cyclamen – Page 3 – derrickjknight

The Earliest Corms

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This afternoon Jackie drove me to New Hall Hospital for a physiotherapy session with Claire. This was encouraging. She has no need to see me again.

On our return home we turned off the main road to investigate where a bridge over the River Avon would take us. We were intrigued by a castellated tower we saw in the distance. Was it a castle or a church? Naturally we needed to seek it out.

This was the Church of All Saints at Harbridge,

a village on low meadow land to the west of the river between Ringwood and Fordingbridge. ‘The name Harbridge probably means “Hearda’s bridge”.^[3] In the Domesday Bookof 1086, Bernard the Chamberlain held Harbridge from the King. Before 1066 it had been held by Ulveva. Harbridge is a referred to as a manor by the early 15th century.^[1] In the early 19th century the manor passed to the Earl of Normanton, and like nearby Ibsley and Ellingham became part of his estate of Somerley.^[1]Harbridge was a civil parish until 1974, when the parish was amalgamated with the parishes of Ellingham and Ibsley.’ ‘The church of All Saints consisting of chancel, nave, and west tower, was rebuilt in 1838.^[1] The tower retains its 15th-century masonry, but it was raised in the 19th century reconstruction.^[4]‘(Wikipedia)

I wandered among the older gravestones, most of which were weather-worn and lichen-coated, rendering them indecipherable. Robert Robinson’s was the only name I could discern.

Tiny natural cyclamen were scattered among the graves. How many lifetimes could it be that the earliest corms had occupied this consecrated soil?

Elizabeth stayed overnight with Mum. Jackie and I dined at Lal Quilla. She chose chicken sag as her main meal, which she enjoyed, while I savoured lamb Ceylon. We shared special fried rice and an onion bahji; and both drank Kingfisher. The restaurant was quite busy, but we still received friendly service and excellent food.

The Big Beast Barrier

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Today, Jackie did a massive shop and I shifted a little more compost.

Fluttering about the garden is what I think is, despite its yellow colouring, an Orange tip butterfly which stubbornly refuses to stop and pose. Instead this one held a mask of Honesty.

This dwarf azalea is one that I brought from Sutherland Place when I left there in 2009. It had been part of the contents of a filled pot given to me when I stopped working with Parents for Children a couple of years earlier.

Most of our bluebells ring Spanish tunes. Here a clump separates a pair of heucheras.

These forget-me-nots have taken over one of the paths leading from the Rose Garden. We cannot bear to pull them up until they have flowered, so I guess we will continue to go the long way round to the orange shed.

Jackie’s new Big Beast Barrier has withstood the nocturnal marauder for at least one night. My original round peg has been staked in position and placed alongside one of the concrete blocks I dug out of this plot three years ago. The poles in the foreground are part of an obelisk which held up a clematis that appears to have died, having, according to Jackie, been subjected to the intruder’s urine. She is hoping to preserve the cyclamen from a similar fate.

Father Christmas left a bottle of Spice ‘n’ Easy fresh red chilli sauce in Jackie’s stocking. She found it a little too hot. She thought that sloshing a fair amount of it into tonight’s chilli con carne with savoury rice, might be a good way of eventually dispensing with it. I loved it. The Culinary Queen managed it. I drank Trivento Malbec reserva 2016. This could possibly have helped Jackie cool her meal, but she didn’t fancy it.

What’s Come Up

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Today, I wandered around the garden contemplating spring clearing, and investigating what’s come up.

There are many different primulas;

borage;

pulmonaria;

snowdrops

and hellebores galore;

daffodils such as February Gold and Têtes-à-Têtes;

crocuses;

irises;

and cyclamen.

Views across the garden reveal most of these plants, and what needs to be done. Here we stand on the Brick Path to the left of the Heligan one.

The Phantom Path runs alongside Margery’s Bed.

This is the Palm Bed;

and this the Heligan Path winding between the Cryptomeria and Weeping Birch Beds.

This afternoon Jackie lopped the branches off the Christmas tree and filled an orange bag with those and the campaniflora clematis cuttings.

Roast lamb served with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, crunchy carrots, cauliflower and green beans was Jackie’s meal this evening. I had some, too. This was followed by lemon meringue pie and cream. I drank Vacqueras cru des Côtes du Rhône 2015.

