Yesterday Jackie put in more work perfecting the Rose Garden clearance. The path leading to the white seat had been weeded by Flo.
When she noticed the bag of recycling material outside our front door ripped open this morning with its contents distributed round the garden, Jackie wondered what had done this. After she cleared it up and stepped out the back the answer became clear.
Badgers had returned. The Waterboy arrangement, the corner pots on the patio edge of the Pond Bed, and the stumpery had been wrecked. Before I photographed the damage The Head Gardener had righted the second two sites although she had missed the ornamental mouse trampled into the patio gravel, and the earth was still strewn across the Brick Path. In the process Jackie had disturbed a wasp’s nest, one resident of which stung her.
Later in the morning Dillon, straight off the plane, arrived with Flo and Becky who had collected him on arrival soon after 7.00 a.m. None of the three had slept during the night, so the young couple went straight to bed and Becky rested on our sofa for a while before setting off back to Southbourne. She later texted to let us know she had arrived home safely.
I scanned 14 of our granddaughter’s colourful drawings before Jackie and I lunched at
The Rising Sun. The allegedly Light Bites we enjoyed were
a Ploughman’s Lunch for me and tuna salad for Mrs Knight.
The photograph of the pub above was taken from the cracked and hoof-pitted-concrete-moulded terrain of Wootton Common opposite.
The extra large photograph albums I ordered for the wedding photographs arrived this morning.
New Forest Cycling Club had gathered by the stream at Wootton Car Park. As we arrived they trooped off down the road
and left the increasingly shallow shingle bed to other visitors.
This evening we dined on Red Chilli’s excellent takeaway fare with which Jackie and Dillon drank Hoegaarden, Flo drank water, and I drank Chassaux Rasteau 2019.