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Pauline, The Contented Crafter, recently expressed an interest in seeing a photograph showing the whole length of the garden and the house. Well, this may have been possible were it not for the foliage in between. Nevertheless, I did my best to comply.
I managed to cross the road at the front of the house without either dying in a road accident or falling in the ditch on the other side.
There was no room for the corner facing the trellis in that view of the building.
I aimed in the direction of the house from as far south as was possible, beginning with the Weeping Birch Bed;
the Brick Path was next;
then the Back Drive barrier;
the Oval Path;
and the Rose Garden.
Well, at least they show glimpses of the back of the house.
Here are a couple of sightings of the roof, one from the Back Drive,
and another from the compost heaps.
Here are some aerial views from the bedroom and bathroom windows.
This one features Jackie watering, on which she spent much time. To the right of the fence is the North Breeze jungle.
Here are today’s dahlia
and some white sweet peas.
Normally Aaron takes his clippings to the dump at no extra charge. Yesterday Jackie insisted that he left them for us to deal with. The orange bags in this picture were already destined for the Effort Recycling Centre. The heaps in the foreground filled them up again after we had completed our first trip. We needed to chop them up a bit more to fit them in. We then made a second journey.
I was only a couple of days ago that Jackie was announcing that she had come away empty handed from our last few trips to Efford. That run was to be interrupted today with these two tables. The metal, glass-topped, one was for the greenhouse to be delivered tomorrow, so she may be forgiven.
We had then earned a break, so we took a trip into the forest.
Seeking shade under trees in Sandy Down a little donkey was given similar masked protection from the pesky flies to that afforded to its larger equine cousin.
Our chosen approach to Brockenhurst was somewhat congested with ponies and their foals. Can you count how many?
Eventually we found ourselves at Patrick’s Patch in Beaulieu.
This community garden has its own wildflower meadow;
colour coordinated marigolds and nasturtiums;
echinaceas in the form of shuttlecocks;
splendid Swiss chard;
a variety of sweet peas;
russet sunflowers;
and a carved rabbit.
An admirably creative collection of scarecrows are distributed throughout. This one is a revolving balloon;
and this one, having a rest from watering, has a gourd for his head.
This evening we dined at The Monkey House just outside Lymington. The service was excellent, friendly, and unobtrusive; the food excellent. We both enjoyed gammon steaks for main courses. My starter was whitebait, Jackie’s brie in breadcrumbs; my dessert Eton mess, Jackie’s crème brûlée. I drank a very good pinot noir and Jackie drank Amstel.