Crown Princess Margareta – Page 3

The Great Escape

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With the return of the sunshine I carried out a little more tidying in the garden, especially dead-heading of roses, including

Absolutely Fabulous,

Crown Princess Margareta,

and a pink climber recovered by Elizabeth.

This wisteria occupied the Kitchen Bed when we arrived three years ago. Despite the Head Gardener’s best efforts it has never flowered.

The Chilean lantern bush, on the other hand, is once more producing blooms;

and new shoots are emerging on the pieris on the grass patch.

Although the agapanthuses took such a battering from the recent storms that they wound up in a vase indoors, some still line the Gazebo Path.

Little blue lobelias peep out from beneath rich red snapdragons and geraniums the Back Drive barrier,

while their taller relatives named Queen Victoria tower in the Oval Bed.

We have a number of ginger lilies.

The warmth of the sun brought out numerous insects. Hummingbird moths hovered among the pink phlox. I needed many unsuccessful attempts to acquire this less than wonderful image of a constantly flapping creature I think is new to our country.

Verbena bonarensis blooms attracted both stable, lightweight, Red Admirals

and bees that teetered somewhat.

Bees also plundered salvias,

bidens,

and geranium palmatums.

I could not identify some tiny creatures like this one on a cosmos,

or this one cleverly camouflaged by bronze fennel.

A fly was attracted by the ensemble of white sweet peas and gladioli.

Rudbeckia snaked from bed to bed in this picture for which I must apologise to the Head Gardener because I did not remove the fallen branch before making it.

This spider was in for a disappointment.

I could almost hear it licking its chops as it prepared its larder for the wasp that seemed ensnared by its web line.

The tiny spider perfected the trap as its larger prey frantically twisted, turned, and span in its efforts to escape being drawn in.

Eventually the prospective dinner hauled itself to safety, and sped off, leaving the hungry spider to creep into hiding and lurk in wait for another victim.

This evening Jackie produced an excellent dinner of chicken Kiev, savoury rice, tasty ratatouille, and crisp runner beans. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Bordeaux.

Winter Quarters

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Fibre optic broadband installation takes place in the exchange, and we cannot obtain a projected time for the work. It could be as late as midnight. James Peacock will therefore bring the router tomorrow morning. So the uploading struggles continue today.

Today’s fresh blooms in the rose garden are those of Crown Princess Margareta; and the honeysuckle on the entrance arch is under the reasonable impression that Spring has arrived.

This afternoon we visited Dials on the bottom corner of Quay Street, Lymington, to buy a Christmas present;

then walked down to the quayside. A friendly young fisherman I have featured both in Lymington and in Mudeford, was steering his little boat into dock. I wonder if his

and this one are kinds of coracle.

My young friend explained that he spends the period from the winter months to Easter at Lymington, because this calmer harbour is much safer than the other, which is exposed to the open sea. Crab pots, ropes, and buoys are neatly piled on the quay.

There was no other activity on the water with its forest of masts,

except for that of mallards and gulls ignoring the signs forbidding diving and mooring.

This evening we enjoyed a second helping of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s delicious food. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I chose Doom Bar.

The Never Ending Summer

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This morning, Aaron and Sean finished their tree work. Our friend, of AP Maintenance, demonstrated that he has entered into the spirit of photography when he suggested I might make an action image of him felling a branch. I took two pictures which I cannot yet produce here. The reason for this inability is that six of the exposures I made today have been uploaded in CR2 format, which is not one of those accepted by WordPress. This is a mystery, because they were taken with the same camera in the same session as all the rest I here publish.

I had imagined that I would simply focus on clematises,

but there were so many other blooms, like roses pink Compassion, white Winchester Cathedral, golden Crown Princess Margareta, and another pink unidentified one.

Views like these across the Phantom Path and of the Dragon Bed still contain blooms. High up, left off centre in the first can be seen the Compassion rose; petunias and geraniums are included in both images.

Other flowers, such as white solanums, red snapdragons, yellow and red nasturtiums, pink geraniums, purple fuchsias, and pink phlox, are surprisingly long-lived occupants.

