clematis – Page 7 – derrickjknight

Blue

Two days ago I was diverted from planting out flowers from pots, by beginning to clear a path. Yesterday, cutting the grass diverted me from that.

When I began the clearance, the path was not visible. It just looked like an overgrown shrubbery with a couple of blue painted sinks dropped into it. By this morning the work had revealed an elderly gravel path with the remains of dry stone walls either side of it. Shrubs, brambles, and weeds had severely encroached upon it.
And what was to be done about the sinks? They were each filled with earth, and contained a number of interesting little plants.
Well, I had to move them, and knew I had no chance of doing so unless I emptied them.

I did that, and transplanted various items, such as two different kinds of thyme placed in the patio area.
This path is really an access route to the shrubbery, and leads simply to a cemented stone wall dividing off the patio. It seemed to me that the sinks could be useful if placed against the wall. I asked Jackie for her views. She thought they would look good on top of the wall, thus giving them height. Well, she would, wouldn’t she? No way could I lift them the extra couple of feet up there on my own. And I didn’t think we could do it together.
I manoeuvred these heavy stoneware kitchen sinks to the far end of the path and stood and scratched my head. Then I was summoned for lunch, which seemed rather a good idea.

In the process of moving their bed I disturbed a group of slumbering snails. Their dorm master had not been alert to the danger. They dropped off one by one.

On one of my trips to the compost heap my eye was caught by a large blue bloom peering through a shrubbery by the decking on the other side of the garden. This was a newly flowering clematis which I cannot name.
After lunch I managed to hoist one of the sinks onto the lower wall at the side of the path and was beginning to gird my loins for the higher heave when Superwoman arrived. Together we raised the blue painted containers into position.
It would not be surprising for my readers to question the aesthetics of bright blue paintwork that was bound to peel off and leave shreds mingling with the gravel. Anyone who has done so will empathise with our thoughts and feelings about a similar hue, among others equally strident, having been liberally splashed around inside the house, leaving spatters on shelves, fixtures, and carpets. In no way do I exaggerate.

Finally I repositioned the stones at the sides of the path, finished the weeding, trimmed back some shrubs, and raked the remaining gravel as smooth as I could. The large plant in the foreground of the picture is a mature geranium palmatum. The flowers of another can be seen further down on the right.

Finally I planted the frail-looking rescued tree peony. This plant had not been given a pot. It lay on its side on sandy soil. It has spent two days heeled in a large container, and now stands, reasonably erect, in its allotted home. It is to be hoped that, if it does survive, it is appreciative of the efforts that have gone into accommodating it.
Another excellent meal was served at The Jarna, where we dined this evening.

We sat under blue spotlights this time. They lent an interesting colour to my rice. We both drank Cobra.

Clipped Wings

Continuing with the card-making process, I began by trying to understand why, when printing through iPhoto on the computer, pictures were being cropped in a frustratingly restrictive way. In many instances this did not matter much, but when it came to a butterfly having its wings clipped this was intolerable. So I got up this morning determined to crack the problem.

Essentially what was happening was that the iPhoto customising facility offered specific frame sizes and sliced the pictures to fit. It is a while since I used my Canon Pro900 printer to any great degree, but I seemed to remember this not being the case with that piece of equipment in the past. So what was happening?

It occurred to me that I was not seeing the usual box on the screen showing alternatives that come with the printer. This offered me much more flexibility. iPhoto must therefore be overriding it. It is, of course possible that I have not fully understood the capabilities of the Mac. Nevertheless, I had to find a way round this.

I thought I would work outside iPhoto. How could I do that? Then I had a brilliant idea. I would drag the pictures onto the desktop, open them up in preview, and print from there. And what do you know? It worked. This had the additional bonus of the printer’s options for producing multiple copies of the same photograph on one sheet of paper. Instead of having to find two different pictures that would conveniently fit together, I could now fit up to four samples of one image on the sheet. I was able to rescue the poor Peacock, and to offer unpruned Clematis.

I had not used the butterfly at all, because the clipping would have ruined it. The Clematis, however, had worked to some extent as a squarer image than the elongated one I had wanted. I was now able to use both.

Now, I am sure there are those of you out there who would have managed this in a much easier way, but please remember I am a septuagenarian, and when I was your age, before space travel brought the computer into its journey to the palms of your hands, we made do with film and chemicals. And time.

The swan taking off is an example of the inventive creativity my able assistant brings to her part in the process. Not having been able to decide the size of this print that would work, I produced two, one really rather too small. Jackie decided to place the smaller version inside the card to echo the larger image on the front. This also involved considerable trimming so that the whole concept made sense. Once having hit on this idea there was no stopping her. Bits snipped off pictures began to turn up in all sorts of places, inside, on the back, to the left, to the right, in the centre. Here a swan, there a swan, everywhere a swan. When writing my inscriptions on the back I even missed some.

Despite her antipathy towards photographic cards, believing that such artwork should be drawn or painted, Jackie was heard on occasion to punctuate her work with such phrases as; ‘I could buy that one’. It made me feel I must be doing something right.

