder whether the flower beds still contain

irises,

lupins, and aquilegias.

Does the stone path laid by Matthew about five years earlier, using material found in the garden, still survive alongside the kitchen wall?. Here Jessica, Michael and Emily stroll along it.

Michael and Heidi’s daughter Emily was my first grandchild. This was the occasion of one of the family’s regular holidays at Lindum House. Oliver and Alice had yet to arrive.

You may be forgiven for thinking that it is my hair that Emily tousles in this shot,

but the locks belonged to her frighteningly realistic doll, which she must have left on the asphalt path when she went wandering.

The swing seat in the top left of this final shot of Emily on the lawn was suspended by Melvin Garret from a lofty branch of the acacia beneath which I was seated in yesterday’s picture. Grandchildren and neighbours’ offspring enjoyed it for fifteen years or so.

This evening we dined on roast chicken breasts marinaded in piri-piri sauce; roasted leeks, mushrooms, and peppers; and boiled potatoes. I drank Campo Vieja rioja 2013, while Jackie drank sparkling water.

Destruction Of Tulips

When I was ill earlier in the year, our friends Margery and Paul gave me a copy of ‘Winespeak’, Ronald Searle’s illustrated ‘Wicked World of Winetasting’. The author, a highly original artist, claims that ‘All the phrases in this little book have been plucked from unacknowledged but absolutely authentic sources’. Souvenir Press’s 1983 edition presents Searle’s ( until I insisted, WordPress changed this to Seattle) grotesque caricatures alongside his chosen phrases.

Here is one example: This is an excellent coffee table book. I dipped into it again last night. This morning Jackie drove me to our G.P.’s surgery in Milford on Sea, where the practice nurse removed my stitches. As, razor sharp unpicker poised, she approached my hand, she said, ‘I think I’ll get my glasses’. ‘Please do’, I laughingly replied. She explained that she didn’t really need them, but found that the off-the-counter pair beautifully magnified the knotted spiky strands of stiff line sticking out of my hand as if it were a pin-cushion. The wavy course of the blue material looked like a design for my Mum’s cross-stitching. This filled me with confidence, and she carried out a perfect operation, slipping the tiny knife under the tight knots, slicing through the thread, and drawing out any hidden residue with her gentle fingers. As my palm is rather scenic, and thinking that a description of the procedure presents the picture, I will spare my readers a photograph. Today’s gale force winds were running at about 40 m.p.h. when we made this trip. On the way back we stopped and parked by the cliff top.

In order to photograph the violent seas below, I braced myself, attempting to remain upright against the gusts tearing across The Solent. The thrift clung to the ground far more securely than I did. I wasn’t about to stand too close to the edge. Actually, I couldn’t really see what I was doing. By mid afternoon the gusts reached more than 50 m.p.h.,

setting the Japanese maples aflame, foliage flickering in the sunlight.

Some flowers, such as aquilegias partnering bluebells in enforced fandango, survived the gales.

Sheltered mimulus and libertia simply basked in warmth.

The clematis Natcha, gyrating wildly, nevertheless kept its head.

Not so those tulips that, yesterday, had stood proud atop their chimney pot.

When we left at 9.30 this morning, they had begun to shed petals,

by lunchtime revealing their stamens,

becoming even more exposed as the afternoon progressed.

By 6.30 p.m., when we left with Elizabeth, Danni, and Andy to dine at Spice of India, this is what was left of them:

On the left of this picture stands a crinodendron hookerianum, otherwise known as the Chilean lantern tree. It will soon be in bloom. (Last year I erroneously termed this the Chinese lantern tree.)

The food and service at the restaurant, owned by Andy’s friend Sid, was excellent. My starter was succulent prawn puri, and my main course Naga chicken with special rice. I drank Cobra. I didn’t really take in what the others had.

‘Last One To The Chimney Pot’s A Sissy’

Jackie has, on and off all week, been working at clearing the longest radial brick path. We determined today to finish it together. I began at the far end and Jackie continued working away from the house.
The radial paths, we think, were laid down in the 1980s. This one joins a much older one, contemporary with The Heligan Path, and probably dating from the 1930s. It is made of brick and was revealed to be beautifully undulating with a pattern somewhat like herringbone.
My totally uncompetitive lady jocularly cried, as we began: ‘Last one to the chimney pot’s a sissy’. The marker in question can be seen at the far end of the paths in the first two pictures. It will be apparent that, by lunchtime, when the shots were taken, there wasn’t much likelihood that I would be able, at the completion, to have any pretensions to machismo.
Finally, in the true spirit of Chris Brasher’s 1981 London Marathon, there was no single winner.

When American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen crossed the finish line, they did so together, holding hands, in an inspirational gesture which fired many previous non-runners, including me, to enter the event the following year.

Jackie and I each arrived at the chimney pot at the same time. These photographs of the completed task are taken from the marker itself.
The green hosepipe seen snaking along beside the older path is part of an irrigation system rigged up by the previous owner. We have yet to test its operation and efficacy.

Along with aquilegias and many other attractive plants, dianthuses of various colours crop up all over the garden, as here alongside Jackie’s path. There is even a white one.
A number of different evergreen trees that we cannot identify are sprouting new needles. Here is one of them:

Jackie had, yesterday, made off with enough food from the Hordle Chinese Take Away to suffice for today as well. So that was our dinner taken care of. With it, I finished the Bordeaux.
Afterwards we drove down to the beach at Milford and watched the gulls and the waves.