Some of the earlier dahlias have bloomed for months.

It really seems a never ending summer.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious pork paprika and wild rice, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.

Graffiti Dominates

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This morning I dead-headed 24 prolific rose bushes. That was quite a lot of faded blooms. All my life I have understood the preferred method to be to snip off the used stem above the next join. Now, The Head Gardener informs me that current thinking is to break off the spent flower at its base, and leave it at that. Despite the convenient length of my thumbnails, I have had difficulty in doing this without peeling off a bit of the remaining stem. I have therefore cheated somewhat with secateurs.

The thornless Zéphirine Drouhin is now rising up the Rose Garden arbour

opposite Crown Princess Margareta. Being seated between these two most fragrant ladies is a pleasure, indeed.

I did not neglect the front garden, where a clematis is now joining the pink climbing roses.

After this I dealt with some financial correspondence and posted my replies.

Then came a scanning session of a dozen more of my Streets of London colour slides from May 2004.

The grey haired man in Harlesden High Street has to negotiate his way between the ladder outside the boutique and the young man’s backpack. You don’t leave anything unattended in such an area without chaining it down. It was fairly optimistic hoping that the traffic cone would keep a parking space open. Note the graffiti and the To Let board, of which there is always a wide selection.

Honeywood Road’s Dunning’s Bar is not the only Irish establishment we will encounter on this ramble. Maybe some of my readers will be able to translate the Guinness advertisement. If there was once a lovely wood on this site, it is long gone. ‘Toilets are for patrons only’ is a common plea of landlords.

Tubbs Road has its share of graffiti and dumped rubbish. Even before we learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction ready to be unleashed on the Western world within 45 minutes, there were many disinclined to believe Mr Blair; and I suppose Che Guavara’s image will never leave our streets.

Just around the corner is Willesden Junction Station, Station Approach road. There is something incongruous about an advertisement for The Economist perched upon a wall covered in graffiti. The name of the company, JCDecaux, who installed it has remained intact. Perhaps the can-wielding scribblers thought that was also a graffito.

At that time Pancras Road was very difficult for anyone, let alone a pedestrian, to negotiate. The splendid refurbishment of St Pancras Station and the King’s Cross redevelopment was well under way.

A little further into N1 we come to Highbury Station Road, its wall being decorated with the now familiar sprayed scrawl. The Barracuda Pub’s Cock may have been Famous, but Google tells us that the chain is no more.

I often wonder how graffiti merchants manage to place their messages high up on buildings, but here, in Highbury Place, a convenient fire escape provides a route. Torn posters are all the rage. Chaining bicycles to railings really is asking for trouble.

I do hope this was refuse collection day in Islington’s Fieldway Crescent.

Columbian and Chinese establishments in Holloway Road indicate the multicultural nature of this area of North London. Remington on the corner of George’s Road bears the yellow graffiti.

Tommy Flynn’s in Chillingworth Road is another Irish pub.

I do believe Arsenal must have won the football championship in 2004. Madras Place, of course, is one both the many London streets named from our colonial past.

These establishments on Drayton Park have not escaped the spray can. There is always a crane in operation somewhere in our capital.

This evening I dined on Jackie’s amazing chicken jalfrezi and egg fried rice, and drank Doom Bar.

A Bee And Three Flies

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Early this morning, we drove Sheila to Brockenhurst for her return home. Apart from Jackie’s planting , and my occasional wander round the garden on this overcast day, we spent it flopping.

We have blooming clematises

Niobe and Arabella on the kitchen wall;

Comtesse de Bouchaud sporting a fennel veil;

Durandii, making its way above geranium palmatums playing host to a bee in the rose garden;

Margaret Hunt;

and this one Jackie recovered after finding that a creature had burrowed underneath it. We had wondered why it wasn’t doing anything.

The recently flowering rhododendron blends well with the Clematis Star of India, the ubiquitous geranium palmatums, and poppies against Jackie in the background.