Tag: Barrows Lane

Lockdown Hair

I spent the bulk of the morning in boring administration, earning a trip out in the warm and sunny afternoon.

Our first pheasant sighting was just a few hundred yards away, strutting along Hordle Lane.

Most verges displayed golden celandines and varieties of daffodils. These embellished those of Barrows Lane.

Walkers at the high point of Middle Lane could, as I did, look down on a bucolic landscape featuring a grazing grey horse cropping a field.

Most forest views were dotted with foraging ponies, such as these along Burley Road,

or these beside Forest Road.

One attempted to enter the Modus

before enjoying a scratch on the lichen coated tree trunk;

another sported a fine head of lockdown hair.

In recent days we have acquired a new young couple of collared doves. While preparing this evening’s dinner Jackie, sadly, witnessed a lightning sparrow hawk swoop and carry one off, leaving a pile of fresh feathers. Its mate is wailing its grief.

Said dinner consisted of breaded cod fillets; cheese-centred haddock fish cakes; moist ratatouille; and creamy mashed potatoes, with which I finished the Cabernet Shiraz and Jackie drank sparkling water.

Cheered Up By Sunset

Today began unpromisingly dull and wet. I scanned the last few colour slides from

Abney Park Cemetery in May 2008. The second image and

the two which follow have been converted to black and white. The first of these shows a typically decorated capital. The second is the Pesman family grave. According to jacobstree.co.uk Frederic Adolphus senior, originally an artificial flower maker, lived for 81 years. His wives, Agnes Susan née Peak, daughter of a builder; Mary Ann, née Bulford; and some of his children were not so fortunate. The last name on the stone, obscured by ivy is probably the son of Frederick and Agnes who, along with two sisters, did not survive early infancy. Two of their daughters did survive, one to be 90.

Before lunch we drove to Ferndene Farm Shop and bought a Christmas tree, the needles of which

attempted to spear me on the way home.

The weather gradually improved this afternoon when we drove into the forest.

Barrows Lane is becoming soggy. Jackie parked on the verge while I photographed the landscape including two field horses in bright red and blue rugs.

By sunset over Hatchet Pond the skies had really cheered up.

When I came to draft this post I was hard put to distinguish between Jackie’s and my shots. The second gallery images are, I believe, those of the able Assistant Photographer, who,

driving home, metamorphosed into my Chauffeuse, and parked at East Boldre while I photographed

the remnants of the sunset reflected in a Winterbourne pool

and providing a backcloth for skeletal trees.

For dinner this evening Jackie provided lamb jalfrezi, mushroom rice topped with slices of boiled egg, and vegetable samosas. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra.

Torment

On this bright and sunny morning here was I working with WordPress innocently oblivious of just what the Head Gardener meant by tidying up Félicité Perpétue and the shrubs she had been swamping. I had picked a few tomatoes.

Assuring me that the rose would be glorious in a couple of years, she proudly showed me how far she had got, ensuring that my tomatoes featured in the photograph to cheer me up.

By the time we visited Everton Post Office and continued for a forest drive the temperature had become quite hot.

I have already featured Robert Gill’s scarecrow in http://derrickjknight.com/2020/08/20/more-water-for-the-animals/ The notice attached to this home in Everton Road advises that this witty and well-made offering is one of six entrants, the list of which is available on line. We drove round for a while looking for the other four, but didn’t find any. The annual trail is clearly a Covid casualty.

Cyclamen, like these on Barrows Lane, are now lining the verges. Ours, incidentally, are already over.

Longslade View, where I stopped for these photographs, is just outside Brockenhurst. It is such a shame that it should be necessary to display notices throughout the forest forbidding overnight parking, barbecues, and fires.

Outside Pilley Community Shop constantly twitching tails demonstrated what torment these clustered, patient, animals were undergoing as flies encircled their heads, backs, nether regions, and eyes. No sound did they make as they absorbed the airborne assault.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s excellent fish and chips, Garner’s choice pickled onions and Tesco’s tangy gherkins with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Rioja.

I Wish I’d Brought A Carrot.

Last night we watched the first episode of series 3 of The Crown. Apart from the political aspects of the Wilson premiership I well  remember the death of Winston Churchill in 1965.

At the time I was working close to Westminster Bridge and photographed the queue of thousands waiting to pay their respects to his lying in state. These pictures feature in this post: https://derrickjknight.com/2012/05/22/the-scent-of-a-squirrel/

This morning I printed a set of photographs for Aaron of the gate he finished building on 2nd February.

Storm Dennis wept all over our area today, but he dropped his wind this afternoon. We therefore decided to go for a drive.

Racing rivulets like this one in Angel Lane ran down the gutters and verges,

rushing round into roads like Christchurch Road which is the main thoroughfare between Lymington and New Milton.

Sometimes vehicles took a wide berth with awkward consequences when they met oncoming traffic. This could result in a bucketload of water hitting windscreens in seconds. We know. It happened to us.

