We began this hot and sunny late summer’s day with a trip to Ferndene Farm Shop. Normally, when we visit this splendidly stocked and very reasonably priced outlet we do so in order to buy compost and manage to come away with plants as well. Today the process was reversed.
We came for pansies and salad, to which we added
three bags of Violet Farm compost.
Afterwards we continued into the forest by way of Bickley Common Road.
We lunched at The Old Station Tea Rooms at Holmsley. The building is swathed in scaffolding at the moment, so we were served from the station kiosk and ate outside where wearing a jacket was being overdressed.
While waiting for our meals I focussed on some of the old advertising signs.
Jackie enjoyed the Station Master’s Rarebit, namely cheese on mustard toast, topped with bacon and a fried egg, garnished with liberal salad. My equally satisfying meal consisted of beef and mushroom pie, chips, carrots, peas, and leeks with a small jug of gravy. My Chauffeuse drank coffee while I drank sparkling water.
A not unusual, but rather incongruous, trio of ponies did their best to block Chapel Lane at the junction with Burley Lawn.
As so often, a visiting driver left her car and photographed the animals.
Further along the road, like me, she clicked on Tamworth pigs trotting along.
The other woman watching was a German visitor whose brother-in- law had brought her to see the spectacle that signalled that pannage had begun. As she petted a particularly muddied pig she seemed unperturbed by her increasingly clarty clothing.
Back home an only slightly tattered Painted Lady swayed with the verbena bonarensis,
and a bluebottle settled on an Erigeron.
The Yorkist Penny Lane shares its ascendancy with the Lancastrian Super Elfin.
Jackie wandered around, trowel in hand, wondering where to plant this new clematis.
Nugget was on hand with helpful suggestions. He becomes most excited at the sight of plant and trowel. In fact he can’t wait to beat the plant into the hole.
Now “Where’s Nugget?” (22)
This evening we dined on small portions of pepperoni pizza and salad with which Jackie drank Blue Moon and I drank Doom Bar.
Afterwards I watched the recorded highlights of the second day of the fifth Ashes Test match.