blackbird – Page 3 – derrickjknight

Ache

Bar the application of a few more bags of gravel, I finished the oval paths today. This involved first of all cleaning and weeding the brick section, then clearing and raking the gravelled line at the front. This last was the least problematic, having been in fairly regular use en route to the compost heap.

The attractive pattern of all the older brick paths we find contains a puzzle. Where rows of diagonally laid bricks abut those positioned in a straight line small triangular shapes are left. Ours always contain earth, grass, and weeds, on a bed of sand. What is meant to be there? Could it be that they were filled with pea gravel, in those days when gardeners were employed and given time allocated to maintain these labour intensive footways?
Four large bags of Chard flint were not sufficient for a reasonable cover of the non-brick sections, so we need to buy some more.

Jackie carried out her usual planting, but began the day by applying her mind and a section of plastic coated netting to producing a crow baffle. There is a squirrel deterrent beneath it, but as far as we can tell it is surplus to requirements here. Fortunately the smaller birds don’t seem to be discombobulated by the fortifications of our very own Sapper.
The female blackbird now interrupts her incubation with trips to the feeder. It seems her male consort has abandoned his family, so she has to forage for herself.

My lady then strimmed the grass and carried out more clearance around the kitchen garden, redefining the path from the decking area.

In the process she finally fully revealed a charming little water feature, the young boy of which is so much more sensitively modelled than most garden centre examples. I imagine he simply requires relocation and a pump.
We have reached the stage where there are only a few more linking paths of gravel to be renovated. This is rather welcome because there is not much of either of us that doesn’t ache.
When you have an excellent sausage casserole (recipe) a bit light on sausages, it is a good idea to add a quantity of mushrooms, which is what Jackie did this evening and served it with mashed potato and cabbage. I finished the Baturrica and Jackie drank a Hoegaarden.

Isle Of Wight Tomatoes

Early this morning the crow, having adopted the back of the bench as its new taking off strip, flew directly onto the top of the bird feeder, but didn’t stay. It can only scavenge from a tray in the construction, not the closed containers. Jackie is wise to that, so isn’t filling it at the moment. The blackbird, with her partner perching guard on the snake bark tree, continues to sit on her eggs.

It is now possible to see through the entrance to the kitchen garden from some distance away. Pictured here are two sides of a path surrounding an oval flower bed at the far end of the garden, as they appeared at the beginning of the day. They are in there somewhere. It was my task to begin restoring them to their former glory, whilst Jackie continued transforming the central gravelled walkway. Here, the brambles were rampant and well established. A certain amount of eradication of them from the beds was required.

This revealed more hidden plants, like the day lilies, the colour of one of which seems to have confused a bloodsucking insect into thinking it was clamped on to my forearm. With some painstaking sifting of

earth and gravel Jackie completed the central path today. I, on the other hand, although making a good impact on the left hand side and far end of the ovoid ring, came to an abrupt halt when I encountered the bamboo. A number of strong stems had penetrated the path and defied my fork.

That was a battle I was prepared to fight another day. It had taken three months completely to eradicate a clump of the insidious roots of this grass at The Firs, so I wanted to be fresh for the job. Mañana.
On a sunny day such as this, the light streaming through the kitchen windows at lunchtime is stunning.

Placed at random at the end of the table when preparing it for the food were a vase of tulips Shelly had given Jackie, an accident pot containing alliums and a petunia, and a bowl of tomatoes. These tomatoes were a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. And they were delicious. Jackie had purchased them at Setley Ridge Farm Shop, to which a couple from the Isle of Wight travel weekly to supply them. Apparently supermarkets cannot sell them because they are not uniform in size, redness, and rotundity.
We received a very warm welcome from the family at The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton where we dined this evening on the usual good food and Tsing Tao beer.

The streaks in the sky on our way home were of the equally warmest hues.

Dare To Dream

Deer and Rabbits were anathema to Jackie at Castle Malwood Lodge. We had to place a protective screen around her temporary garden there – the one we are gradually transporting from Walkford. She is, however, rather partial to crows, which is why one of ours, normally occupying the rooftop chimney pot, is giving her a problem. This huge creature has, daily, clambered all over the planter pot that stands in front of her bird feeders.