I Found The Lady

Jackie drove me to New Milton to catch the London train this morning. Although I arrived about 25 minutes early, it was touch and go whether I boarded the conveyance in possession of a ticket.
There was a traffic diversion in the town because it was market day. This delayed us a little. The ticket office was unmanned for twenty minutes. Quite a queue built up. I bought my ticket after the train had pulled into the station and leaped through the closing doors clutching wallet, tickets, railcard and change as well as my bag. A woman struggling with a wheeled container that wouldn’t fit the narrow aisles somewhat delayed my passage to a seat.
But, no matter, it was a warm and sunny day.
No matter, that is, until it was revealed that the other train that should have been attached to our four coach one at Southampton Central was not ready. We continued with our limited number of carriages. It became rather crowded, and rather warmer.
From Waterloo I travelled by the normal route to Norman’s new abode, and back.

It was quite clear that the concreted strip traversing the John Billam sports ground off Preston Road was a footpath.
There is a notorious scam or confidence trick I once saw performed in Central London. It remains amazing to me that this game still draws in punters, usually in crowded city streets, who believe they can outwit the shyster with his sleight of hand. He will stand by the side of the thoroughfare with playing cards in his hands, using some light, portable platform and encourage passers-by to ‘Find the Lady’. The lady in question is a queen, often of diamonds. Victims are enjoined to pick her out from between two aces. They will already have seen a stooge managing to pull this off and consider themselves capable of doing the same. They part with their stake money, and lose it. Sometimes time and again. Besides the trickster and his accomplice, the team is supplemented by others, strategically placed at convenient corners keeping an eye out for the police. When the law arrives a signal is given, the platform is lifted, and the players disperse.

Not believing I could discover the secret, I kept my money in my pocket on that occasion. However, today, there on the sports field, many years later, I found the lady.
Norman provided a lunch of succulent roast chicken, splendid savoury rice, runner beans, and piquant red cabbage, followed by apple strudel and cream. We shared an excellent 2011 bottle of unpronounceable Greek wine.
When we moved into our new house we stored a number of boxes of our most fragile or precious glassware and crockery in Helen and Bill’s garden shed. Jackie collected it today and I helped her unpack them after she collected me from the station and brought me home.
I have had little time for reading in the last month, but on the train made decent headway into Desmond Seward’s ‘The Wars of The Roses’. When I have finished it I will begin a welcome present that was awaiting me this evening.

Barrie Haynes has sent me a copy of one of his novels, ‘Victoria’s Park’, as a gift for my ‘splendid new library’. He tells me he ‘painted the cover picture using household paint, a plastic knife and half a pasting table’.

Finally, here is another aquilegia from the garden, and two of the myriad varieties of cranesbill geraniums:

The Nursery Field

This morning I walked along Christchurch Road to New Milton to meet friend Alison at the railway station. Jackie collected us from there, took us to Old Post House, and returned our guest later.
This road winds and undulates but is still busy enough to sound like a formula one racing circuit on telly. Much skipping to and fro across the road was required to ensure that I kept, as far as possible, facing the oncoming traffic. Because I always had to make sure I was seen by the drivers, on bends like the one I am approaching in the photograph I had to cross the road and present my rear to those driving on the left. I was quite relieved to reach Caird Avenue and the footpath into the town.

The verge on the edge of this wide tarmacked path was being trimmed.

Turning into Station Road I enjoyed the dusting of buttercups, daisies, and clover on the grass lining this thoroughfare. I expect they will be next for the chop.
Alongside Christchurch Road itself, a narrow cut has been applied to the otherwise pathless grasses. Cow parsley, bluebells, dandelion clocks, daisies, violets, and the occasional wild aquilegias have escaped the whirling blades.

The early lambs are fattening up nicely, making one feel slightly uncomfortable about mint sauce.

The nursery field still has a smattering of new occupants.

Wandering round our own garden early this evening, I was reminded of how much attention it needs. We cannot wait to get started on it, but it has to take second place to the inside of the house at the moment.

Jackie did tireless work cleaning, scraping off careless paint, polishing, and fixing loose fittings upstairs, so it seemed only right to take her out for a meal this evening.

We chose The Jarna Bangladeshi restaurant in Old Milton. Its unprepossessing modern exterior in no way prepares the visitor for the cavernous interior modelled, according to Sam, the proprietor, on a cross between a Mogul palace and The Orient Express. Sam is proud of his heritage, as demonstrated by his dating the traditional cooking methods. Forget the flock wallpaper, The Jarna’s seating, walls, and even ceilings are clad in velvet. Naive paintings depicting scenes of Bangladesh are bordered by tied back curtain fabric and sculpted velvet. There are two sets of chandeliers and a number of discrete cubicles.

What is particularly marked about this place is how spotlessly clean everything is. With such soft, plush, fabrics this would seem to be impossible. Sam explained that four or five of them set to once a week with Vanish. It shows.

The food was excellent. My choice was Shath koraa, being this establishment’s version of the Hatkora I have eaten at Ringwood’s Curry Garden. Jackie enjoyed chicken dopiaza. We both drank Cobra.

Next time I will most definitely take my camera. There will be a next time.