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Battle Of Britain Day

Today the wind has dropped to a mere 23 m.p.h. The good news is that there was minimal damage in the rose garden.

Today, Daphne and Ray Salinger share their 70th anniversary with Battle of Britain Day.

Yesterday the Isle of Wight County Press reported:

“BATTLE of Britain Day will be marked by a flypast that will include the Isle of Wight tomorrow (Tuesday).

September 15 is the 75th anniversary of the largest and fiercest attack by the German Luftwaffe over the skies of Southern England and London.

Around 1,500 aircraft took part in aerial battles, which raged throughout the day.

As evening arrived a group of German fast bombers were spotted off Cherbourg on their way to attack a Southampton Spitfire factory.

The Luftwaffe planes were later spotted over St Catherine’s and fighters from 607 and 609 Squadrons were sent to intercept.

The Germans made it to Southampton, but missed the Spitfire factory. However they dropped tonnes of bombs on the city, killing nine people and damaging the harbour and houses.

As they headed back past the Isle of Wight, close to the Needles, the British fighters engaged, shooting down four of the 20 bombers.

On Tuesday, World War Two fighters will again be in the skies over the Isle of Wight, thankfully in more peaceful circumstances.

A group of 40 Spitfire, Hurricanes and Blenheim light bombers are due to take part in flypasts, leaving from Goodwood Aerodrome in West Sussex.

They will be split into ten sections, before taking to the skies across Britain.

Two sections are due to fly over the south of the Island and their routes can be seen below.

The first section is due to leave at noon, with four minute gaps between subsequent sections.”

In the event the weather caused some delay and there were route alterations.

Jackie drove us to Hordle Cliff West car park, where we arrived, shortly before noon, to find it almost completely full. We sought no further confirmation that we had chosen the best vantage point from which to witness spitfires and hurricanes flying inland over The Needles. This car park usually belongs to the gulls at this time of the year.

The people came in coaches, they came in cars, they came on bicycles, they came on foot, to witness the flypast, due at about 12.10.

News soon filtered through the crowds, informing us that take-off would be delayed by two hours because of the strong winds. There wasn’t much point in returning home for a while, because we would have lost our place.

Possibly this gentleman is being advised that the gulls overhead are not planes.

We settled down for a wait during which I had a few chats with other would-be watchers and Jackie queued at the kiosk for an excellent choice of egg and bacon rolls, pasties and chips. We were fortunate to be so early, for a couple of hours later the queue stretched to the cliff edge. Clearly the woman in charge made a killing today, but she was managing alone because her husband was ill. Nevertheless she would acknowledge that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

Some people wandered off in search of other eating places. Others, like me, struck up conversations with strangers. One gentleman did a little dance on the clifftop, alarming everyone when he tripped over his own feet.

As the latest expected time of arrival drew near, we all fixed our eyes on The Needles, that row of rocks to the West of the Isle of Wight, over which the historic planes were to thread their way.

Had Jackie not been looking in the other direction, and alerted me, I would have been one of the disappointed multitude who missed the sight. The planes flew over the centre of the island, and aimed for Southampton. The itinerary had changed at the request of that city because of their association with Spitfires.

I managed to photograph eight specks gliding silently across the sky. I cropped and enlarged the first picture. The clouds behind the planes can be located again in the next shot, indicating the progression across the skies. Clicking on the images may make this easier to discern. One woman, returning to her car, exclaimed ‘Well, that was a damp squib’. ‘No imagination’, I thought.

Given that I was born in 1943, had there been a different outcome to the airborne battle, I may very well never have existed.

There was plenty of food left over from the Spice of India takeaway we enjoyed two days ago for tonight’s dinner. My accompaniment was the last of the Cuvée St Jainé; Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.