The hungry bird sits on the petunias, which it has crushed, pondering how to avail itself of the breakfast positioned for smaller relatives. Each day it has attempted to settle its outsize talons around the slender arched summit of the feeder. Each day, until today, it has slipped and flown off unsatisfied. Despite the rain it managed to empty the tray of berry-flavoured suet pellets beneath. In an unsuccessful attempt to keep it off the petunias Jackie had placed some small wooden stakes among flowers. Today it sent the feeding station lop-sided.
Like all predatory scavengers, this creature flies off as soon as one of us appears at the window.
Before Jackie drove me to New Milton for a visit to Norman’s via Waterloo, I prepared figures and documentation for posting to Philip Friede, my excellent accountant. Philip Friede & Co., of Hatton Garden is to be highly recommended.
On the up train (actually all trains to London, even if from the North, are labelled ‘up’), I finished reading ‘Victoria’s Park’ by B.J.Haynes. This is a very entertaining novel. Haynes is a natural story-teller whose writing flows. Full of humour, the book is about the potential fulfilment of an impossible dream. The characterisation is credible and simply expressed, with an interesting slant on contemporary local politics, and more technical knowledge about landfill than I possess. Published by Matador at £6.99 in a paperback that is properly bound with good quality paper that will not turn brown in a hurry, this is a snip. (ISBN 978 184875-511)
On the Jubilee Line train from Waterloo to Finchley Road, beginning with a question about Cicero’s Orations which I was reading, I enjoyed a conversation with a young (by my standards) gentleman. We both changed onto the Metropolitan Line and continued our talk for two more stops. Tom, originally from Liberia, had spent twenty years in England, and was now working towards setting up a prefabricated housing project to improve conditions in his home country. He had, incidentally, met a young woman who read with the aid of the light on her mobile phone. How beneficial, he thought, it would be to provide people with no electricity with such a facility. He is an intelligent and sensitive man who had been reading ‘Dare to Dream’, and he certainly does. May his dream become a possibility.
Norman provided a lunch of peppered steak, roast potatoes, and vegetables followed by a red fruits pie and custard. We shared a bottle of Languedoc reserve 2012.
Jackie collected me as usual at New Milton and showed me what she had been doing in the garden. This was a lot of planting and weeding.

Although they are slightly droopy at the moment she has trained two clematises up the vacant side of the new arch. They are ‘Star of India’ and ‘Rouge Cardinal’. She has also bought and planted a Japanese hydrangea termed macrophylla.
The blackbird is incubating the eggs photographed yesterday.

The Knocker

Soon after 6 a.m., reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’, there he was, the blackbird, ‘rapping, rapping, at my’ office window. This went on for hours this morning. Jackie is quite worried about the poor creature. Let’s hope he gets fixed up with a mate soon.
When preparing for the fray he perches on a shrub we may be able to identify once it has bloomed.
Last night Jackie had researched architectural salvage outlets that might provide the missing article from our front door. She came up with Ace Reclaim at West Parley near Ferndown. We didn’t think we’d have time yesterday to get there before they closed, so deferred our trip to this morning.

Down a very rough track beside a garden centre, we found a veritable aladdin’s cave of treasures from bygone eras for the home and garden. What I liked was that almost everything carried an individual price tag. This makes life easier for me as I am emotionally ill equipped to haggle. I would have played the part of Brian in his eponymous film’s haggling scene rather well.
The men on site were friendly and unobtrusive. We were allowed to wander at will and were left alone to forage in the cabinet containing what we required.

Maybe it was the knocker on the window that focussed us on the missing one on our front door. Maybe we were becoming self-conscious about Jackie’s invitation to all and sundry:

Maybe it was both. Anyway, we found one. It didn’t have any bolts with it, so off we went to B & Q. Before reaching this DIY store at Christchurch we were tempted by Mum’s cafe. Situated on Fairmile Road between Norfolk and Suffolk Avenues this marvellous establishment serves a range of beautifully home cooked food of excellent quality.

