ditches – derrickjknight

The Sound Of Tearing Grass

Humid, leaden, weather continued today, although there was no threat of rain. After a dozy morning I attempted to join Jackie in the garden. I bagged up one set of refuse before realising that this was far too optimistic following the night that had just sapped my energy. The Head Gardener finished her planting, then metamorphosed into my Chauffeuse and drove me into the forest.

We began with our photo report on Pilley Lake which the recent rains have filled a little. The second image shows that foxgloves and brambles still fill the foreground;

sections of road barriers suggest recent works of some sort; and the little pool that had been bone dry a couple of weeks ago now reflects Quarry Cottage on the corner.

The Hatchet Moor section of Hatchet Pond was populated by a pair of swans and their cygnets who circled the surface, weaving through the prolific water lily beds. The last of the avian pictures with lilies was produced by Jackie. We were not the only photographers on an outing.

The only sound in evidence on such a still day was the ponies’ teeth tearing at the grass at East Boldre, in an operation so delicate as to refrain from uprooting the sward.

Like the lake at Pilley, many of the ditches are filling up with rainwater which reflects ponies crossing at East Boldre. Unfortunately I missed a shot of the foal leaping, but he did well.

Although not a football fan I did watch the Euro 2020 championship match between England and Germany. It is, after all, mandatory.

This evening we dined on our second helpings of Red Chilli takeaway with which we both drank Kingfisher.

“Some Soggy Ponies”

On this dismal, dank, afternoon Jackie suggested: “let’s go find some soggy ponies”, so off we drove and the animals obliged.

Foxglove and Twinkle were nowhere to be seen, for their field was under water and there was no room for them in the hen coop.

Much of the moorland was similarly submerged, sometimes with rippling windblown surfaces.

The Norleywood band of Shetlands ignored the rain seeping into their hides and blended into the bracken occasionally decorating their dripping manes.

Paddling in ditchwater, reflecting in leaf-strewn puddles, swaying onto the glistening tarmac, or burrowing into tempting hedges, their larger equine cousins were equally focussed on fodder.

This evening we dined on tender roast lamb; crisp Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and parsnips; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; firm Brussels sprouts, and meaty gravy with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Western Cape Malbec 2019.

Yellow Ticket

The storm, having filled the deepest ditches, and extended the pools on the fields and the roads, had desisted this morning when we began the day with a shopping trip to Tesco. This supermarket, like all the other home-grown ones, is feeling the squeeze from the Germans, Lidl and Aldi. There were notices everywhere announcing cheaper brands.

By midday the dull weather had evaporated into clear blue sunlit skies. After lunch I walked up Hordle Lane, right into Sky End Lane, left into Vicarage Lane, and left again, returning home back along Hordle Lane. I was lucky, for the rain set in soon afterwards.

Discarded detritus now floated in ochre waters of the ditches which I photographed with my back to the warming sun.

Pools glinted on the lanes and reflected the trees and skies above. A jogger ran past the paddock in which the ponies chomped on their fodder. Later he returned in the opposite direction, possibly eventually passing a woman and her exotic looking dog glowing in the sunlight, and casting long shadows.

Some vehicles sped through the pools on the tarmac, sending up showers of water; others slowed and sprayed a little.

On Vicarage Lane, which enjoyed numerous reflective puddles, I engaged in conversation with a friendly woman tending her garden. She had noticed me attempting to photograph small birds in her trees. We didn’t know what they were, but they were attracted by nuts she had hung up for her visiting tits, siskins, and a solitary woodpecker.

Blackbirds scurried in the hedgerows.

At the corner of Vicarage and Hordle Lanes, lies the Parish Church of All Saints, Hordle. Shafts of gleaming sunlight illuminated the sleepy resting place of former parishioners.

Jackie’s matured liver and bacon casserole was enhanced by the discrete taste of fresh mushrooms and peppers for tonight’s dinner. They were accompanied by prime mashed potato, and crisp cabbage, carrots and cauliflower, then followed by Tesco’s finest Belgian chocolate choux buns. Our dessert was purchased this morning at half price. Such is the UK’s obsession with ‘best before’, ‘use by’, and ‘sell by’ dates, that supermarkets cannot sell goods beyond whichever of these phrases appears the most relevant. Neither, for fear of lawsuits for food poisoning, are they able to give them away. They therefore do the next best thing and reduce the price. Our buns bore the legend ‘use by’ today. Had we purchased them later in the day, they would probably have been even cheaper. In this particular outlet you can recognise reduced items by their yellow ticket.

We each drank the same beverage as yesterday.

Recycled Metals

Although the sky clouded over later, the sun gleamed over Minstead and its environs as I set off on the Matthew and Oddie walk this morning.
There must have been quite a lot of rain during the night, for water streamed off the fields and into the recently drier ditches. The pothole pools were replenished.
We had missed the Exbury camellias on 13th, but there are a number flourishing in the local gardens. As harbingers of spring, camellias are attractively striking shrubs, but the blooms do not last long, and soon turn unpleasant shades of brown before eventually littering the ground beneath them. It is for that reason that Jackie likes to grow clematis climbers of varieties that flower at different times so that there is always a good display twined among the host plants.
Packing continued at such a pace today that we ran out of bubble wrap. This afternoon we drove to Ringwood to buy some more. Not having found enough there, we stopped off at In-Excess on the way back where we increased our stocks still further.