Giant Jenga

Last night at sundown I took an amble down to Roger’s field and back. On Downton Lane the light glinted behind the secret garden gate. On a glorious morning, Jackie drove me down to the cashpoint in Milford on Sea, and left me at The Beach House so I could take my usual walk home. The bright blue Solent, tuned into a yachting marina, reflected the skies above; the sun shone; still streaks of salmon clouds had risen to the surface above the horizon; a white-haired jogger plodded, solitary walkers strode energetically, while those with dogs paused periodically for a sniff along the clean gravelled footpath; butterflies fluttered; crows and gulls flew overhead; a small shrew scuttled out of the undergrowth; and thrift and other wild flowers glistened in the sunlight on the clifftop. A passing woman greeted me with ‘it’s a lovely morning’. ‘It is, said I, and I’ve left my camera battery at home’. ‘Oh, no’, she replied, reflecting my own feeling when I discovered I had left the energy supplier on charge overnight. Families leaving Shorefield teemed down to West Road. Younger joggers were out in force. Two small boys, in their eagerness to reach the sea, ran down the slope, the larger lad leaving the smaller panting in his wake. The breasts of another, sadly overweight, wobbled beneath his mesh-fronted T-shirt as he painfully waddled along. In the Country Park itself, basking holidaymakers breakfasted or read on their chalet balconies. A barking dog protected its temporary residence. On Downton Lane, speeding cyclists played chicken with cars, many open-topped, preventing them from travelling at their own preferred speed. In a recent post, Geoff , thebikinggardener #can i eat nasturtiums wrote of his ambivalent relationship with these plants. As we watered the front garden we were presented, in the form of hairy black and yellow chomping caterpillars, with ample evidence of what he was saying. The older section of our brick path, set almost 100 years ago, has, with the passage of time, soil movement and the incursion of tree roots, become uneven, and dangerous for visitors ending the support of walking sticks; although the bricks themselves remain sound. During the morning Aaron and Lee have made excellent progress in the task of lifting and levelling them. The original, fiddly, pattern has been lost, but that is a small price to pay. Before setting off to Shelley and Ron’s home in Walkford for a barbecue lunch we drove to Everton Nurseries to buy an aluminium bench for the south west corner of the rose garden, and put it in place on bricks we have yet properly to embed. The barbecue was also attended by Helen and Bill, Neil, Donna, and Anthony. We had a splendid afternoon of convivial conversation, superb sausages, lamb and chicken satay kebabs, salads, followed later by fruit salad, strawberries, lemon cake, and cheesecake according to choice. Red and white wine, coke, cider, and beer were all on offer. A surprisingly long section of the mid-afternoon was occupied by a game of Giant Jenga. It didn’t seem possible to me that this precarious pastime could last any longer than a few minutes. A tower of long wooden blocks is built to begin with. Each player must remove one block without upsetting the structure, and place it on the top. Gradually the lower levels are depleted, but the height remains the same, until the increasingly tottering tower finally collapses. The person who made the last successful placement is the winner.

After a few early extractions, Bill is seen here making another.

Quite early on Neil appeared to go to sleep on the job,

but recovered to make a flamboyant removal later on, when wobbling was under way.

Ron, with a flourish, applied his structural engineering skills to the task,

while Shelley undertook careful all-round investigation

and slid one out from the bottom, starting another top layer.

Helen couldn’t believe her luck.

As the tower began to sway, I didn’t really fancy my chances,

even after the withdrawal the tower was likely to topple.

Bill’s penultimate attempt warranted considerable contemplation,

as did Anthony’s final one.

I always followed Bill, and each time increasingly prayed that he would upset the structure.

Finally my luck was in. This was just as well, because Bill almost managed to withdraw the last block that would have been at all possible.

For the second evening running, we had no need of dinner.

UKCSI

Yesterday evening’s volcanic skies, casting an ochre glow on everything beneath them, delivered just a few heavy drops of the promised overnight rain. Ushering in the month of July, today was even hotter and more humid, yet largely overcast. My early task was the dead-heading of roses, and lifting soil-filled window boxes onto the head gardener’s work table for planting. A lone Red Admiral butterfly struggled to slake its thirst on a hebe that the bees claimed as their own. I then walked to the paddock in Hordle Lane and back. Three horses, tails twitching to deter the flies, now sheltered under their favourite oak. One of these animals availed itself of a companion’s flickering switch, apparently to pick the insects out of its nostrils.

