clouds – Page 6 – derrickjknight

Propelled Back To England

I had one last laugh with Thierry and Geoffrey yesterday evening. As I prepared to leave Le Code Bar, having finished posting that day’s blog entry and amending the English version of his bilingual summer restaurant menu, David told me my builders were seated under the outside canopy having a drink. I bade them a further farewell and went back to the house to find it cleaned spotlessly. Returning to the bar I told them that the place was so clean I was scared to go in. They were so amused by this that Geoffrey interrupted his mobile phone conversation to laugh uproariously.

Back at the house I took my shoes off and entered in my socks. A short while later Geoffrey returned for his jacket which he’d forgotten. He took his shoes off. As he left I raised my right, still unshod, leg so my foot could be seen by Thierry in the car. More guffaws.

John Blair’s contribution to the Oxford History provided my late night and early morning reading, and I continued on the plane with John Gillingham’s ‘The Early Middle Ages’.

Courtesy of Lydie, Flybe, and Jackie, I took my usual route home to Minstead, which was rather more overcast than the Aquitaine I had left an hour or so earlier. As we had soared aloft into the bright sunshine above the scattered clouds, I was unable to distinguish the individual speedily spinning propeller blades, but the camera could.

The spaces between the clouds afforded interesting views of the French coast.

Back in Minstead all the trees were now fully in leaf; the rhododendrons in Castle Malwood Lodge garden were looking stunning; and Jackie’s pots had somehow multiplied themselves, their plants having flourished. It is amazing what Baby Bio can do for violas.

We drove to Eastern Nights in Thornhill for our evening meal after which we dropped in on Elizabeth for a brief visit and scared ourselves with the amount of weeding there is to be done in this well-fed, now profusely blooming, garden.

Out In The Cold

This morning we awoke to bright blue clear skies and a much lower temperature. I walked through Telegraph Woods, round the Ageas Bowl, into Botley Road, and, believe it or not, found my way to Jessops to collect some ink cartridges I had ordered last week.

It was cold enough to tighten the skin on my cheeks and the backs of my hands, and set my fingertips tingling. I do have some excellent leather gloves that Becky bought me many years ago, but I tend not to wear them when out walking. This is because I discovered in my teens that once I have been tramping for half an hour my circulation combats even freezing cold, and my hands are as warm as if covered in fleecy lining. I have, of course, never tested this in Canada or Siberia. Flickering leaves desperately clinging to buffeted branches in the woods lent a liquid lambency to the sunlight slipping through the trees which provided enough shade to cause an even greater fall in the temperature. This reminded me of the density of the much more expansive Stapleford Woods near Newark through which I often ran on my twenty mile Sunday morning outings. Particularly in the winter, when the road through never shed the early morning frost or snow, the temperature would plummet as I entered this stretch. This phenomenon was much more welcome in the heat of the summer.

I returned via Botley and Telegraph Roads. Traffic on the M27, which I crossed by road bridge, was really hotting up, and Jackie and Elizabeth were chatting over coffee in the conservatory. When seated in this garden room now, we have to take all dead leaves off the plants and collect up fallen petals. That way we have a continuing fine floral display.

After lunch Elizabeth went shopping for presents; I heavily pruned two buddleias and bagged up their debris; and Jackie shopped for an evening meal. Jackie and I then drove to the dump with a car full of garden refuse bags. The dump had closed fifteen minutes before we arrived. Stopping off at In-Excess for bird food we returned to The Firs. Jackie waited for me to open the door. ‘Haven’t you got your keys?’, I asked. ‘No’, she replied. ‘haven’t you got yours?’. ‘No’, said I. ‘Don’t you keep them on the same ring as your car and all your other keys?’ I’m sure you know the answer. Well, Elizabeth wasn’t back, so we couldn’t get in. By this time Jackie was rather cold, so she suggested we drove to Haskins Garden Centre and had a coffee in their restaurant. So, off we went. Haskins was open and thriving. But their restaurant wasn’t. Killing time by one partner wandering round inspecting potential gifts from a place where she wouldn’t normally look for them, and trying out perfumes not to her taste, whilst her companion hangs around glassy eyed is not really to be recommended. But we did it until we were bored enough to venture back to The Firs. Still no Elizabeth as we drove in one drive entrance, wondering what would be on offer on the car radio. However, before the handbrake was off, my darling sister drove in the other side.