Silhouettes

It is not that unusual for readers seeking contacts or history to stumble across this blog and, through comments, to ask me for information. Yesterday there were two. One man sought a contact with Trinity (Battersea) now Trinity (Oxley) Cricket Club. I, and two others responded. A second person, a woman, wondered whether Jackie’s sister, Helen, was someone she had trained with in the 1960s. I put them in touch with each other. Such is the power of WordPress.

Today, definitely presaging Spring, was even sunnier, and warmer, than yesterday.

Here are some of the garden flowers I did not pick yesterday:

We have pretty pansies,

a vast variety of head-hanging hellebores,

several flourishing viburnums,

precocious primulas, some a little nibbled,

different camellias,

and cerise cyclamens among others.

At midday we drove to Efford Recycling Centre to dump some of our rubbish, and

as usual departed with purchases from the Sales Area, namely a charger, some toddler toys and rolls of mats for the garden shed.

We then came back to Otter Nurseries where we enjoyed mushroom soup and rolls with the discount vouchers. After this we went driveabout.

The light was so clear over the Solent that we had the sharpest view of the flanks of the Isle of Wight, The Needles, and the lighthouse, a mile and a quarter away.

Walkers were silhouetted on Hordle West Cliff Top.

Driving along Angel Lane we gatecrashed a pheasant hen party.

Back at home, shortly before sunset, sand-clouds gathered over Christchurch Road. This time buildings, shrubs, and trees provided the silhouettes.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chicken tikka biriani; vegetable pakoras and samosas; salad; and delicious cauliflower bhaji that would have graced any Indian kitchen. The cook drank Hoegaarden and the satisfied customer drank Kingfisher.

Spring According To Susan Hill

This morning I ambled gingerly down to the Shorefield post box and back. My right knee remains sharply painful. Perhaps I am stuck with it. A few sturdy daffodils, such as this one alongside snowdrops, cyclamen, hellebores, and pulmonaria in the shady bed, swayed bravely in the strong breeze blowing through our garden. Our several varieties of camellia shrubs are now quite full of blooms. Primulas and celandines adorned the hedgerows on Downton Lane. Stick-insect-like Lichen clinging to budding branches, and golden gorse glowed above them. Susan Hill’s ‘yellow season’ is arriving.

At the other end of the day heavy rainclouds over the garden were given a peachy tinge by the setting sun. I was showered by peach juice whilst shooting the scene.

I am becoming addicted to antiques programmes on daytime TV. Is this the thin end of the wedge?

This evening’s dinner was Jackie’s flavoursome cottage pie with crisp cabbage and carrots, followed by custard tart. She drank Hoegaarden and I imbibed Chateau Clos Renon Bordeaux superieur 2012.

The Garden Wakes

This morning I continued work on clearing the front garden. This involved digging up more brambles and beginning to reveal the rest of the gravel path. Hellebores and snowdrops have also come into view.

During the trips up and down to the back drive compost and combustible collections, I enjoyed noticing additions to our spring floral display. We have the ubiquitous hellebores, the drifts of snowdrops, the clusters of cyclamen, and camellias in abundance.

Pollen is already being collected from crocuses, and the initially pink flowers of the hairy-stemmed pulmonaria have turned their rose-tinted deep blue.

The stone head gardener’s path, which did not exist last year, enjoyed the intermittent sunshine, and even some of the hellebores have lifted their faces towards its warm rays.

This afternoon we took a heap of scrap metal from the garden to the Efford Recycling Centre. Some time ago our plastic mop bucket shattered into splintered shards. In keeping with the family tradition of never returning from the municipal dump with an empty boot , therefore, Jackie bought a galvanised replacement for £2.

In deciding to obtain this evening’s fish and chips from the old fashioned Mr. Pink’s shop in Milford on Sea, Jackie discovered quite the best outlet in the area. The crisp, non greasy, batter covering the fresh haddock, and the glorious golden chips were as flavoursome as they were attractive to the eye. The portions were generous, and the meals were cooked before my lady’s very eyes. We provided our own obligatory mushy peas and pickled onions, and both drank Isla Negra sauvignon blanc 2014.

A Battle-Scarred Red Admiral

Had I had no success with the computer problems that beset me this morning, you would not be reading this post, and I may have gone off my rocker. Yesterday afternoon I found I could not, it seemed, access the internet on my Windows 8 laptop. After much grappling, I realised that the internet pages, through Google Chrome, were automatically minimised and could not be enlarged, having been hidden in the bar at the bottom of the screen. The Hewlett Packard phone help service was only available during the normal working week. On line support was not much use to me in the circumstances.