Small mallows now mingle with other plants in the hedgerow,

which bears evidence of one of the ways in which farmers obscure ramblers’ footpaths. Look hard, and you may see the Footpath sign that, last year, I could not find until winter.

This afternoon, Jackie found incriminating evidence on our back drive. In accordance with all crime scene investigations, forensics, in the form of me and my camera, were sent in to examine the remains.

A fine fishing line, attached to two square spools, led across the gravel from a gap in the north hedge, and disappeared through a hole in the fence belonging to number five Downton Lane. Doubling as Agent Gibbs, on loan from the American crime drama series NCSI (Navy Crime Scene Investigation), and suspecting that I knew where the trailing twine belonged, I questioned Karen from the Care Home. She had an idea that the owners, who were out at the moment, were residents. A most cooperative witness, she removed the lines from our drive, and pulled, at some length, the rest of them, containing hooks and bait, back through the fence. She identified them as crab lines. This seemed useful information, not to be regarded as tampering with the evidence.

Now, all you sleuths, equipped with this forensic record, and the knowledge that splendid white ducks are kept in the garden of the Care Home, and that a marauding black cat lives at Number 5, you must piece together the story for presentation in court. I am confident this this will not be beyond the capacity of that great story-teller, Bruce Goodman, at https://weaveaweb.wordpress.com.

Later this afternoon, once Jackie had worked her magic on them, I carried the flower-filled window boxes to the front garden wall, where I placed them as directed.

Tesco’s Oriental Kitchen, in the form of their Meal for Two, Menu A, provided tonight’s dinner. This consisted of prawn crackers, spring rolls, chicken & cashew nuts, sweet and sour chicken, and egg fried rice. I microwaved the two chicken dishes whilst Jackie, eschewing the cooking directions on the box, fried the spring rolls and then, adding a mangled egg, the rice. She drank Hoegaarden and I imbibed a little more of the cabernet sauvignon. My lady pronounced the meal acceptable. Naturally I agreed.

Exhuming Queen Victoria

On a bright, sunny, morning I rambled around the garden, down the lane, along Roger’s footpath and back.

From our patio can be seen a rhododendron, geranium palmatums, petunias, foxgloves, and fennel.

The centre of the Phantom Path gives a view towards that shown above. We can also see that the clematis Star of India and an unnamed white rose frolic together on the Gothic Arch.

This red rose, aptly named Altissimo, climbs between Elizabeth’s bed and the rose garden.

a sentinel to the Back Path.

The morning sun burns out detail on the right hand side of Downton Lane, glinting on the back of a shade-seeking orange ladybird, just filtering through shrubbery on the left.

This gate must have once led into a garden beyond it.

Roger is growing barley this year.

Across the left hand field a large vessel sedately traversed the horizon as yachts skimmed along a deep blue Christchurch Bay.

To my right clouds slid silently over Downton.

All I could hear were the strings of countless insects’ wings.

The pong of fermenting slurry filled my nostrils.

Back home, a far more appetising aroma greeted me. Jackie was preparing a sausage casserole for Sam’s visit tomorrow. I suppose I can defer my gratification until then.

This afternoon we planted other flowers, such as heucheras and penstemons into the rose garden, offering some variation.

The rose Deep Secret has now revealed all.

During my childhood, we used to brighten our copper pennies by rubbing them on the bricks of the school wall. Old bricks, not modern paving ones that don’t crumble into dust on the application of friction. So, when Jackie unearthed a tiny coin encrusted with thick verdigris, I was off in search of an old brick. They are not hard to find in the garden of Old Post House. I cleaned enough to know what a treasure we had found, but, since we were now afraid of scrubbing off any more detail, Jackie finished the job with Hob Brite, a rather gentler abrasive.

We had exhumed a small coin, bearing, on the obverse, the somewhat pockmarked head of Queen Victoria; on the reverse, Britannia, the date 1893, and its denomination. So soon after the previous post, we had found a farthing. Serendipity or what? How long had that lain in the soil? Who had dropped it? We will never know.