Naturally we had brunch.

The bolts in B & Q were sold in packets of ten with their measurements in millimetres. I am quite used to seeing packets of peanuts bearing the warning ‘may contain nuts’. The bolt containers were unequivocal in their message that they did contain nuts. Actually we didn’t need the nuts, but I don’t suppose the company would take them back and give us a discount.

Working out the thread diameters was fairly straightforward, given that we had the knocker with us. The length we would require was a little more problematic since we hadn’t brought the relevant door with us. Jackie had the brilliant idea that we could measure the thickness of one of the doors on sale in the store. She did that whilst I went to choose a drill.

Back home we discovered that our front door, although comparatively modern, was thicker than those at B & Q. So back we went to change the bolts, and returned home in time for me to receive a welcome phone call from Sam.

There were no bits provided with the drill, which was no problem because I had a case of drills at home. Somewhere. In a box. Somewhere.

I had seen them. I know I had. In this house. In a box.

So a search ensued. Eventually I found them in a box marked fragile. From a previous move. Obviously.

Then I had to decide which bit to use. Which ones were for masonry and which for wood? A bit of trial and error was employed. Finally I had drilled two neat holes through the centre of the door. Just not quite the right distance apart.

‘One bolt will hold it firmly in place’, was Jackie’s encouraging observation. It did. I will do my best to forget my error. It might take some time.

This evening Jackie drove us to Totton and back, so we could dine at The Family House. Our continued custom after the move paled into insignificance when compared to that of a woman and her son who had returned on holiday from Queensland in Australia. When they had lived in Totton they had been regulars of this restaurant. The food was as good as ever, the company as convivial, and the T’Sing Tao beer as thirst quenching.

Beyond Rancid

The blackbird was bashing at the office window again this morning. Jackie has a theory that it is the mating season and our friend sees his own reflection and attacks it.

It will be some time before we can tackle the joys of the garden. At the moment we satisfy ourselves with watching what is emerging, such as cowslips and honesty.
Today I took my share of deep cleaning. We don’t use the family bathroom, but the smell as we pass it has been getting to us. I believe the heyday of wooden seats was in the 1980s. The one in this room has probably been receiving its incrustation since that time. Plasticine, whatever its original colours, always ends up brown. I like to think that the various materials adhering to the wood and the fixtures did once have a range of hues. Otherwise it is best not to contemplate what I spent the morning chipping away at. I eventually applied a hacksaw to the fixture. Kneeling with your head closer than you would like to the source of the aromas, and sliding the blade under the plates around the bolts in order to perform this task is probably best avoided. I didn’t really have that option. I then gave the porcelain a thorough scraping and polishing.
Flushed with success as I added the toilet seat to the skip pile, I decided to clean the bath.

This was a more straightforward task, although the sleepy spider I aroused, unused to being disturbed, found the unaccustomed smooth surface of the side of its home rather slippery.
Finally, we could not leave the washbasin unattended. Water left in there refused to budge at all. Jackie eventually baled it out and tackled it, to no avail, with a flexible plastic coated net-curtain rail. We then shifted the cupboard from around it and prised the pedestal from under the basin, whereupon I unscrewed the U-bend. This was blocked solid. And I do mean solid. It was as if someone had poured gravel mixed with liquid glue into it and allowed it to coagulate. I chipped and scraped away first with a straightened wire coat hanger, and finally with a steak knife. By the time I had finished, the gleaming U-bend put its surroundings to shame. So I had to give them a thorough going-over too. The cold tap produces no water, but that is a minor detail.
In the cupboard I found the missing plug from the bath, and gleefully slipped it into place. I then turned the circular plug adjuster. It was ineffective. I knew from The Gite From Hell experience that without the adjuster the bath could not be emptied, so I helped it out with the steak knife.
Then we had lunch. Jackie was impressed with the health and efficiency of the Neff hob as she used it for the first time to heat up an excellent mulligatawny soup from Tesco.

