Before the rain returned for the day, a walk round the garden this grey, finger nipping, morning revealed
a good selection of camellias in a range of pinks;
plenty of flourishing lichen;
many still flowering snowdrops;
fallen leaves supported by Angel’s Wings;
dancing daffodils;
sheltered cyclamen;
mossy logs;
some hellebore heads held high;
even a bee clinging to clematis Cirrhosa Freckles.
Soon after 2 p.m. when we drove to Walkford for niece Jane’s 40th birthday party at Shelly and Ron’s, essential headlights bejewelled golden droplets in waves thrown up by other vehicles splashing through the increasing puddles, still more swollen by the incessant deluge on our return three hours later. We enjoyed a range of sandwiches, quiches, and other plentiful snacks; and a birthday cake made by Shelly. We enjoyed catching up with the various family members. A variety of beers and wines was on offer. No further sustenance was required later.
I then wandered around the garden with my camera and photographed
The mimosa in the last picture was planted in the North Breeze garden by the last resident, who kindly gave us the benefit of its hanging over our back drive fence. These are the burgeoning blooms.
Lichen is snowballing in more than one sense of the word.
Seedpods and heads linger from last year; fallen twigs remind me of the clearing up that must be done.
Into which category should be placed this pelargonium and a similar one having bloomed continuously since last spring?
Finally, I offer the next four pages of ‘The Highwayman’ featuring Charles Keeping’s marvellous illustrations:
This evening we dined on succulent roast lamb and mint sauce; crisp roast potatoes and parsnips; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Azinhaga de Ouro Reserva 2019.
Beneath oppressively leaden skies on an unseasonably warm morning we carried out some tidying of the garden.
Enjoying the sounds of gentle birdsong in the trees; raucous geese honking overhead, and the
clinking and scraping of Jackie’s tools as she trimmed the grass and weeded brickwork, I concentrated on sweeping fallen beach leaves and dead heading in the rose garden and elsewhere.
The bonus of the weather conditions was the diffused light in which to photograph
Summer Wine (too high to reach with secateurs); crisp, pink, Just Joey; constantly blooming white Winchester Cathedral; and the seemingly everlasting Crown Princess Margareta.
In the early morning chill I girded my loins with a thick cotton dressing gown and stepped into the garden to photograph the pink-streaked dawn.
Keen arboriculturists may be interested in the sylvan skeletons of copper beech, larch, weeping birch, and lopped bay tree.
Our great-niece, Ella, was two years old in January. She and her parents have been unable to visit since before Christmas. We haven’t heard her form clear sentences. Danni texted me this morning to say that her daughter has been shouting out of the window: “Where has Uncle Derrick gone?”
My late son, Michael, was not much older when I had to try to answer his question: “Why did my Mummy die?”. So my feelings prompted by the very welcome text were somewhat ambivalent. It was very pleasing to know that Ella, who will be able to visit at the end of the month, could remember and missed us, yet that memory of Michael, who would never see Vivien again, has always been most poignant.
For much of the day Jackie occupied herself trimming dead material from plants with which she filled a succession of trugs. I operated a relay service transporting the contents to the compost bins and returning the containers to the Head Gardener for refills.
Of course I did not undertake my Under Gardener duties without carrying my camera. Featured here are euphorbia, mahonia, leucojum Spring Snowflakes, primulas, pulmonaria, tulips, daffodils, camellias, hellebores, hyacinths, cyclamen, and viburnum bodnantensis Dawn. The first camellia shrub shows blooms browned by an earlier frost.
I was calm and contented when I produced the Dawn skies gallery. That was before WordPress had chosen to apply another simplifying process to operate from the sidebar. Until I got my head around this system to construct the plants gallery culminating in another Dawn, it was only reasonable to inform Jackie that it wasn’t her I was shouting at.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s flavoursome savoury rice served with plentiful green salad and three prawn preparations, namely tempura, hot and spicy, and salt and pepper. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2020.
Early this morning, Jackie photographed the first welcoming dawn we have experienced for a while.
The sunshine lived up to its promise as I wandered around photographing clumps of cheerful snowdrops; bunches of daffodils including tete-a-tetes; bright cyclamen; a variety of abundant hellebores which retained raindrops; and prolific shrubs such as camellias and viburnum. To make room for these images I have begun thinning out some 35,000 photographs in my Mac photo collection.
While I was enjoying myself drafting this post Jackie worked to unblock the shower drain. This afternoon we visited Streets in Brockenhurst to buy cleaning materials, and returned by a slightly circuitous route.
Much of the forest, like this area near Woodfidley, is still waterlogged. Reflective pools bear fallen trees. Still-standing oaks dip mossy toes into clear, still, surface water.
We stopped again at East End to photograph a pony busy trimming a prickly hedge.
Across the road two somewhat battle-scarred bays stood beside East Boldre allotments land. A notice informed visitors that the ponies inside were meant to be there and asked that they should not be fed. Was this, I wondered, a method of cutting out the compost middle man?
This evening we dined on Jackie’s classic cottage pie served with tasty gravy; flavoursome broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and carrots. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Barossa Valley Shiraz 2017.
On another gloomy wet morning Jackie photographed a selection of our current garden blooms, some decorated with pearls of rainwater.