The previous posting featured a wren, which did not appear on the reverse until the pattern coin of Edward VIII (so called because it had not yet been approved by the time of his abdication in 1936). The little bird first replaced Britannia in 1937, during the reign of the father of Queen Elizabeth II, King George VI, who succeeded his older brother.

For tonight’s dinner, barbecue sauce flavoured the spare ribs; Jackie’s rice and green beans came with it. She drank Hoegaarden and I slurped Dao. This last verb was Jackie’s suggestion, when she pointed out that I had quaffed more than once recently. Not exactly couth, but there you have it.

P.S. Further research suggests that our coin is in fact bronze.

Memory Is Not Neat And Tidy

On a warm, sunny, morning, my feeble contribution to the gardening was to bag up a pile of rubble; and to transport earth from elsewhere with which to fill in the hole left by the removal of the pool in a wheelbarrow. Jackie continued with the weeding and planting, and this afternoon I did a bit of sweeping up.

Today I continued the recap on photographic series I insert into my posts. Spanning 1983 to 1985, I scanned more of the borrowed family portrait prints that Elizabeth has recently returned.

On the North Wales holiday on which Matthew had planted Sam on a cow, here he is gently giving Louisa and Sam the benefit of his knowledge about ladybirds.

The Pearson family hold an annual Family Day immediately after Christmas each year. This is hosted by Jessica’s eldest brother Nigel and his wife Judy. Since its inception in the mid 1970s, Jessica and each of her five siblings have added their own children, who have in turn, contributed theirs. Although I took the role of event photographer, this picture of Jessica was taken in the grounds of the venue, Nigel and Judy’s farmhouse at Caxton in Cambridgeshire, in 1983. Maybe sometime I will feature one of the parties.

Our mudlarking period has been featured before. Here Matthew totes a sculptural piece of driftwood he found under Putney Bridge.

We jump to 1985 and Michael practicing his golf shots in the small London garden of Gracedale Road.

My Uncle Norman and Auntie Peggy, of whom I just have one flashback memory, were one of a great many couples who, their minds and wishes for the future having been fundamentally affected by the Second World War, very soon thereafter, emigrated to Adelaide in Australia, where they were eventually joined by Uncle Darcy and Aunt Edna and their children David and Gillian. Here Norman bonds with his great niece Louisa at Rougemont Avenue on Christmas Day 1985.

Present on that occasion were, of course, Mum,

Joseph,

and Dad, seen here playing hoopla with Sam,

then conversing with Louisa on the sofa.

Seeing these two pictures of my father it seems incredible now, that, two years on to the very day, he died of stomach cancer. Christmas Day will forever have special significance.

Why, you may ask, do I skip from series to series regardless of chronology? Well, first of all that is how the spirit moves me. One day I may want to use my carefully ordered slides, and another I might be able to face identifying negatives or having a stab at the date of prints. The real reason however, is that I am reflecting the nature of memory. It is not neat and tidy. Depending on the triggers, it will hop about from period to period of any lifetime.

This evening, lowering clouds filtered the sunlight as I wandered round the garden and photographed

a viburnum on the back drive,

another new allium,

a verbena that has surprisingly overwintered,

and an azalea rescued last year.

We dined on roast pork, boiled potatoes, green beans, spring greens, and carrots, followed by profiteroles. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Parra Alta Malbec.

Me, Irritated?

This morning we suffered from an excess of wind. I write not of flatulence, but of 35 miles (56 kilometres) per hour gusts tearing into our trees, tossing the tresses of the more slender ones like the weeping birch and the eucalyptus. For those of you in other parts of the world this may not seem very strong, but for us, especially after nurturing numerous window boxes and hanging baskets over the summer, it is a big deal.
I fought my way down my circular route to Hordle Cliff Beach, where the turbulent seas flinging spray over the shingle bank had me fearing once more for the beach huts.
Our already decrepit No Parking sign had been ripped from its board, and that of The Spinney had shed its phone number.

On this unseasonably warm day the sun shone and every cloud had a silver lining.

