bee – Page 10 – derrickjknight

Blending

Our daughter Becky is convinced that I bear a resemblance to Worzel Gummidge. As I scanned yesterday’s photograph of four year old Louisa I wondered what the wit would have to say about it. This was her Facebook observation: ‘How clever of you to include a portrait of yourself in the photo of Louisa!’

Managing a slightly brisker pace than my slow trudging of late, I walked up Hordle Lane and back, to the paddock, where a weak sun dappled horse and oak alike.

Honeysuckle blended beautifully with lichen in the hedgerows,

where pink dog roses bloomed,

and hoverflies on cow parsley masqueraded as the bees filling their thighs with the tinge of buttercups.

Through a gap in a hedge, on the far side of the barley field, a lorry, its rear resembling the buttercup, the honeysuckle, the lichen, and the bee’s thighs; its sides reflecting the blue of the sky, sped along Christchurch Road. White petals in the hedgerow carried the colour of the cotton clouds.

This afternoon, using the brick pile as a saw horse, I filled a wheelbarrow with logs cut from the last heavy branches of the sycamore tree. Then, with a break provided by a welcome visit from Shelly, I continued in the role of under-gardener. This involved the usual collecting up of the head gardener’s pruning and weeding; digging out some invasive geranium palmatums for her to transplant onto the northern verge of the back drive; and excavating two homes in the rose garden, one for Rosa Gallica, and another for Deep Secret. Rosa had shared her nursery pot with some yellow pansies. It seemed a bit churlish to make them part company, so we didn’t.

This evening Jackie’s superb egg fried rice and green beans accompanied Mr. Lidl’s plentiful spicy pork rib rack on our dinner plates. Victoria sponge was to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I quaffed Torre de Ferro Dao 2013.

Portraits From 1982 – 1986

In recent days, I have been nominated for two more awards, the Leibster; and the Real Neat Blog by Alex Raphael. Unfortunately I was very tired when I received the first one, and cannot remember who awarded it. I acknowledged it and said I would follow it up the next day. I didn’t get around to it. This is really bad. Having spent ages scrolling down ‘Blogs I follow’, I haven’t been able to track it, so, kind nominator, if you are reading this please accept my apologies. My difficulty was nominating others for this newcomers’ honour, which would have meant checking how long my favourites had been blogging. The questions are also time consuming.

I have reluctantly decided that I am too involved in composing my daily Ramblings to manage this, and will continue to point up blogs I admire in the way I normally do, above, for Alex, and below, for Rob McShane.

On a wet morning, Jackie drove off to replenish our larder, and I, raincoat clad, ambled round the garden,where

the Lady in Black climbing fuchsia, the prunus pissardi leaves , and the honeysuckle enjoyed a cooling shower. Keen observers will notice that my camera lens did too.

Hardy, bedraggled, workers crept into this rhododendron.

The dragon’s armour plating affords him suitable protection.

This photograph is for The Wayward Warrior, an excellent poet.

In Lidl, Jackie found, a superb new Dosset Box that is unlikely to lose its lettering. On account of a slight tear it its packaging, this was sold for 89p.

Since I can’t read braille I was having to guess the different containers in the old one.

This afternoon I returned to the task of sorting, scanning, and returning to photograph albums the prints Elizabeth had borrowed.

Let’s begin with a laughing Louisa in Gracedale Road sometime in 1982. She has never stopped spreading delight.

The summer of 1985 comes next.

Sam appears to be wondering where the contents of his ice cream cone have gone. Looking at his cheeks and chin we would be able to tell him where some was to be found.

A little further on in the year he rides a donkey down the steep steps of the cobbled street in Mousehole, Cornwall’s famous tourist venue.

In the autumn Jessica and I rented a French gite. Here she is in its garden with our son.

I have featured that year’s Christmas at my parents’ home in Morden before. Here is a shot of my youngest brother, Joseph.

This picture of Louisa was taken in the garden of our Gracedale Road house on her fourth birthday in May 1986. Never content with her thumb, she always added her first finger to her mouth when tired.