In order to produce these images I needed to hoist up my trouser legs and paddle through the muddy water to the sodden verge. My shoes were a little damp when I returned to the car.

 

Our next stop was on Barrows Lane where Jackie settled the Modus among the heavily pitted reflective gravel pools while I crossed

Sway Road to photograph a flooded field alongside

the equally waterlogged Lower Mead End Road.

 

Further flowing fields flooded Flexford Lane.

The junction with South Sway Lane looked so impassable that Jackie refused to turn left to investigate the circumstances of our gimlet eyed equine friend whose home would now surely be under water. She preferred to turn round and drive uphill to approach the field from the more elevated end of the lane.

As we passed Sway Tower, we noticed that streaks of blue sky stretched above.

Back down South Sway Lane we found our equine quarry, his eye now so baleful that I felt really bad that I had not brought a carrot. Anything.

Far less field, and what there was was muddy. Shaggy sodden coat and looking in need of comfort.

Pitmore Lane was also waterlogged. You can imagine what happened to me when I perched on the verge trying to merge into the fences to take these pictures.

Around the corner on Sway Road someone had thought to spread some cones along a soggy bend.

Further back we had passed a field containing a fallen tree.

Hordle Lane is perhaps 100 yards on the opposite side of Christchurch Road to our house. In a number of locations the ditches are now flowing across the road.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious lemon chicken and scrumptious vegetable savoury rice with which she drank Peroni and I drank more of the Cahors.

 

 

Backing Up

Knowing that we were to expect further stormy weather today, Jackie helpfully took her camera into the garden at dusk yesterday and photographed

primulas,

cyclamens,

bergenia,

hellebores,

camellias,

clematis cirrhosa Freckles,

a pelargonium,

a mahonia with accompanying New Zealand flax,

snowdrops,

and Daphne odorata marginata all in bloom.

The Generous Gardener rose set to climb the recently heavily chopped cypress has taken well.

While she was at it the Assistant Photographer also added a fern owl for Pauline’s benefit.

Just about avoiding the rain that was to follow we drove early into the forest.

On Barrows Lane a row of daffodils were already in flower.

We were, yer honour, proceeding at a gentle speed along the narrow, winding Lower Mead End Road when

distant headlights reflecting on the wet tarmac alerted us to the approach of an oncoming vehicle,

As always in such a situation someone has to back up. Jackie is of the opinion that this is very rarely a BMW driver. So it proved today. My Chauffeuse did the gentlewomanly (You are chauvinist, WP – I did not type gentlemanly) thing and reversed until there was some degree of passing space.

Polite waves were exchanged as the gentleman in the other vehicle sailed by and we continued driving through the pools ahead.

The woodland and Boundary obscured grazing ponies,

yet cattle were quite visible among the moorland gorse.

You could be excused for imagining that this picture of Sway Tower against streaky pastel skies was produced either at sunset or sunrise. In fact it was 11 a.m.

After lunch Jackie brought back my first Easter egg from Tesco’s where these delicacies had been on sale for at least a week. Like the pictures that began this post her intention had been that I might like to “put it on the blog”.

This evening we dined on succulent roast beef, crisp Yorkshire pudding, creamy potato and swede mash, and firm, tasty, Brussels sprouts and carrots with which I drank more of the Garnacha Syrah and Jackie drank Maury 2013.

 

The More Hardy

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE IN A GROUP TO ACCESS ITS GALLERY, INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF WHICH CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN AND CHECKING BOX AT BOTTOM RIGHT

After a night of heavy rain of which, I am happy to say, I was oblivious, Jackie drove us around the lanes of Sway and Tiptoe.

Wild golden daffodils and pale yellow primroses proliferate on the verges and the banks of ditches.

When I disembarked to photograph some of these in Flexford Lane, a whinny from the field beyond them, and the thud of hoofs alerted me to the arrival of a hopeful horse which was brought to a reluctant standstill at an inner fence. Like most of the more domesticated animals this one still wore a rug to protect it from the cold, especially as the temperature drops to around freezing overnight.

The recent snow and ice has increased the number of potholes and crumbling edges of the tarmac. Many of the lanes are awash with water, some of which runs off the fields. It is the job of the ditches to absorb this, but their capacity is not always sufficient to contain it all. Barrows Lane was particularly damaged. Imagine driving along there in the dark without a depth gauge. The traffic cones are a necessary warning.

Field-kept horses are far more inquisitive than the more nonchalant New Forest ponies. One be-rugged example, as eager as its cousin in Flexford Lane, rushed silently over to the five-barred gate before I had been able to photograph it in the process of grazing. The creature had competition from its smaller, bridled, companion.

Both fixed me with a persuasive, pleading, gaze until the larger animal tossed its head in disgust. I wonder whether the smaller creature could be a forest pony in the process of being backed, which is the term for breaking in for riders. This might make sense of both the bridle, the application of which it would resist, and the lack of a rug. New Forest ponies are definitely the more hardy.

This evening we dined on a plentiful second helping of Hordle Chinese Take Away set meal for two with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Azinhaga Portuguese red.