Compassion – Page 2 – derrickjknight

There’s Some Corner Of An English Churchyard

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Over breakfast this morning, I photographed two more angles of view through the kitchen window;

and afterwards, The Rose Garden.

We have many banks of aquilegias.

Compassion blooms on the Dead End Path arch,

And we have our first bottle brush flower.

A Painted Lady butterfly availed itself of the gravel camouflage.

This afternoon we visited St Nicholas’s church in Brockenhurst. Jackie and Sheila led the way into the exhibition inside;

Jackie pausing to inspect the eighteenth century gravestones.

I wandered around the beautiful landscaped graveyard, where light glinted through trees and the ground fell away allowing the monuments to ramble down the hillside.

After my following exploration, I joined the ladies inside where a couple of volunteers within were giving them an explanatory history of the World War One burials in the churchyard.

They told Jackie that this yew tree dated from the twelfth century.

This sculptured stump must also have been a substantial giant.

Past the tree I came to a set of steps and a path leading down to level ground.

Flashes of red against clean, cream background suggested I was approaching the memorial symbolised by the sculpture at the entrance to the church. This was a brilliant fern cut out from weathered metal, familiar to anyone familiar with an All Blacks rugby jersey. The brilliance lay in the figures silhouetted in the work. I crouched a bit to ensure that the background grass made this clear.

Indeed, I had. Ninety three members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force soldiers from World War One lie buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery attached to this church.

The farming village of Brockenhurst soon became a World War 1 hospital village, from 1914 caring for wounded and sick Indian troops, and from 1916 the No. 1 HQ New Zealand hospital. Those who died therein were buried in this churchyard.

Of the 93 New Zealanders, 12 were Maoris, only one of whom died from wounds. This was Private Kiri Rapona. Clare Church’s book, which I bought, gives this young man five more years of life than does this gravestone. One other drowned and the rest succumbed to illness.

One Indian is Sukha.

There are also three unknown Belgian civilians who share a plot.

These plots are very well tended and maintained by New Zealanders in UK.

Of the three hospitals from those years, the only one still standing is now the Balmer Lawn Hotel, which keeps its own living lawnmowers.

The very friendly couple who were very informative about the church and this particular section of its history, pointed out the Victorian stained glass in the twelfth century stonework of the windows.

This evening Jackie produced succulent chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potato, and crisp carrots and runner beans for our dinner. Sheila’s dessert was rice pudding, and Jackie’s profiteroles. As I had consumed two pieces of chicken I passed on this. But I did drink more of the Fleurie. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and Sheila, sparkling water.

It was Rupert Brooke, an Englishman who did die in 1915, who is immortalised by his own verse: ‘And if I should die, think only this of me, that there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. I have adapted his words for today’s title.

Around Our Patch

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Yesterday, I took a tour around my Social Work patch from the 1970s and ’80s. Today I took several around the domestic one I share with The Head Gardener.

I began by stepping through the kitchen door into the patio. The large window box filled with mimuluses and pansies stands in earth which was so poor that we believed it to have been used as a midden in more recent times than one would imagine. Jackie did a very thorough job of getting rid of the rubbish and replenishing the soil under and around the planters. The plentiful erigeron plants have populated the rest of the garden. Between one clump and the window box can be seen flowers of one of the two thriving thyme plants I transplanted from the blue painted Butler sinks in our first year. The wall by the path to the right is crammed with an assortment of planters.

This little patio rose has responded to feeding,

as has this peach coloured beauty.

There were just two blooms on straggly stems when we arrived. They will soon be cascading from stronger limbs.

We have a new rhododendron in the Palm Bed.

Passing this on the way to the Rose Garden,

where Altissimo stands sentinel,

I was reminded of a visit to a perfumer in Bergerac. This was with Emily and Alice a few years ago. They spent ages choosing a present for their mother, Heidi. The scents were most enticing. But they couldn’t match those emanating from our living blooms.

Petunias and geraniums in the foreground urn lead us to the entrance arch bearing Summer Wine, Madame Alfred Carière, and honeysuckle;

Chris Beardshaw introduces Festive Jewel;

and Magic Carpet is beginning to fulfil its function.

Even these wonderful aromas, however, are not as far-reaching as the sweet, heady, scent of the Cordyline Australis. Anything smelling less like a cabbage, (it is also called Cabbage Tree) I cannot imagine.

One of Jackie’s major tasks today was further planting of Elizabeth’s Bed. She can be seen in the centre here working on this.

I have mentioned before that geranium palmatum has taken over from honesty in its ubiquity. It can be seen dancing in synchronicity with

clematis Rouge Cardinal and rhododendron;

with rose Compassion;

with clematis Natacha;

and with foxgloves.

Lazy bees were about this afternoon. This one dusted its rear in an antirrhinum.

The pieris I brought in a pot from Sutherland Place is thriving in the centre distance of this bed, that also contains heuchera, marguerites, geraniums, bronze fennel, and, further right, out of shot,

iberis.

We have a solanum under the dead snake bark maple,

and Félicité Perpetué is now opening in the front garden.

This evening we dined on pork rib rack and vegetable risotto followed by profiteroles. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2014.

Fair Comment

Becky is producing a power-point training presentation for Mitcham’s Commonside Trust. Trawling through the web for suitable images she found one that was ideal for the point she wished to make. She was unaware of the picture’s provenance. Upon attempting to use it, she found it too large for her purposes. She returned to find out whether she could make it smaller. This time she discovered the credit. The photograph was from one of my posts.