Roger was emerging from Hordle Manor Farm carrying a bale of hay, thus confirming our speculation that it had indeed been his family who had rescued Scooby when he wandered off and disappeared. He paused for the photograph and gave me a thumbs up sign.
Walking back through Shorefield, I fell in with another Londoner with whom I shared recollections of the Great Storm of 1987.
On my return Jackie was clearing the area around our patch of grass which she had mowed yesterday. I then removed the last of the cuttings we had left on the back drive, adding quite a bit to the log pile.
A very heavy thunderstorm having driven us inside we sat calmly over lunch. Listening to car horns in the street outside Jackie commented that strong winds make people irritated. The elements had not made me irritated. I repeat, with gritted teeth, I was not irritated. Not until we opened Jackie’s bill from BT.
BT then achieved what the heavens couldn’t. When their last shutdown left me without access to e-mails for four days, possibly for want of anything else positive to talk about, one of the advisers persuaded me to have on-line billing. I had already explained that Jackie was the account holder so I would have a bill of nil. If they wanted to implement that I had no objection. A day or so ago I received an on-line bill for £48.17 stating that it would be taken from my bank account on or after 14th October.
On our mat this afternoon appeared Jackie’s bill for the identical amount, the identical period, and the identical date of removal from her bank account. I was also told that from 1st December a surcharge of £1.59 will be added to paper bills. There is no such notification on Jackie’s invoice.
I phoned the telephone company and was greeted by the usual robot which had the usual problem understanding my choices from the varied options. One word the machine had difficulty in understanding was ‘other’. At the third attempt, the robot having a Scots accent, I tried rolling my r at the end of the word. That did the trick. Then, of course, I had to wait ten minutes listening to another voice, telling me that my call was important to them, before I reached a person. A gentleman with an Indian accent informed me that it was not possible to check my account because the system was down. Engineers were working on it. I should call again after four hours.
Me, irritated? You bet.
Later, Jackie drove us to Wroughton. I will report on that tomorrow.

In Our Daughter’s Handbag

Just before lunch Ian drove Becky, Scooby, and me to Barton on Sea. As we walked along the cliff top, we watched storm clouds approaching from the North. Deciding to ignore them we walked down the slope towards the beach, got drenched, and retreated to the Beachcomber Cafe. The whole population of the seaside town seemed to have had the same idea. No seats were available. The meals looked very good, so as soon as the rain stopped we drove back home for a pizza we knew Jackie had defrosted.

It seems to me that the cliff here has become more unstable in the last year, and that there are more warning signs. To the right of the first picture, a long cleft is evident. I wondered how long it would be before the land fell away as it had a little further along.

This afternoon Barrie and Vicki came for a visit. Vicki produced a very attractive and tasteful bird feeder in the form of The Green Man that she had made for us. Jackie and I enjoyed their usual entertaining conversation, which was interrupted by the repeated sound of Becky’s mobile phone. It soon became apparent that this was in our daughter’s handbag. She was outside, having gone to meet Ian who was walking Scooby. Soon afterwards Ian returned, having lost their dog in the maze of the maize field. Realising what the phone calls might have been, Becky dialled the number in her phone. Sure enough, Scooby had been found. The telephone number shown on his collar tag photographed on 11th was that of the old Mitcham landline. Fortunately, Becky’s mobile number was on the reverse side. She called the number that had been left on her phone by the woman who had found Scooby. He was at the bottom of Downton Lane. She went to collect her dog and all was well.

Barrie has photographed our golden conifer because he has a friend who he expects will be able to identify it. I hope soon to be able to enlighten those of my readers who have been waiting with bated breath for the information.

A branch from this tree is one of those Jackie and Flo cut for our granddaughter to turn into wands for sale at A Touch Of Magick in Emsworth, which is the outlet that is stocking Flo’s jewellery. The other twig is from the copper beech. Some of the wands are resting on our Alvin Betteridge dish.

You have to be either a sadist or a masochist to enjoy the highlights of the very short third day of the Oval Test Match between India and England, in which the visiting side simply rolled over, but Ian and I tortured ourselves with watching the highlights this evening. After this, we did the male thing and went to the Royal Oak pub for a drink whilst the ladies prepared a delicious roast lamb meal. We seem to have stayed out rather longer than expected because, in mid-conversation, Ian, looking out of the window, seemed rather discombobulated. I leant forward so I could see what he was seeing. There was Becky, in her slippers, hands on hips, looking for all the world, except for the lack of hair curlers, like Florrie, the wife of that famous working class hero, Andy Capp, silently indicating that we should get home immediately.