I usually rise rather early and spend an hour or so on the laptop. This was not possible today. Fortunately my head was clearer than it has been for two or three weeks. I was happily getting on with my iMac, when I received an alert advising me to replace the batteries in my wireless keyboard. I did so. It would not then connect to the computer. I kept swapping batteries around, to no avail.

It was good that Jackie got up early so we could have coffee together, because I couldn’t phone any help desks until 8 a.m. My first call was to Apple Care. They needed the serial number of my machine, which is accessed via ‘About this Mac’ on the screen. I couldn’t access this because I couldn’t type the password. I was getting a wee bit frazzled by then. A young woman called Sam managed, without the relevant number, to talk me through getting my keyboard and computer conversing with each other. This involved using the technique advocated by ‘The IT Crowd’, which is ‘turning it off and turning it on again’. Apparently I had been sending my Mac to sleep, rather that properly switching it off.

This didn’t take too long, and gave me confidence to telephone Hewlett Packard. A patient and helpful young man, eventually taking over my screen, spent an hour sorting out that issue. He thought ‘a bit of malware had got in there’. Never mind, we both learned something. I now know what a taff bar is, even if I can’t spell it; and my advisor knows what colons and semi-colons are. I can confidently state that a taff bar is not a watering hole for Welshmen, and perhaps my helper now knows that a semi-colon is not found in the human body.

The rest of the morning was sunny and mild. I took a wander around the garden to investigate what has been happening there whilst I have been holed up inside.

The whole plot was now carpeted with snowdrops that had just been poking through the soil three weeks ago.

A very large variety of hellebores hang their heads everywhere.

All the camellias, including some darker varieties than earlier were now sporting blooms.

Winter flowering plants such as cyclamens, pansies, and violas have thrived.

Ever since the first autumn fall, loosened leaves have fluttered in the wind, often initially taken for butterflies. Imagine my surprise when one careened past me and, settling on a gravel path, proved itself to be a very battle-scarred Red Admiral. The wings of this creature looked as if they had fed caterpillars once the nasturtiums had perished in the few days of frost.

So surprised was I that I looked up its life-span on Wikipedia, where I learned that it is possible for these members of the Lepidoptera to survive in the South of England during the period we have recently experienced.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s super sausage casserole (recipe), piquant cauliflower cheese (recipe), mashed potato, carrots and leaks. Sticky toffee pudding and custard was to follow. I finished the chianti and Jackie drank more of the zinfandel.

A Remarkable Year For Flora

Early this morning we kept a GP appointment in Milford on Sea. I was given a referral for my Dupuytren’s contracture. This photograph from the internet best shows the stage mine has reached. I know it looks unseemly, but it is awkward rather than painful. I cannot straighten the finger.
Afterwards, on this exceedingly mild day I took a stroll round the garden. Apart from the cyclamens, pansies and other flowers normally blooming at this time, we have mahonias, hellebores, roses, and bidens.
More camellias are budding, and even nasturtiums have survived. This really has been a remarkable year for flora.

A pig with a ring through its nose winked and smiled out of one of the multicoloured stumps on the back drive.
Paul and Margery came for a visit at midday and brought back unsold framed photographs from the Ruby exhibition. Our friend is pleased to have become a dab hand at the difficult task of leaving our front drive and emerging into Christchurch Road.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious lamb jafrezi (recipe) and savoury rice with egg custard to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I consumed a little more of the cabernet sauvignon.