Wondering what were the odds, she has sent me the relevant page from the presentation. The image of the little church fete was my picture. The quality of Becky’s production is clear from her captions.

I have been unable to access the internet on my PC for a couple of days. This is because the icon came up in my taskbar, but I couldn’t move it to the screen. I rang Hewlett Packard this morning and discovered that I had managed to press two keys, so far apart as to make that a very difficult achievement, simultaneously. This informed my computer that it was possessed of two screens, so the internet page wandered off to a non-existent one. With the problem solved, I had 325 e-mails to deal with. Needless to say, that task was not fully completed.

Before phoning technical support, I had hoed, raked, and trimmed encroaching ground cover plants from three gravel paths. I then walked to the post box. The farmer has now harvested his rape crop, so I was able to walk across the field and down to the stream, which was now looking rather dried up, and back.

Recently, Jackie heavily pruned a lilac that was growing over the pergola path. This afternoon, with my usual kit of fork, spade, and axe, I eradicated the residue, sometimes tracking trailing roots some way across the bed.

In the front garden the minute flowers of the prolific rambling clematis, Campaniflora dances among the Japanese anemones and everything else within reach of its tentacles.

Special Anniversary is being celebrated in the rose garden,

and Compassion soars above the giant thistle and over the Dead End Path.

This evening we dined on gammon steak, lamb’s liver, carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, all done to perfection. Equally perfectly, I microwaved the Tesco’s syrup sponge puddings, onto which we spooned thick double cream. I drank more of the Teroldego Rotaliano, and Jackie enjoyed her Hoegaarden.

I Was Transfixed

Ace Reclamation delivered our rose garden furniture this morning, and Jackie and I set it up.

Rose Alan Titchmarsh has bloomed.

Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE, DL, (b. 2.5.49) , was the subject of quite a bit of banter on yesterday’s post, but, in all seriousness, if anyone deserves to have a rose named after him it is this well known garden expert. An English gardener, broadcaster, and novelist after working as a professional gardener and a gardening journalist, he has established himself as a media personality through appearances on TV gardening programmes, the current one being ‘Love Your Garden’. In this series, members of the public who have been nominated by others for his garden makeover are the recipients of an instant, themed, creation.

Elsewhere in the garden many scented roses, like Compassion are well into their second flowering.

Here is a view of the Shady Path across the Dragon’s Bed:

Elizabeth visited briefly for lunch.

This afternoon Aaron finished his paving, by carefully inserting fiddly bits he had cut out with an angle grinder. Along the eastern fence lies old timber and spikes for him to build a support for climbers on that side. The lighter wood just visible is our old stair rail. The view is from the bench.

Others are from the entrance; from the rose arch; from Elizabeth’s bed; and from the second armchair.

Whilst digging a hole for a rose, quite some way down, Jackie unearthed another historic coin of the realm. What’s historic about a 1983 £1? If thirty two years doesn’t seem a particularly long time ago, you may well ask.

When was the first £1 coin issued? You’ve guessed it. Jackie may well have dug up one of the very first minted. It bears a young head of the current Queen, Elizabeth II, and has clearly not benefited from perhaps more than three decades underground. When this piece was shiny and new in April 1983 it would have bought a packet of 20 cigarettes, five pints of milk or 30 minutes at a Manchester United match. Today you pay closer to £8 for the fags, £2.50 for the milk and see only three minutes of the football. But some things are cheaper: while £1 would only get you four minutes on a landline phone call at peak time in 1983, today it would give you at least 10 minutes.

Kept in a soil, gravel, and clay safe, its value has not really been enhanced.

Throughout my first 41 years £1 sterling was paper money. It wasn’t even the lowest denomination note. Until decimalisation in 1971, that was ten shillings or 50% of £1. These notes both feature in ‘Then The Tableau Spoke’. I found two at different times before about 1952. It was then worth taking one to the police station and handing them in as found property. If such items were unclaimed after one month, they were yours. I recovered each one.

Nowadays, I doubt whether anyone would consider £5 to be worth going to that trouble. Our current £5 note is a pathetic little scrap in comparison with the “White Fiver” of my first fifteen years. The 1793 design, with black printing on white paper, remained in circulation essentially unchanged until 21 February 1957, when the multicoloured notes were first introduced. You could still use the old note until it was withdrawn on 13 March 1961.

When I was about seven, I found myself in a shop, probably queueing. I really don’t know what the establishment was, or who was with me. But I can still see the large, thin, sheet of printed paper measuring, I now know, 211mm x 133mm, brandished by a gentleman. ‘Know what that is, boy?’ he asked. The question was rhetorical. He quickly followed up with the answer. ‘A £5 note’. So transfixed was I by that object that I have no idea what the man looked like. I’d never heard of such a sum, and never saw another “White Fiver”.

This evening I watched the highlights of the second day of the Edgbaston Ashes Test. England completed their first innings with a lead of 145. Australia followed this with 168 for 7. In other words, a five day match was virtually over in two days.

Our dinner consisted of chicken Kiev, chips, and baked beans. I know, It sounds dicey, but it was delicious, especially with the Georges du Beuf beujolais 3 villages 2013 Danni and Andy gave me for my birthday. Jackie, of course, drank Hoegaarden.

P.S. After posting this, we watched a TV adaptation of Agatha Christie’s ‘A Secret Adversary’, starring Jessica Raine and David Walliams. Very early on, Jessica Raine’s character had her mouth stuffed with screwed up flimsy paper I instantly recognised as a “White Fiver”.