This morning I scanned three more of Charles Keeping’s excellent illustrations to ‘Our Mutual Friend’.
‘Conveniently elevated above the level of the living, were the dead’
‘Tippins the divine’
The artist’s inspired evocation of Dickens’s ‘The whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels’ prompted me to post https://derrickjknight.com/2021/09/11/a-knights-tale-32-the-great-smog/
On a still sultry afternoon we took a drive around the forest.
Dumped beside the entrance to the paddock on Braggers Lane was a burnt out Daihatsu Fourtrak.
Whoever left it there did not destroy the number plate.
Looking over the landscape at Rockford End. we could see a sunlit distant marina.
Jackie parked beside the very narrow lane while I wandered about with my camera and photographed
a grassy verge; tumbling farm buildings in an overgrown field; a dappled bank; and a gate into a similar field
From the lane up to Gorley Common and Hyde we observed a basking herd of deer.
At the top of the hill ponies shared the pasturage with cattle. One pony found its tail in a tangle; one cow stopped the traffic.
At North Gorley three donkeys were employed clipping a hedge, and
a huntsman and hound took note of the wind direction.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage and runner beans, with meaty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cepa Lebrel Gran Reserva Rioja 2011.