The kitchen is beginning to look quite homely now, especially with the addition of Luci and Wolf’s flower card and Shelly’s daffodils.
It has to be said that the bathroom featured above was beyond rancid, although that word word probably be adequate for the cobbled cupboard in the hall that Jackie cleaned this afternoon, whilst I weeded out papers that should have been scrapped years ago. This was all with the aim of getting some order into the office.
We had intended to dine this evening at Zaika in Milford on Sea, and drove there to do so. This was not possible because we had hit the town’s food week, for which each restaurant was required to do something different. Zaika was fully booked for their serve-yourself at the trough banquet. We therefore went on to New Milton to try Bombay Night which proved to be an excellent choice. The food was superb and the service friendly and efficient. We drank Kingfisher, and went home satisfied.

Progress Report

Last night Jackie managed to set the central heating system to come on at 6.30 a.m. Now we are warm. Seated in the living room which abuts the hall/office she heard a dull tapping she described as ‘bonk, bonk’. As she walked out to investigate the radiator under the bay window the noise stopped. After she had repeated this three times she stood in the doorway waiting for an encore of the sound. Five minutes went by. Then a blackbird perched on the windowsill and tapped out a ‘bonk, bonk’.
Martin Taylor came on time this morning and plumbed in the washing machine; temporarily fitted the oven on the work surface; advised us on redesigning the kitchen; and suggested we try to obtain the cooker housing to match the rest of the Moben installation.
Our predecessors had retained all useful paperwork including that from Moben kitchens, I rang them to ask if the oven container could be matched. The number was out of commission. A Google search revealed that the company had gone into liquidation. Not being a very good surfer I soon became tired of researching other sources. We can think about that another time.

At least the cooker is now operative. Not only is the oven working, as you can tell by the timer light in the photograph, but it reflects some of the other tasks we completed today. We moved some furniture from the lumber room, where we hope to sit in comfort one day, to other parts of the house. A Chinese cabinet I bought when in Sutherland place is seen in its new home in the kitchen.

Actually we are now able to see that we will have a sitting room one day, particularly as some of the floor is now empty. The foreground of the picture that shows this, bears evidence that I have today paid, by telephone, the final electricity bill for Castle Malwood Lodge.
I rather treasure the red waste bin that peeps into shot from the right. Readers may recognise the partly obscured Adult Literacy logo. I have often mentioned Beauchamp Lodge Settlement, of which I was chairperson for many years. One of the tenants in the ’70s and ’80s was an Adult Literacy Scheme. When they moved on they left their bin behind and I snaffled it as a memento. That organisation existed to bring together volunteer teachers and those who wished to learn to read. I don’t think it is still functioning.

The office is looking a bit cluttered at the moment, but I have hoovered the floor and Jackie put a rug down.

A statement of intent to turn the garage into a library has been made.

Is there anything in life more satisfying than flat packing a SafeStore box after use and stacking it away?

When we first viewed our new home, we lunched at The Royal Oak pub, and were rather less than impressed. In January the establishment had closed down and was up for rent. Only a couple of days ago did it re-open under new management. This evening we thought we would try it again.The last three days’ steady rain had just made way for a sunset that lent an optimistic glow to the building. John was a very attentive host. The food was good and reasonably priced. I ate fish and chips whilst Jackie consumed chicken in bacon and drank Stella. My choice of wine was Invenio merlot d’Oc 2013.

Witchcraft

Jackie’s patience in watching the bird table from her kitchen hide has paid off. The two most timid feeders are the woodpecker and the blackbird. Through the glass of the French windows she managed to photograph each of them this morning.

It was a much cooler and duller day today. This afternoon we motored out to Burley to buy birthday presents which cannot yet be revealed in this forum.

Depending on how one defines the term grockle, we, once arch grockles, may no longer warrant this disparaging local term. A grockle, especially in the SW of England, is a tourist or an incomer. It was Hugh Lowther, sometime in the 1970s or ’80s, in Cumbria who first introduced me to the term. Although he had spent much of his life outside the area, he, as the eldest son of the Earl of Lonsdale, could definitely consider himself beyond that epithet.