London experienced a pleasing amount of snow for children that December. Mind you, judging by the expressions on Sam and Louisa’s faces as Matthew pushed or dragged them over the snow, on Gracedale Road, or Tooting Bec Common, it was pretty cold.

Later this afternoon the rain stopped. Jackie continued pruning and weeding, and I did my best to cart the contents of one of the large bins, into which she chucked the cuttings, to the compost heap before she had filled the next one.

This evening we dined at Lal Quilla.Jackie’s main dish was lamb dopiaza; mine was prawn vindaloo. It is many years since I ate a vindaloo I had not cooked myself. That is because, so often, it lacks complexity and seems mostly to consist of curry powder. I thought I would be safe here. I most certainly was. The meal was perfect. We both drank Kingfisher.

The Tour Continues

This morning we drove to Highcliffe for coffee with Caroline and Keith Martin, with whom Margery had put us in touch. This was a very enjoyable meeting. All thanks to Margery.

Meanwhile our garden tour continues.

We call this Elizabeth’s red climbing rose, because it is in a bed she cleared last autumn.

A bee burrowed into one of the recently blooming rhododendron flowers,

which can be seen alongside the Phantom Path, so called because of an eponymous ghost-like hydrangea, not yet flowering and not seen in this shot.

These are views from each end of the Heligan Path.

Another winding path leads from the proposed rose garden to the back drive. Jackie, on this very hot day, is to be seen watering her new tub planting.

Forming a kind of clef in branching off from this is a gravel track surrounding the Oval Bed. Along the back fence is Elizabeth’s Bed.

It is only this year that we have paid due attention to the small front garden. The freshly planted blue hydrangea has yet to mature, and is consequently dwarfed by the red potted foxglove.

It was the creation of this previously ill-defined path that gave us the necessary impetus.

The head gardener correctly informs me that two days ago I incorrectly termed The Brick Path The Agriframes Arch Path,

because it also contains The Gothic Arch. We erected this last year and, on one side, retrained two roses that had been lost in the jungle, and on the other, planted two clematises.

Just a few yards down Downton Lane

honeysuckle

and white roses festoon the hedgerows. (are those spider’s eggs behind the central bloom?)

After the usual long stint in the garden, Jackie roasted the succulent pork, and the crunchy crackling; baked the crisp Yorkshire pudding; and produced the tasty gravy for our dinner, whilst I prepared the vegetables. These latter included carrots, green beans, and mange tout; but I was particularly proud of the Anya potatoes, three weeks past their best before date, that, after complete desprouting and partial peeling, tasted as good as new, although they were somewhat reduced in size. I drank Casillero del Diablo cabernet sauvignon reserva 2013, but I was enjoying the potatoes before I began it.

The Independent

On a bright and sunny morning Jackie drove me to Giles’s Fox Hat home, where I delivered the Chesterton material he had lent me. She returned home and came back later to pick me up from the village of Milford on Sea. I had reached there by walking down Sharvills Road, up New Valley Drive and down Barnes Lane. The left knee managed the job quite well, but the calf bleated a bit. Giles had not been at home, but I wandered round his garden that had featured in Milford Open Gardens last June. Here is one of his stunning stained glass creations:

and a shot of maples and poppies enlivening his front plot.

Milford’s shoppers were enjoying the sunshine.

I sat on a bench on the green watching them all go by as I awaited my transport. In the process I engaged in conversation with others on the benches, including a gentleman reading The Independent. When I explained my previous link with the newspaper he said he didn’t solve crosswords, but his wife did. Maybe she had grappled with Mordred.

He was happy to be photographed,

but thought it far more appropriate to return the favour.

Back in our garden

shade-loving thalictrum is now blooming,

as are white sweet Williams.

Yesterday, I wrongly identified the geranium that was attracting bees as a palmatum. This is the correct one.

This afternoon I cut the grass and Jackie continued creative planting.

Our evening meal was collected by Jackie from Hordle Chinese Takeaway. It was as plentiful and as delicately or spicily flavoured as usual. My lady drank Hoegaarden and her Knight drank Via di Cavallo chianti 2014.