Here we have sarcocca Hoskeriana, cyclamen, daffodil, iris reticulata Katharine Hodgkin, snowdrops, hellebore, camellia, daphne odorata marginata, and crocus.
Barry, of New Forest Chimney Sweeping & Repairs, then visited to extend the
downpipe across the kitchen extension roof to the guttering.
With our friend reflected in the Velux window he and I enjoyed a very pleasant conversation.
Five chapters further on in ‘Little Dorrit’ prompts a scan of five more of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to this novel of Charles Dickens.
‘Mr Pancks requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle’ of the street pump, which were common sources of water for residents in the mid-nineteenth century. https://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/work.php?id=15-78-80 carries a long entry on “The Broad Street Pump: An episode in the cholera epidemic of 1854”.
in ‘My dear soul, you are my only comfort’, we recognise the earlier profile of the magnificent Mrs Merdle.
‘The three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles’ are somewhat less than delightful.
The jubilation of ‘The Collegians cheered him very heartily’ has the artist throwing his hats through the text.
‘The little procession moved slowly through the gate’ demanded the span of a two page spread. No doubt readers will recognise earlier acquaintances.
On another gloomy and cold morning we ventured out into the forest trusting that the nearer we arrived at midday the brighter the light may become. If anything there was more darkness at noon.
We stopped at Setley Ridge Garden Centre which Jackie, masked up, entered and bought some Christmas presents while I focussed on the displays outside, in the doorways, and through the window.
Afterwards Jackie tucked the Modus onto a verge in Church Lane while I
photographed the fast moving bubbling, rippling, stream with its arboreal reflections.
The old quarry lake at Pilley was once more full enough to provide a still canvas for artistic reflections.
No-one had plucked mistletoe from a fallen tree. I guess there is not much call for it in 2020.
A trio of donkeys spilled over the road at Jordans Lane.
Jackie photographed a driver’s eye view.
Our starter for this evening’s dinner was Jackie’s chicken, bacon, and vegetable stoup. The main course was her succulent shepherd’s pie topped with crisp croquette potatoes; served with firm Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli; and meaty gravy. Dessert was apple and gooseberry crumble and custard. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Merlot.
This morning I was lulled into enough of a false sense of security to imagine that, although the heavy winds that have beset us during the last two days and the rain had desisted, the storm may be over.
The late or very early blooming gladiolus, bowed but not broken, rested on Delta’s Sarah fuchsia now basking in sunshine.
Other fuchsias, such as Mrs Popple, Hawkshead, and Army Nurse continue to thrive.
As I wandered around in the glinting sunlight which licked the eucalyptus stems, the grasses and cordyline Australis, and the lingering beech leaves, I grew in confidence of an unexpectedly fine day. Madame Alfred Carriere shared the entrance to the Rose Garden with Summer Wine hips, while Paul’s Scarlet still soared above the wisteria arbour. The house formed a bright backdrop to the view from the red carpet rose in the Rose Garden.
The fallen pot and trug were easily righted, which is more than could be said for Aaron’s truck which had broken down as he tried to leave yesterday. After an hour he sought our blessing to leave it where it was, which of course we gave.
After lunch, in the blink of an eye, the rain returned.
A few more minutes’ respite was soon granted, after which the wind and rain continued to do their worst to blow our house down.
For tonight’s dinner Jackie produced a delicious beef and mushroom pie with boiled potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and runner beans. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the La Repasse.
On our visit to Mum at Woodpeckers Care Home this morning she may have had difficulty remembering what she was meant to be doing this week, but her reminiscing was pretty sharp. It was sometime in the 1980s that I ran The Paris Marathon and she hadn’t been there but she told us all about it. Even more detailed was her description of how her father earned his life-saving certificate in Manchester in the 1930s. He had been in the process of shaving when my uncle Ben rushed in to tell my Grandpa that three girls had fallen into the deep water in the disused marl pit. George Hunter, one cheek still lathered, dropped everything and ran up the hill to the pit. One girl was lost; one another man failed to resuscitate; the third was saved by my grandfather.
On the way to Friars Cliff Jackie parked in Lake Grove Road so I could wander round the lake that lies beside the B3058 along which the man in the last picture in the gallery was walking into New Milton. Two different groups kept their distances beside the water and a young woman pushed a buggy in their direction. Mallards paddled; two-tone trees and silhouetted bridges reflected; pebbles glistened in the water; cyclamen clustered among the dappled woodland.
Pannage pigs crossed the road at Ibsley;
some enjoyed a reflective paddle;
two busied themselves scratching against low wooden posts.
Despite doubtful clouds the rain desisted.
At Hockey’s Jackie photographed samples of autumn produce being sold in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.
As readers will know, ponies have the right of the way in New Forest roads like this on on the way up to Gorley Common.
Any vehicles approaching another on an uphill climb where passing is not possible without backing up or finding a place on the verges has the right of way anywhere.
This was ignored by a van driver who descended the hill at a rapid rate forcing Jackie to reverse a considerable distance. When we encountered him later swinging round a bend far too fast in our direction in another part of Gorley we expressed the vengeful wish that he was late and hopelessly lost.
An autumnal scene with horses and another silhouetted equine pair compensated for the actions of the bully.
‘Little Thatch’ at Hyde has some time recently been gutted by fire.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s scrumptious chicken stoup and toast, followed by rhubarb and ginger ice cream.