The White Garden

Hunting through our house purchase documents for some clarity about responsibility for the huge amount of fencing in various stages of health that borders our property, I was unsuccessful in that, but I did discover the names of the houses in our little hamlet. We are one of four on our side of Downton Lane. In order, progressing along Christchurch Road towards that lane there stand Mistletoe Cottage, Old Post House, North Breeze (the empty bungalow), and Smallacres (now residential care). I will use the correct nomenclature in future. The sum total of my morning’s work on the back drive was the scalping (see yesterday) of just one tree stump. The fencing between us and Smallacres is in not much better condition than that we share with North Breeze. The hitherto unseen rear view of the residential establishment is now exposed. Much of our thick ivy stems and brambles grows through the flimsy wooden structure, so pulling and hoping for the best is out. Surgical skill is required to cut the growth from our side at the point of entry. This afternoon I made a bit more progress. Once I had cut off enough of the thick ivy branches cascading over the stumps, I pulled away the stems adhering to the dead wood. This would produce a shower of decidedly dry brown dust inducing a coughing fit that lingered over lunch. When I had had enough, I wandered over to Roger’s fields, and was most impressed with the work of the ploughman who had now produced acres of fine cross-hatching on what had been full of forage maize barely a week ago. As I walked along admiring the precision I noticed four tussocks lying on the land. They spoiled the man’s artistry so much that I felt inclined to remove them, but didn’t like to put my footprints on the soil. As the tractor hove into view, it was stopped alongside these blemishes. Out stepped Roger Cobb, who walked across and picked them up. This man is a perfectionist. We spoke for a while during which he told me of a forthcoming vintage ploughing match similar to the one I had photographed in Southwell twenty two years ago. I feel another set of pictures coming on. ‘I must get on’, said my informant, and took his tractor into the dusk, against the lowering skies. I was slightly puzzled, on this short trip, to notice that my camera battery needed charging rather sooner than I had anticipated. All became clear when Jackie informed me that she had been so impressed with all the white flowers still blooming in the garden that she had borrowed the Canon S100. Here is a selection of the photographs she took earlier:

Begonias

Smaller begonias

Alyssum

Erigeron

Cyclamen

Diasca

Pansy

Camomile

Gladiolus

Lobelia

Impatiens

Japanese anemone

Sweet pea.

Given how incensed some people become when supermarkets begin stacking their shelves for Christmas in August, I hesitate to repeat Jackie’s quip; when she served up a roast chicken dinner tonight, complete with homemade sage and onion stuffing, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and parsnips, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots and gravy, followed by profiteroles; that she was practising for that festive occasion. But she was only joking, and it was delicious. She drank Hoegaarden whilst I consumed more of the rioja.

Tony and Anne, Trevor and Jan

Clearance of the future rose garden continues apace. Yesterday Jackie uprooted several unproductive fruit bushes, and this morning I removed the last of the box hedges and a photinia that had been well rooted for a few years. This latter plant required the use of a grubber axe. It had to come out because it has the potential to grow into a huge tree. There is one in the jungle garden next door which is so high that we get the benefit of it.
After this, I took my now customary route on foot to Milford on Sea, taking a diversion through a nature reserve on the way back. Having passed through Shorefield, I met Mike, the postman, who confirmed that he was indeed more comfortable in the front garden next door, photographed yesterday. He was also very helpful about the problem I have been having with misdirected mail being delivered to The Old House, Lymington Road. This is yet another difficulty with MyBarclays, who hold my French bank account. They will only accept proof of address from my New Forest Council Tax bill. This gives our address as Lymington Road, rather than Christchurch Road. I am engaged in a frustrating exchange of e-mails with the bank. Until this is resolved, Mike suggested I might explain the problem to the residents of The Old House, which is not on his round, so they may readdress my statements.
The Solent is now calm enough for leisure yachting. People were walking babies in buggies, and sometimes frisky dogs on foot. From the cliff top Tony pointed out the Isle of Wight to his wife Anne. We conversed about my photograph and the general state of the cliffs. I have mentioned before, the superb view The Beach House has of the island and its lighthouse. Today I shot it through their mature conifers.
On the way back out of Milford on Sea there is a footpath on the right. I have speculated about where it might lead, but had not had the confidence to try it before. Today, however, I noticed Trevor enjoying a cigarette as he basked on a bench in the sunshine. Crossing a footbridge over a stream, I asked him where the path led. He directed me along it, telling me how I could pick up the coast road. As I walked back over the bridge, an attractive woman came into view. This was Jan, who looks after the administration of the Community Centre cafe. She is a blues fan and particularly likes The Blues Band, especially Paul Jones and Tom McGuiness. This discovery enlivened our conversation somewhat.
Crossing a road along the footpath I entered the Nature Reserve through which it ran, leaving it on a slope up to Woodland Way on the left. This led to Delaware Road, and thence the cliff top. The path, beside which cyclamen blooms among dandelions, does extend further, and one day I may explore it more.
Tonight we dined at our old haunt, The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton. We ate our favourite set meal, and both drank T’Sing Tao beer. Like many Asian restaurants they juggle, very successfully, with serving diners and taking down takeaway orders.