As we drove into the grocklesville that is the New Forest village of Burley, we speculated that the tourists who swarmed around may be thinking that the forest was a wonderful place and they wanted to live there. And we did live there. We felt sad for them that, as we wandered into the main street with its gift and tea shops, the rain set in. On our way back it was windscreen wipers all the way.

Nevertheless, the brave were tucking into New Forest ice cream.

Burley has a reputation for the occult. Dragons and witches and everything to do with them fill the gift shops. Indeed, when our granddaughter was younger, Jackie bought many a dragon here for Flo, who, at the age of twelve, created her own dragonology website, such was her fascination with the mythical creatures.

The legend of the dragon originated in olden times. There was said to be one living in a lair just outside the village. One local tale is that the monster flew every morning three miles away to Bisterne, where it would be supplied with milk. It was slain by a man who lay in wait for it and administered the decisive thrust whilst the victim was diverted by his two dogs. A pedigree roll preserved at Berkeley Castle contains marginalia relating the story and naming the hero as Sir Maurice Berkeley, lord of the manor of Bisterne in the 15th century.

Legends should be age-old. One could therefore feel a little cheated to learn that the witches of Burley, who one may be forgiven for imagining cast their spells at least as long ago as the seventeenth century, were only one person, and she lived there in the late 1950s, when I was in my teens. To my younger readers this may seem historic, but only if I do. Sybil Leek, a self-styled white witch, lived then in the village, around which she walked with her pet jackdaw, or familiar, on her shoulder, before she moved to America. There are a couple of antique shops selling jewellery among other things. Did the jackdaw, a member of a race of notorious thieves, I wonder, leave a hoard for these shopkeepers to discover and market? And does Sybil retain the power to look down on her one-time home and see the industry she has spawned?

Unable to resist the temptation to serve up my third roast pork dinner in four days, Jackie did so. Rice pudding and custard was to follow. Only I had the custard. It was worth being called a philistine for. I drank some of Terres de Galets cote du Rhone 2012, bottle number 012919. Jackie’s choice was Prestige de Calvet semillon chardonay 2011.

A Ring Of Truth

Early this morning Jackie, Don and I shopped in Acres Down Farm shop and went on to All Saints Church, first described on 24th December last year. While Jackie diverted to Minstead Village Shop, Don and I wandered around the churchyard in bright sunshine, before we all three explored the inside.

Particularly interesting to our friend was the ‘blasted’ yew, a seven hundred year old tree that fell apart some years ago and regenerated itself. The wild flowers now in evidence include clover , dandelions, daisies, and buttercups.

When we returned, I decided to tackle the problem of a rejected e-mail password. This time I got BT’s representative on the telephone to reset a completely new code. As usual, Jackie being the primary account holder, he needed to speak to her first. Unfortunately he got the wrong end of the stick and changed her password. This required putting right and involved a box filled with ‘funny writing I can’t read’. All this took time and I had to interpret the ‘funny writing’, fortunately getting it right. The man kept having to put us on hold and check with his supervisor. Eventually he returned to me and reset the replacement password. It worked. For about an hour. Then the new one was rejected. I have now come to the conclusion that my BT Yahoo account has been well and truly hacked. I can’t face it any more at the moment. So don’t send me any e-mails.

My head still full of the computer problem, I sat in the garden watching the birds with Don, whilst Jackie prepared the evening’s barbecue. The company and avian interest helped calm me. Don is one of three friends I have who are pretty knowledgable about birds. He helped me distinguish between the various tits who visit the feeder. I observed that it was becoming possible to identify birds some distance away on the lawn by their outline shape, their posture, their gait, and how they hold their tail-feathers. Apart from the pied wagtails, the blackbirds brought me to this conclusion.

Talking birds with Don, it was natural for me to mention my friend bo Beolens, who has written a number of bird books and who, as Fatbirder, runs an international birding website. This turns out to be one of Don’s favourites on his computer. I proudly brought the site up on screen and showed him the Lesser Antillean Bullfinch which illustrates bo’s Barbados page. The photograph was taken by me in Barbados in 2004, when I was there to see Sam arrive at the end of his Atlantic row.