Patience Rewarded

A few days ago, our friend Barrie sent me a CD of his weekly radio programme in which he had featured my post ‘Death Of The Brown Velvet Suit’. A day or so afterwards I received a ripped open envelope with nothing inside, packaged in The Post Office’s transparent apology envelopes. These containers bear a phone number for complainants to use. Suspecting a deliberate act here, I retained the package, intending to check with Barrie.

Today, a lengthening thread on Streetlife, the local internet noticeboard, was begun. Apparently this is now rife in our area. I smelt a rotten apple, and telephoned the complaints department. This is what I then posted on Streetlife:

‘I have just phoned the complaints department. After the usual string of options, I got a person. I made it clear that this problem is rife in the area, and that ‘someone in your office is tampering with our mail’. I was given a reference number, a promise to report it immediately, and also of a written response. Watch this space’.

My own notes have been added to the envelope.

Jackie has done a marvellous job of eradicating most of the more persistent brambles and sticky Willies. Today I put in my twopenn’orth and cleared the few I could find.

Here is the now customary bee picture. This one collects nectar from a geranium.

The parent starlings, striving to satisfy their boisterous brood, are now becoming quite cantankerous with me. In fact I was thankful I was not another starling, such as the one Jackie had seen yesterday daring to approach this family’s territory. Starlings normally gather in a murmuration, such as that collective that stole the chips at Mudeford on September 9th 2013. But not, apparently, when they are rearing chicks. Our pair saw off the intruder in no uncertain terms. They are satisfied with warning me off from a safe distance.

Now they perch on the rooftop for a while, squawking at me, fly off in a feint

then return,

drop down, and dive into the facia.

How they can create such a racket with their beaks so full is beyond me. It took three days of intermittent standing with varying degrees of patience to get these shots.

There was a queue outside Mr Pink’s fish and chip shop in Milford on Sea, where another bout of stationary waiting around was rewarded by the usual fresh and crisp cod, chips, and pickled onions that we enjoyed sitting in the car on the sea front.

The gentleman in the check shirt told me that this queue was nothing. It usually trailed many yards down the road. Whilst enjoying our meal and, in Jackie’s case, Hoegaarden, and mine, the last of the Cotes du Rhone, we watched a soaring seagull make a beeline for the P&O cruise ship Adonia passing yachts and the Isle of Wight on its way out to the ocean.

This made me think of our friend Jessie, who is rather partial to her cruises.

Flo Meets Auntie Walisa

In the garden this morning, bees, like this one on a viburnum, were up early;

a climbing rose Altissimo, already in situ, on the border of the projected rose garden, when we arrived, thrives;

as does the overwintered diascia (no, Mr. WordPress, not disco), aptly named Apple blossom;

and a multitude of the more normally hued foxgloves.

Here is my final offering in the Five Photos – Five Stories series:

The 2nd of January 1997 was bitterly cold day. Louisa and I were not even sure the trains would be running when we set of from Lindum House in Newark-on-Trent to Amity Grove in South London. But nothing was going to stop us. We had an excited hour and a half on the intercity train to Kings Cross; the usual cramped crush on the Underground to Waterloo; then, through Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Earlsfield, and Wimbledon, to Raynes Park. Speeding up Amity Grove to number 76 we eagerly rattled on the front door, equally keenly answered by Becky who introduced us to her sleeping daughter, Florence, born on 23rd December 1996.

Louisa tenderly cradled her new niece. I, of course, had to wait my turn.

‘Hang on a minute’, do I hear you think? ‘Who, then, is Auntie Walisa?’. Well, you see, Flo’s cousin Oliver, born to Heidi and Michael a year to the day before this little baby, took a while to be able to say his auntie’s name.

This was also the last time Jackie and I were to meet before the ‘Reincarnation‘.

For our return journey, Louisa and I had quite a wait on a freezing Raynes Park Station platform. Our bones were chilled, but our hearts were warmed.