By now the leaden indigo of the recently clouded sky, tinged with the pink glow of sunset made us think we would not be surprised to see snow tomorrow.

When Jackie eventually gained access to The Firs she made an excellent chicken dopiaza which we ate accompanied by Kingfisher since 1857, in her case and Montpierre Reserve Fitou 2010 in the case of Elizabeth and me. We then repaired to the sitting room for a gawp, which is explained in my post of 2nd June. Since this is carried out in various stages of somnolence I am posting this episode before it actually took place. I may not be in a fit state afterwards.

We Get Lots Of Stick

En route to Morden by car from The Firs this morning Jackie and I were presented with incontrovertible evidence which solved the conundrum I posted on 23rd. June. What little Flo once called ‘tree tunnels’ are definitely caused by large vans.

A motorcyclist who was driving rather precariously got me talking about my Uncle Bill who was a great favourite of Chris and me during the years he was engaged to Auntie Vic. Bill Burdett was an immensely kind and generous man who lost his legs in a motor cycle accident, when, the story goes, rather than hit a pedestrian he swerved and went under a lorry. Bill had been a keen cricketer, but could never play again. In our teens, he obtained membership of Surrey County Cricket Club for my brother and me. With or without him, we spent many happy hours at The Oval. It was Bill who, when I was fifteen, taught me to solve The Times crossword, and to whom I dedicated my half of ‘Chambers Cryptic Crosswords and how to solve them’, which I co-wrote with Michael Kindred. By this time he and Vic were married and had their four children, our cousins Barry, Susan, Neil, and Fenella. It was their garden in Victory Avenue in Morden which, in the 1950s, was the first one not my own with which I helped out. When we were very small Bill entertained us with ‘Silver’ or ‘Copper’ Fairies’. This was a marvellous game in which invisible fairies hid silver or copper coins in various parts of the room and we excitedly searched them out. We never saw any fairies but we found lots of silver sixpences. These were the equivalent of two and a half pence in modern money, but you could do a lot more with them. The coppers were pennies and halfpennies which have no equivalent today. They were just as welcome.

Clouds were louring over Morden Park, where I took a brief stroll before a brisk walk to Church Lane surgery to meet Jackie before returning to The Firs. My lady has been signed off work for another week because of a chest infection.

The path alongside the railway has now been barred off. The barrier which has, for the eighteen months we have been in Morden, been left open, thus allowing the parking of cars, is now chained up and padlocked. The flytipping warning which it has carried for a month or two has been ineffective. The consequence is that currently no-one has vehicular access. There was nothing beyond this obstacle but a tipped heap. The small white van parked alongside the gate ensured that a cyclist was forced to dismount in order to manoeuvre her steed through the gap.

In the park two dog-walkers with ten charges between them were earning their money. I spoke to the man, most of whose dogs were harmlessly off the lead. He questioned my motives for wishing to photograph the group because, he said; ‘we get a lot of stick’. I don’t think he was speaking of throwing sticks for the animals to fetch. When I explained my purpose he said I could photograph the dogs, but not him. I said that would miss the point, and put my camera away. By this time the woman, tangled up with five leads, had moved on, so I added that the moment had gone. This was all friendly enough, and he finished by saying: ‘another time, maybe’. Further on, another man was training a sheepdog. Why, in Morden, I wondered.

After a two hour congested drive we arrived at Eastern Nights where we had the usual excellent meal, Bangla, and Kingfisher. Elizabeth was heating up yesterday’s boeuf bourgignon for herself when we returned to her home.