We did, of course, drink up and return to Old Post House where we enjoyed a wonderful meal followed by next door’s apple crumble and Jackie’s custard containing eggs and nutmeg. My readers know no-one lives next door. But there is a very enticing apple tree in the front garden. If we hadn’t raided it, the fruit would have gone to waste. Ian drank Pedro Jimenez Cimarosa 2013; Jackie and Becky Lambrusco; Flo Tropicana mixed tropical fruit juice; and I finished the bordeaux.

A Painting

Jackie read out a salutary item for me from BBC News this morning. My regular followers will know of my penchant for becoming stuck in the mud. She therefore thought I should take note of the couple in their late sixties who ventured into The New Forest not far from us. Twenty firefighters using specialist equipment were employed in freeing them when they ‘found themselves stuck in a bog near Burley. They were lucky to have a mobile phone and a signal’. ‘Phone Signal Saves Couple In Bog’, was the headline.
It was quite a pleasant morning when we set off in the hopes that the ailing car would reach Wells Garage in Ringwood. Tony, at the garage had said they were fully booked and one man short today, but we could bring the Modus in and they would do what they could. We made it to the garage, where he kept the vehicle and gave us a courtesy car.

John had lit a bonfire down the slope to the south east corner of the garden. Masking the trees, the smoke from this blended well with the clouds and patches of blue sky above. It wasn’t long before the rain set in and the blue disappeared.
We spent the rest of the morning at Helen and Bill’s, where we had coffee and a good salad lunch. By the time we returned home the roads were just as water-covered as at any other time recently.
This afternoon I finished reading Margaret Forster’s absorbing novel ‘Keeping the World Away’. I have focussed before on transitional objects. In a sense, Forster uses one in her novel. Passing from one woman to another over the period of a century, in a variety of circumstances, is a presumably imagined painting by Gwen John. A number of women are involved and their lives sometimes overlap quite apart from the connection with a real work of art.
John was essentially a portrait painter. Our author has chosen to weave her tale around a rare exception, ‘A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris’, of which the work carrying her story is said to be a previous version.
The writer invites us into the minds of her characters, in particular their emotional lives, including their sexuality and their responses to Gwen John’s masterpiece. She is particularly skilled in this, as she is in story-telling. I will not reveal the ending of the book, which I would recommend for your reading pleasure, but I can say that Gwen’s childhood is the starting point. I think this version of the gestation and creation of the painting itself is probably imagined, linked as it is with the artist’s waning affair with Auguste Rodin, because it is at odds with the creator’s own comments. Nevertheless, it is credible and keeps us intrigued.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent chilli con carne (recipe) with wild rice and peas. Strawberry jelly and evaporated milk was to follow. I drank some La Patrie Cahors 2012 malbec.

Why?

Photograph number 43 in the ‘through the ages’ series was probably taken by Vivien and printed by her brother Bernard in 1962. Bernard always used a square format. Here, I sit on a cast iron and wooden-slatted bench in the garden of 18 Bernard Gardens to which we had moved as a family a couple of years before, alongside my brother Joseph.
In a fascinating coincidence, my parents and I each produced five children with eighteen years between them. Unlike my Dad, I needed three wives to achieve the round handful.
Dad was a man, of his time, who would never borrow money for any purchase. When, in the late sixties, the large Victorian house began to suffer from subsistence damage, the quotation for repairs was £400. My father could not be persuaded to borrow that sum on mortgage, so it was sold and the remaining members of the family moved to Morden.
This morning I received a phone call from Sam and Malachi in Perth, Western Australia, and had long conversations with each of them. My grandson chuckled away when I asked him: ‘Why?’. He has, so far, despite distinct O’Neill genetic traits, retained his English accent. The attached photograph is taken from Holly’s Facebook page of 26th December last year.
Snowdrops have arrived in our garden. I spotted some as I began my walk of the Football Green/Shave Wood loop this afternoon. They were not far from the sawn-off cherry tree stump, which is all that remains of the casualty that was taped off in December.
A trail of white plumage, reminiscent of Hansel’s breadcrumbs, on Running Hill led to the remains of a large, now unidentifiable, white bird.
At the bottom of the hill, the gentleman who lives at Orchard Cottage opened his gate and crossed to give a pony on the green a tasty morsel. He had to be quick to return to his garden. The dark brown creature and its white companion, having had their interest aroused, wanted more and were intent upon laying siege. That is one of the hazards of that particular kindness to animals.