Late this afternoon Jackie drove us to Redhill, a suburb of Bournemouth, for a visit to her great nephew Billy’s first birthday party. The adults sat inside whilst a number of children played in the garden. The birthday boy himself was peacefully asleep on his maternal grandmother’s lap when we arrived. When he awoke he did his best not to become overwhelmed by the gathered host, and, as is very common, seemed more interested in the wrapping than in his presents. Next year will, no doubt, be rather different.

Helen sent this photograph the following day. Pirates of the Caribbean is playing in the background, and we were issued with eye patches. Get it?

Afterwards Jackie and I dined at a packed Lal Quilla in Lymington. My choice of meal was lamb Ceylon with special fried rice; Jackie’s was chicken sag with mixed fried rice. We shared an egg paratha and both drank Kingfisher. Service, ambience, and food were as good as usual, except that I must remember that their lamb is not the best option.

Memorable Holidays

Poor Jackie set off in driving rain, propelled by gales of more than 40 m.p.h,. for her annual camping trip this morning. She and her two sisters will have needed all their Girl Guides experience just to pitch their tent. Even that failed them, for the tent blew across a field and tore. They are now enjoying glamping in a yurt.

In the battered garden a sturdy bluebell, itself sheltered by geranium leaves, props up a drooping tellima saxifrage.

Looking on the bright side, it falls upon me to keep the hanging baskets damp over the next few days. This viola demonstrates that I will be receiving a bit of help from above.

Before taking a cab to Lymington Hospital for a check-up on my hand, I scanned and returned to my photo albums some more of the prints Elizabeth has returned to me.

In the summer of 1982 we enjoyed a holiday with Ann and Don in a gite in Southern France. Sam certainly enjoyed this choc-ice. He probably licked the nut off the corner of his mouth.

One of the most memorable moments of this holiday was the return journey. Ann had decided she may have exceeded her tobacco allowance, so Jessica and I carried a quantity of our friend’s cigarettes in our car. We followed Ann and Don off the ferry. They waved as they drove off into the sunset. We were stopped and our yellow Renault was subjected to a full body search

1n 1983 we had another French holiday, at the delightful chateau of the Vachette family in Fontaine. The game of Scrabble is my lasting memory from that vacation.

By then Louisa was toddling and drinking from her own indestructible cup. Here she stands, ebullient as ever, displaying her baby teeth, in the carved wooden doorway of this splendid eighteenth century building.

That same year Ann and Don were in the throes of refurbishing an old cottage on the Welsh hillside near Cerrigidrudion that was to be their home for nineteen years. We therefore rented a house from a neighbour so we could again spend some time with them.

For me, the joy of holidaying all together with the four youngest children was always memorable. Matthew and Sam clearly shared this, as the delighted little brother was plonked on the back of a nonchalant cow too busy chomping the grass to notice.

By mid afternoon, as I waited for my taxi, the rain had stopped, and the sun had emerged, but the wind persisted. Bees do not leave their nests when it is wet, but one or two intrepid ones battled to hold their own with the gusts, and flitted, inevitably disappointed, from libertia to libertia in an apparently vain search for nectar. The unfortunate creatures couldn’t get a grip.

Galleon Taxis operate an efficient service out of New Milton Station forecourt, but were unable to transport me at my hoped-for time, because it clashed with their school run. I therefore arrived at the hospital with an hour and a half to wait. This did not bother me because I had the poems of Robert Frost for company, when I was not engaged in enjoyable conversation with a gentleman whose wife was being treated. As a keen birder, he advised that the starlings building nests behind the fascia board of our kitchen extension, and the jackdaws dropping their nesting materials down our chimney needed to be dissuaded from doing so. Apparently the starlings don’t use their old homes when they return each year, but just build a new one alongside them; and the jackdaws drop twigs down the chimneys until they become lodged, like a pot-holer negotiating his cave chimney. Then they build the nests.

Incidentally, Galleon, in the list of useful telephone numbers left by our predecessors, appears as Valium, which didn’t really cause me any anxiety.

Jackie has left me a wide range of cooked meals to consume whilst she is away. This evening I settled for a reprise of yesterday’s easy beef stew, resuscitated in the microwave; and another glass of the Madiran.