We spent all day in the ‘factory’. Today’s tally of products placed in the plastic wallets was fifty three. That makes 153 in all. Jackie thought that should have sufficed, but I found some more photographic paper that just had to be used up. More were consequently printed. The tally will be recorded tomorrow. .

Jackie still cooked a delicious hot arabbiata which I enjoyed with Lusac St Emilion 2011, and she with her customary Hoegaarden. Before this I learned what it is like to water 83 pots so full of flowers that you cannot see the containers. I just helped. I didn’t fill the whole eighty three.

Aviemore Revisited

Jackie was thrilled this morning to see that the third of her sunflowers donated by the birds has bloomed. She tried very hard to coach one bee simultaneously into each of her trio. Two out of three can’t be bad.

For as long as I can remember Louisa has been disgusted at me for ‘wasting paper’ when I use A4 paper to print smaller photographs. She has always said it is very easy either to use smaller paper or place two or more alongside each other, and I have always been reluctant to attempt to get my head round it. When Elizabeth suggested I produced a series of greetings cards for sale at the Open Studio I knew the time had come to grasp the nettle. By sending me a link on ‘how to print multiple images on a single page’ Chris ensured that I didn’t cop out of it. I had a little trouble working out how to print the resultant document so that I could have it in front of me when I tackled my phobia. I was doing this on my small Epson printer which chose that moment to require head cleaning.

Eventually I was as ready as I was ever going to be to try multiple prints. I couldn’t produce more than one picture, although I thought I was following the directions reasonably well. That meant I needed to ring my brother Chris for further elucidation. He realised that I couldn’t do it because I had only highlighted one picture on the screen. I explained that I wanted multiple copies of one picture; not one copy each of multiple pictures.

Ah. That was different. By this time I couldn’t be doing with exploring this any further. As I needed more than one copy of each picture I thought I’d settle for placing two different images side by side. I did, of course, have to be instructed in the art of holding down the command key in order to keep more than one picture highlighted for the purpose. Well, it worked.

I suspect the final paragraph in the aforementioned article does explain how to do exactly what I want, but I think I’ll just rest on my laurels for the moment. I’m a fairly old dog after all, and one new trick is enough for one day.

This afternoon Jackie drove me to Hobbycraft in Hedge End where we bought enough blank cards with envelopes and Pritt stick to produce a decent stock for the studio.

The main event of the day was the eagerly awaited second open day of Aviemore in Bartley. Today I will let the photographs utter their thousand words, for I wrote at some length about this marvellous village garden when we first visited on 2nd. June.

Sandy and Alex Robinson welcomed us most warmly, demonstrating their appreciation of my post of that day.

Indeed, a printout of the relevant pages was on display on the tables in the tea room, as well as an article from a gardening magazine. I was very pleased, as they had been with my piece.

Jackie thought that Mata Hari, reported lurking in the bushes last time, was probably being played by Theda Bara.

The garden attracted a range of butterflies, including Meadow Brown and Cabbage White, bees busying themselves replenishing the hives, and other smaller insects such as flies, to which the eyes of my camera were more alert than those in my head.

The ‘meaty, stewy, veggy thing’ that Jackie served up this evening was deliciously tasty. Among those ingredients that were identifiable were slices of pigs’ hearts, pork sausages, various vegetables and herbs. Various different well-reduced stocks formed the base. I am told that it is like ‘the lost chord’ and therefore cannot be repeated, which is a shame. I drank Roc des Chevaliers Bordeaux superieur with mine.

Holiday With The Jubilee Sailing Trust

Today was a beautiful autumn day. At last we are reaching the stage in The Firs garden where we can spend as much time in sitting and enjoying the display as in ’tilling and sowing’. This was just as well today, because I had left my camera battery charger at home in Morden, so we went to Jessops to buy another. It will be useful to have one in each abode. The shop was unable to supply a specific charger for my Canon camera. They could sell me a universal charger which seems to be magic. It charges mobile phones, AA and AAA batteries, cameras; and even has a lead with an adapter for the car. Unfortunately when we got it home, not one of the three of us was able to pass the intelligence test required to make it work. After an hour or so’s trial and error, the emphasis being on error, we had to go back to the shop where the assistant acknowledged the paucity of the instructions, and showed me how to turn a couple of wheels and position the battery without closing the back of the gadget. It looked rather precarious to me, but seems to have worked.

The shape of the new bed is now established. All that remains is to compost it tomorrow. Planting continues apace. Yesterday, Jackie finished her work on the bay tree. A few months ago this large specimen was surrounded by suckers, so that it looked more like a shrub. She began by removing these, to give it more shape. This being a very stony garden, she began to place stones around the base of the plant. Finally she gave the stones a framework of hexagonally shaped tiles. Like much of what is happening here this was incremental. If I wanted to misquote Topsy of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, I would say it ‘just growed’. Topsy explained her arrival in that phrase, not, as is generally assumed, her manner of gradually developing. This living supply of an essential cooking ingredient now has the appearance of a lurcher practicing deportment.