Further on down into Minstead, alongside the pedestrian safety path that runs by the most dangerous stretch of road, the smoke rising from a bonfire in an adjacent field blended with the subtle greys of the clouds above.
On Lyndurst Road, just before the junction with Football Green, a number of fairly large trees have fallen recently. Huge tyre tracks provided evidence that some rather heavy machinery had been used to clear them from the road.
Foraging ponies are looking a great deal more healthy than they did this time last year, when they were so cold and wet and their ribs were beginning to protrude.

As I turned the corner at Shave Wood, the skies, having been somewhat obscured by the trees, came back into view. How they had altered since I first saw the bonfire blend. Big skies are a feature of the countryside, and I find their constant changes of hue and formation fascinating. At that moment the artist had laid gentle brush strokes of yellow and indigo over the bright blue base wash.

Visible from high up on the hill approaching London Minstead, Minstead Lodge, like the Gothic pile it is, stood out against the rainbow trout tints in the sky. From Bull Lane I could look down on the still burning bonfire I had seen from the other side of the valley. The cloudscape painter had changed his or her palette yet again, as the setting sun slowly turned the gold to pink.
A BT Openreach technician high on a ladder clamped to a telegraph pole opposite the Minstead Lodge drive in Seamans Lane was applying some kind of testing device. He agreed that he was quite busy at the moment.
Further on I met Oliver. Not my grandson. A greyhound. His owner’s mother informed me that he had not been fast enough to pass muster as a racing animal, so was in fact a rescue dog. He seemed friendly enough, and ignored the baying of neighbouring hounds who had picked up either his or my scent.
For dinner this evening, Jackie produced roast belly of pork with sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, and vegetables. This is a most underrated cut of meat, that, when of Lidl quality cooked long and slow, offers a most flavoursome meal. Creme brûlée was to follow. I drank more of the Bergerac.

Barton on Sea

Jackie having completed packing away the Christmas decorations yesterday, I transferred them to the garage this morning. Anyone who has seen the Christmas posts will realise that this involved quite a lot of boxes.

This afternoon Jackie drove me to Barton on Sea and parked near the cliff top cafe. She had a coffee in the cafe and waited in the car whilst I took a bracing walk along the cliff top. I had seen photographs of a cliff fall here in the St Barbe Museum. Now I saw the reality for myself. All along the top there were signs warning people not to come too near the edge. It was a bit scary.

I thudded along the turf path for about twenty minutes hoping to find a path down to the shore. It didn’t look likely that one would be forthcoming, so I turned back and found Fisherman’s Walk alongside the cafe. The slice of cliff face to my left as I walked down here demonstrated the crumbly nature of this part of the coast. I understand Dorset has lost more in the recent flooding.

Down below, I crunched the pebbles and watched and listened to the waves pounding the granite rocks at the water’s edge. A photographer and his model I had shot on the way down were pleased with the results. Unfortunately the woman braced for the spray was not engaged in a swimsuit promotion. It was unlikely to have fallen from a rag and bone cart, and I don’t think the discarded wellie was hers, so I didn’t run after them with it.

Before sunset I climbed back up to the car and Jackie drove us home in time to see glowing yellow-tinged clouds scudding above the bare trees of Castle Malwood Lodge.
This evening we dined on chicken Kiev, mashed potatoes, cabbage, and ratatouille, and Remy would have been proud of it. My drink was Les Courlandes 2012 Chateauneuf du Pape. Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.