No Contest

Yesterday’s airborne avian shadow was a jackdaw perched on a TV aerial some distance away.

As the evening sun lowered in the West, Flo continued her bird photography.

The collared dove took its turn at the feeding tray,

until its mate dislodged it.

Settling in the weeping birch it pondered a pigeon,

practiced its trapeze act,

and eventually took to the air.

A crow was poised for launching from the chimney pots,

and a male chaffinch enjoyed the last of the sunshine.

This morning a hobbled around the garden and the back drive before Jackie drove me to the GP surgery to order a repeat prescription, which, later, we collected.

I emptied the purple plastic bucket used for collecting weeds.

Along the back drive a bee took a break on an ivy leaf.

The staff of the children’s home have cleared some of their side of the North Breeze jungle, so the magnolia is more visible,

and the camellia has now bloomed above that garden’s shed.

It will not escape my readers’ attention that our granddaughter’s bird photographs are considerably better than mine. In a vain attempt to match up, I attempted to take some this afternoon. The best I could manage was this rather scathing greenfinch:

Just after lunch, Becky accompanied Jackie to Nuffield Hospital at Chandler’s Ford, where she is to have her knee surgery. She was seen exactly on time by a very courteous consultant who described exactly what he was to do. This private hospital is very well appointed, and offers good quality, free, coffee while you wait. It is contracted to the NHS. Interestingly the free newspapers provided were The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and The Times. Becky sought in vain for The Mirror, The Sun, and The Guardian.

Soon after their return, Flo dashed into the sitting room seeking the camera. ‘Eric’, she cried, as she eagerly grasped the instrument.

Now, my regular followers will be aware that I have spent weeks aiming my lens through the kitchen window unsuccessfully trying to photograph our visiting pheasant both in focus and clear of the undergrowth. Whenever I have emerged into the garden, off Eric has lumbered, squawking.

What does Flo do?

She creeps outside, and tracks her prey all round the garden. Not only does he not disappear, but he looks her in the eye. She returns after what seems an age, her facial expression being a mix of smugness and mischief.

Seemingly reluctant to show me what she has achieved, she disappears into the kitchen and, after an expectant interval, hands me my camera.

The memory card contained some thirty-odd photographs of Eric. Here are half a dozen:

Finally, for good measure, there were included images of an ostrich, a parakeet, and a penguin:

Our granddaughter had downloaded them from the internet into her iPad, then photographed her screen.

I think you’d agree, it was no contest.

This evening more of yesterday’s superb dinner, well matured, was served by our mistress chef who, along with Becky, drank Mateus rose. Ian and I imbibed San Miguel, while Flo savoured J2O.

Walls

At 10 a.m. this morning we began work on clearing Bev and John’s wall that abuts our back drive. Knowing that I would not have the energy to tackle it after all the other shrubs and trees that threatened our neighbours’ foundations, I began with the fairly mature beech tree which was the worst offender. I need both an axe and a saw to cut it down to a stump that will be left for Jackie’s lethal application. Flora and fauna alike, except for the unfortunate prey of the spider

becoming more engorged as I watched it at its feast, basked in the morning sunshine.

We have stunning clumps of Japanese anemones of various colours, and the recently planted winter pansies, some in the chimney pots, perk up cheeky faces.

Gladioli, one of which provided the canvas for a portrait of a fly that would have done justice to Whistler in his white period,

looked almost translucent against the light.

Bees seem to enjoy the orange dahlias.

A woodlouse, climbing up our neighbours’ wall in an effort to escape my attentions, was soon overhauled by a baby spider.

Hidden beneath a hebe, which we have reduced in size and will retain, was a hart’s tongue fern that seems to be the only one we have. Jackie rapidly transplanted it.