Danni joined us for lunch. Capitalising on the success of my coastal walk yesterday, she tried her hand at persuading me to join the crew of one of the tall ships of the Jubilee Sailing Trust. My post of 3rd. June featured Tenacious, one of their two sailing vessels providing holidays on tall ships crewed by people of all physical abilities working alongside each other as equals. Apparently they are in need of two septuagenarians, slightly younger being acceptable, wishing to join a week-long holiday group. As it is not actually my scene, I declined. But if you fit the bill and would like to join, visit www.jst.org.uk/ or telephone 023 8044 9108.

The main course of our evening meal was the same as yesterday. To follow, Jackie had made blackberry and apple pie, using blackberries from the garden. These were completely worm free. You can tell that by soaking them in water. If no grubs come up spluttering, there aren’t any in there. Elizabeth and I drank Carta Roja Reserva 2005, whilst Jackie consumed La Gioiosa Pino Grigio 2011. If anyone is wondering, there is a purpose in our having roast chicken two nights running. This is so that I will have enough left-over meat to curry, and enough bones to make stock, for tomorrow night when Danni is joining us. I will produce Jalfrezi, which Indians would serve dry, but we English like our gravy. This is perhaps why chicken tikka masala is now, in the view of many, our national dish. Personally, as you know, I love my curries, but for English food, give me steak and kidney pie any day.

An Uncomfortable Night

Today, much cooler and less humid than last weekend, was a very pleasant day for gardening. Jackie, proud of the sweet peas she had grown from seed, continued with her planting and weeding, whilst I continued with the new bed. This time, my main problem was the ivy. Had I known just how much ivy there was concealed in what was once perhaps a shrubbery, no way would I have expected to finish this task so quickly. Elizabeth and I had, in the spring, cleared a great deal of ivy from the laurel hedge at the front of the house. But this was nothing compared to Sutherland Place, which I mentioned yesterday. When I first took up my tenancy there in 2008, no-one had entered the small London terraced garden for 20 years. The ivy had taken over. It took me two complete weekends to clear it.

Jackie also mowed the lawn whilst Elizabeth, who has been unwell recently, weeded the herb bed. Some years ago, a statue that Jacqueline had given Elizabeth, lived on the grass. This little girl was moved around from site to site as the mowing required. Last year, thinking that she really deserved a permanent home of her own, we moved her into a flower bed. Now she stands on the remains of one of the brick pillars that held up the former pergola. Mowing can now be undertaken without having to shift her, and she is left in peace to survey the activity. Later Elizabeth mowed the front lawn. I got a bit further past halfway in digging out the new bed.

I have never been one for camping, or barbecues, for that matter. I like my home comforts, and cannot see the fun in struggling to light, and keep alight, an outside facility when there are perfectly good ovens and grills in the kitchen. Yesterday I described Wolf and Luci’s caravan, which seems to me a pretty good method of going camping. Louisa and Errol and their daughters are currently being flooded out of their tents, but they think that is all part of the fun.

So, why am I going on about the outdoor life? Well, Barbara made a witty comment about camping after reading yesterday’s post. This reminded me that the last time I went camping was by accident. On 28th. May I wrote about the fundraising walk I had done in the summer of 2003 in support of Sam’s Atlantic Row. Walking 215 miles in 11 days, as that post shows, was only the half of it. What I didn’t mention in the Nettle Rash story, was the ten nights involved. Sam’s friend James was accompanying him on the boat. The vessel Sam was to spend 59 days alone in, rowing across the ocean, was purpose-built. There was therefore a small cabin on board. Designed for one, it was going to have to accommodate both Sam and James. As I have already stated, I like my comfort, so the plan was that wherever we stopped at night, we would find me bed and breakfast accommodation. That worked pretty well. Most of the time. The two occasions on which it didn’t would have to be consecutive, wouldn’t they?

Fortunately the nights were warm. Fortunately James had brought a small tent which he was generously prepared to lend me. Unfortunately there was no mattress, no ground-sheet, and no sleeping bag. Because we hadn’t considered the possibility that we might decide to stop in the middle of nowhere. On the first occasion, we managed to find me some sort of camp-site with tents, but no bedding of any sort, and latrines which I was quite unprepared to use. I slept on the hard ground. Yes, I did actually sleep. When you’ve walked as much as I had, you’ll sleep anywhere. I thought. Until the next night. This time I used James’ tent. These outdoor nights were spent in my day clothes. The place where we had pitched the tent seemed to be incredibly stony. One particularly sharp stone dug into my left thigh all night. I was just too tired to attempt to move, and desperately trying to get some shut-eye. I’ve no doubt I did sleep a bit, as is always the case when you think you haven’t slept at all. When, early in the morning, I finally decided I’d had enough, I looked for the offending stone. I couldn’t find it. Then it dawned on me. I fished in my left trouser pocket, and pulled out my bunch of keys.

This evening we were joined by Elizabeth’s lifelong friend Nicki and her children Georgie and Josh. Elizabeth produced spelt spaghetti with a chicken based bolognese sauce, which was followed by coffee roulade, French apple tart, and M & S chocolate coated cornflakes. Three different red wines were drunk, Jackie preferring Hoegaarden, and the young people bottled ales.