Late in the afternoon Becky, Ian, and Flo arrived with Scooby and Oddie. We then enjoyed the various sausages, chicken tikka masala and array of salads Jackie had produced in the kitchen. That seems to me to be the sensible way of preparing a barbecue.

On 28th March I described how Matthew’s dog, Oddie, always dives into my chair whenever he has the chance. Because Mat and Tess are on their way to visit Sam and Holly and their children in Croatia, Becky is looking after Oddie and therefore brought him with them today. Would you believe it? Even in the garden he nicks my seat.

It was natural that with Becky and Don together, we should tell some Lindum House stories. One of today’s was of the intruder. One balmy evening as we sat in the snug watching television, about twenty years ago, we heard someone coming down the stairs. As usual in the summer, we had left open the double doors at the front of the house. A young man was then seen to walk past the window, making his way to the bottom of the garden. I set off in pursuit. He started running. So did I. After him. He began to climb the fence between us and the Parletts in Lindum Street. I grabbed him, pulled him down, and frogmarched him into the house. Calling out to Jessica to telephone the police, I sat on him at the foot of the stairs.

I soon realised he was drunk. He kept going on about a fishing contest with the Working Men’s Club. After the event, he and his friends from Grimsby had gone off drinking in Newark. He was making his way back to the Club. His team coach was parked outside in the road. It dawned on me that all this had a ring of truth. It would be easy enough for me to take him out to check on the coach. I asked Jessica to cancel the emergency call. She attempted to do so, but it was not possible. It stands to reason, really. The uninvited guest could have been standing with a gun to my head. Actually he was lying between the bottom step and my embrace. For the whole forty five minutes it took for the officers to arrive.

As, after satisfactory explanations, I took him up the drive to the open gates, down the path towards us walked about five of his mates. They had made the same mistake. And sure enough, there, on the road between us and the Club, was a coach. Lindum House, you see, was a Victorian reproduction of the former grand Georgian house next door that now hosted social activities of the town’s working men.

A Woman Paid My Fare

A full moon illuminated the kitchen at 3.30 a.m. this morning. Somewhat later, but still too early for the sun to have turned the corner, a large fat baby blackbird monopolised the dish on the bird feeder, repelling all other boarders. It confused us by attacking an adult blackbird that had at first been feeding it. Was this the case of a tyro turning on its tutor? Or just an ungrateful child? Later, when it descended onto the lawn, and began calling for food that the parent provided from the dish, we realised it was the latter.

I spent this morning on an ancient tree hunt (see 1st May) with Berry. My friend was very excited because we found and recorded twelve suitable trees in a little under four hours. Walking under the Castle Malwood Farm underpass, we zigzagged across the forest in the vague direction of Sir Walter Tyrrell. So fruitful was the trip that we didn’t quite reach the Rufus Stone car park before turning back for home.

Most of the trees were large oaks, some, like one that was a bit knackered, more notable than ancient. Notable is acceptable. An interesting rarity which almost caused Berry to get her feet wet, was, we think, an alder. Growing by the stream, it proved quite difficult for Berry to get a tape round to measure its girth.

I, of course, did manage to get my feet well and truly wet, not by putting them in the stream, but by falling foul of a quagmire. Jackie, who cleaned up my kit afterwards, had an opportunity to remember the time, during our first incarnation, when she had given my rugby kit similar treatment.

Perhaps the most fascinating example was found in a group of trees that had fallen in a storm. A huge oak branch, at first looking like a whole tree, had brought a beech down with it when it snapped away from the trunk that was more than five metres in girth. My task was to produce photographs for the Woodland Trust website.

So rich were our finds that we began to get a bit blasé, and say things like ‘we’ll do that one another time’, or ‘not really notable’.

There were an unusual number of other walkers about today. In my previous excursions this way I have never seen another person.

After a late lunch we drove to The Firs for a gardening session. Mum had come as well, and Elizabeth was already into weeding when we arrived. Elizabeth and Jackie’s main task was extracting the weeds, and mine was mowing the lawn. Danni helped all three of us in different ways. Before mowing the lawns the edging had to be trimmed, and all encumbrances, like tables, chairs, gardening tools, and Mum, need to be moved out of the way.