‘Where there’s smoke there’s hope’, was a mantra we, as children in Raynes Park, invoked when trying to breathe life into illicit bonfires we enjoyed on the then much wider patch of railway land at the back of 29a Stanton Road where we grew up. I thought of this as I watched weak wisps of smoke struggling through the fire this morning. It was almost three hours before the first welcome crackle of flame was heard, but, by 1.30 our neighbours had

a wall that Banksy would no doubt find enticing.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, Banksy is a pseudonymous U.K. based graffiti artist who stencils his work on vacant walls. Whatever you think of the idea of defacing other people’s property, you would have to agree that this man is an artist who, overnight, can enhance its value. Collectors like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will spend thousands of dollars or pounds on a piece. In October 2007 they acquired a number of works at auction for a total outlay of £1,000,000.

An earlier project of mine, which, so far has not seen any kind of publication, was called ‘Streets of London’, consisted of (more than 1,000) photographs of London streets with the constraint that the name should appear in the frame. In May 2008, because it in itself seemed an interesting scene, I photographed a corner of Acklam Road, W10, just off Portobello Road.

Three days later, I passed the same corner, to find a white wall embellished by a Banksy. Interestingly, this artwork already bore a protective perspex covering. Now, at least one of my street pictures has been published.

We dined this evening on slow roasted, tangy smoked gammon, cauliflower cheese in a mustard sauce, new potatoes and carrots, followed by egg custard dessert. I finished the rioja and Jackie drank the last of the weissbier.

The Hat

A comment from Becky on yesterday’s post prompted me to delve back into my photographic archives, and scan three more ancient colour slides.
In June 1971, we went on a family holiday with Ellie and Roger Glencross to their cottage, The Haven, in Iwade in Kent. Here they are, on the beach, with Matthew in the foreground:
The following August, Jackie, Michael, Matthew and Becky – seen posing outside The Haven – and I, spent a week there on our own. Michael displays his ever-paternal response to his brother and sister. The children had yet to learn that it is infra dig to wear socks with sandals, and this was the era of hot pants. It was in this low-ceilinged cottage that I learned to tape newspapers to the beams so that I would see them and bend my head to avoid bashing it. This ploy didn’t always work.
Jackie, who crocheted the hat that Becky is wearing in this picture on the beach, tells me it is not a mob cap, such as the one appearing on yesterday’s market stall, but a successor. In any case, almost everything in that display was sold. Becky did, however, wear the prototype mob cap. After she had been pushed around Raynes Park sporting it in her pram for several months, a maternity shop, called One and a Half, in Wimbledon Village began selling mob caps. Jackie is convinced they followed her lead.
So excited was I by the above exercise, that I stayed in my dressing gown until I’d completed it. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway. I wasn’t looking forward to tackling the concrete slabs I had abandoned two days ago. I did, however, take up the task again this morning. This involved wielding the grubber axe in order to penetrate the iron-hard soil on one side of each buried block, and gravel and hard-core on the other. The next step was, when the obstruction looked possibly loose enough, to give it a good kick; to discover that it still wouldn’t budge; and to repeat the process until it did. Prising it up was done with whatever garden tool was nearest to hand, until there was enough space to get my fingers underneath it and heave it up.
I had thought there were just three slabs in the row, until I came to the corner and found there were more, extending along the long side of the bed. Anyone wondering why I didn’t know these were there, should understand that they are mostly covered by two or three inches of weed-infested earth. After four of the extra ones, I stopped for the day. After all, it was still hot enough to keep the bees buzzing.
This afternoon I walked down to the Spar shop to replenish our stock of sparkling water. This gardening lark is thirsty work. The rooks, chasing each other across the skies, are back in residence.
Roger Cobb was ploughing his maize field.
Bev and John are our only neighbours likely to be affected by a bonfire. I always ring them before lighting one. This was the call I had tried to make two days ago that had alerted me to the problem with my mobile phone. I attempted to telephone them again this evening before burning more branches. I had the same problem. And I couldn’t find the reset button. So I rang O2 at Christchurch. The man who answered the phone knew only of one reset which would wipe all my information. He suggested I took the battery out and put it in again. I did that and it worked. Except that I got a voice telling me my stored numbers were not recognised. I waited a bit and tried again, successfully getting through to Bev. This time Jackie helped with the combustion and we made quite good progress before dinner which consisted of her delicious chicken curry and savoury rice. We finished the Cuvee St Jaine.