Naturally, all were reinstated when I had finished.

Of all the plants which are now re-emerging in the garden, Elizabeth is possibly most pleased with the tree peony which, like others, has benefitted from the soil improvement undertaken last year.

Elizabeth produced an excellent roast chicken dinner for us all, followed by apple crumble. Jackie, as usual, drank Hoegaarden; Mum passed; and the rest of us enjoyed Prestige de Calvet Bordeaux 2011.

As always, when we are all together, reminiscing was embarked upon. Mum reminded me of how Chris and I had collected wasps, drunk on the fruit of our grandparents’ trees, and stuffed them in a matchbox which we buried and kept unearthing to see if they were still alive. This, naturally, led to the tale of the bees (see 29th May 2012). In relating this, now, for the first time I remembered how I had completed the bus journey without any money. A woman in the seat opposite had paid my fare.

Further Fox Activity?

Not having quite enough time this morning to reach the Lyndhurst surgery on foot, I set off three quarters of an hour ahead of Jackie, who followed and collected me as I walked past Sinefield on Forest Road. She delivered me to the doc’s in good time.

My appointment with Professor Lyon-Maris was to check on the success or otherwise of his freezing the wart off my face. This man is not my own GP, whose name I can’t remember anyway, but when keeping an appointment with him I have to be careful not to ask for the popular variety of potato, good for mashing, I believe, Maris Piper. He is, however, the wart expert. Well, I suppose someone has to be. What happened today was I was first of all seen by a medical student who confirmed that there was no sign of the former offending parasite. I asked him to have a look at what I think is something similar on the back of my left shoulder. He wondered whether it appeared the same as the other one. A reasonable thought, but I had to say I couldn’t see behind my left shoulder and I hadn’t thought of using a mirror. In truth I was unaware of it unless my hand happened to stray in its direction; and it was completely painless except when I tried to pick it off and it tended to bleed a little and feel a bit like a pinprick. It is easier to dig out a dandelion.

Michael, my friendly student, then had to report to the Prof and present his findings. The poor chap had to do this in front of me. He stood up quite well to the third degree. My blind diagnosis was the correct one, and an appointment was made for the freezer.

We went on to The Firs where we continued the gardening tasks begun two days ago. I emptied the oldest compost bin and spread the contents over beds weeded by Jackie and Elizabeth. Buried deep in the last of the rich earthy material produced in the last two years was a cooked, boneless, joint of pork, as fresh and odourless as if it had been kept in cold storage for the winter. Speculating about the likelihood of a nocturnal raid on a farmhouse kitchen; a journey to The Firs similar to the one taken with golf balls; the soft mouth of a cat carrying a kitten; and a digging party clambering over the walls of the bin, we came to the conclusion that this was evidence of further fox activity.

The newest bin was rather overflowing after the addition of Sunday’s grass cuttings. I therefore siphoned off some of them to begin this year’s heap. Already there was considerable heat emanating from them.

We worked in comparative silence after the buzz of the first Saturday afternoon conducive to tipping out the populace from the warmth of their homes. Today it was just us and the birds. There must have been some other small creatures about, for a buzzard circled overhead, occasionally gliding on the thermals. There is always a biplane threading its way across the sky. Blackbirds were gathering nest building materials. A wood pigeon blended in well with an old wooden beehive. Others gathered pickings from the recently spread compost. The difference in flight of these two avian species I find fascinating. The pigeon lumbers off with ungainly flapping, often looking as if it won’t make it to its perch. The blackbird swoops with curving elegance and much more economy of movement, venturing no higher than its chosen target, and giving the appearance of hedge-hopping.

My final task today was trimming the edges of the remaining flower beds and further embedding edging tiles laid in place by Jackie last autumn.

Tonight’s meal, back at home, was Jackie’s delicious roast pork looking so like the contents of the foxes’ winter larder that I was tempted to ring Elizabeth and ask her to check the compost heap. I thought, however, that probably wouldn’t demonstrate much appreciation of the chef’s efforts. The second course was an excellent Aldi plum pie. With this, I finished the Carta Roja and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.