A magnificent water buffalo is firmly tethered by the ankles in the car park, from which one can look down over sloping fields containing ponies, alpacas, and a goat. The buffalo is one of an array of splendid recycled metal sculptures on sale in and around the store.
Helen popped over for a visit after we returned home.
Late this afternoon I received an e-mail from the Penyards Manager which gives some grounds for cautious optimism that some resolution may be found on Monday 24th.
Jackie and I dined on delicious sausage casserole (recipe) with crisp, colourful, vegetables of which Uncle Ben would disapprove. I finished the Merlot. Because the dining table is occupied by boxes, bubble wrap, and stuff, we are at the moment eating in our armchairs. When savouring a nice juicy casserole this has rather disastrous consequences for my shirts.
Bill Nighy is one of my favourite actors. I am told he is performing in a play which is now on BBC iPlayer, so we are about to settle down to watch it. I will no doubt have something to say about it tomorrow.

Digging

At 3 a.m. this morning, having woken up thinking about it, I tried the link suggested last evening by the WordPress advisor. It led me to clearing the Safari cache. This seemed rather frightening. I ‘[felt] the fear and [did] it anyway’. It worked. I was then able to reformat yesterday’s post with larger photographs.
Owls in the forest cheered me on.

With another glorious day in the offing, I walked down to Seamans Corner, from which the layered landscape has always intrigued me, then took the Bull Lane loop.
Church bells rang out a fulsome melody, and small camera-shy birds filled the treetops with their bright and cheerful song.

The trio of donkeys I had seen recently on Upper Drive were foraging in Seamans Lane. One, after nuzzling one of its companions, stopped feeding for a good scratch.
Further on, a pile of timber that was once a splendid tree was being burnt. A crane heaped it up and the flames were doing the rest. The small bonfire John had lit in our garden on 24th February still smouldered some days later, so I imagine this one will take a while to consume the remains.
A solitary horse was silhouetted on a hilltop.
Alan and his wife Fran were beginning their spring work on their cottage garden opposite The Trusty Servant Inn. I had a long and convivial talk with this septuagenarian who greatly impressed me with the deep hole he had dug to take a new fencepost. Fran, who was cutting out a stubborn bramble from a rose hedge, quipped that she had the hard job.
An extensive ditch-digging operation is taking place in the most waterlogged areas of the road through Minstead. Deep trenches have been excavated to take the water that runs off the fields. Pipes, covered by sandbags, have been laid under the banks leading to farm entrances.
The whole of this lovely afternoon was spent on further moving administration. This time it was composing and printing a dozen business-type letters. Banks, pensions, utilities. That kind of stuff. Four hours on twelve similar letters? You might well ask.
Should anyone else consider purchasing a new and unfamiliar laptop without transferring data from the old one, at the same time as preparing for a house move, my advice would be not to even think about it. Firstly my correspondence folder containing all the necessary addresses was on the discarded Toshiba. Secondly the HP has a very different display. Thirdly, I couldn’t remember how to make a correspondence folder on the old machine, let alone the new one. Fourthly, sitting in an easy chair juggling with two different computers made for a certain amount of confusion over mice, and created an enhanced risk of tripping up. It wasn’t really reasonable to expect the mouse attached to the Toshiba to operate the HP, or vice versa. And one connecting cable stretched across your shins is fairly dicey. Two is positively careless.
Oh, and fifthly, some of these organisations were in France, so I was dealing with two languages. Sixthly, I had to remember to change references and account numbers each time I cut and pasted stuff.
Having managed to produce this vast collection and stick it in a folder labelled ‘correspondence’, I got to the really exciting stage. Printing.
This involved walking across the room, attaching the HP to the Canon printer, loading the paper, calling up each document in turn, and pressing Print. The first one took about an hour. I struggled with all the directions; icons; help sections; getting started; which printers could or couldn’t be supported by my new device, etc., etc. Eventually I found in ‘printers’ that my Canon didn’t seem to be connected. Then it dawned on me that I might have to load the original disc. Now where was it?
Eventually Jackie remembered seeing a couple of discs in the children’s bookshelves in the spare room. Well, of course. Where else would they be, but close to hand for the only people who might know what they were and what to do with them?
The disc was loaded and the job was soon completed. Unfortunately it was then too late to catch the last post.
But still in time for this one.
Red hot chilli con carne (recipe) with wild rice, peas, and sweetcorn furnished our dinner this evening. The heat was achieved by including six dried chillies I’d bought at least six years ago. From Jackie’s point of view, it was a good thing there was some natural yoghurt in the fridge. I drank some more Pomerol.

Darkness At Noon

It was a bright and cheerful morning when I set off this morning to walk the Shave Wood loop and survey the effects of yesterday’s storm. No more trees seem to have been uprooted or severely damaged, but there is more surface water than I have seen before.

Water runs down the slightest incline, be it on the roads or in the forest. Where there is no slope new pools and streams are forming. Ditches follow the same logic. If there is a hill they are fast flowing; if there is a plateau they swell and join the ponds on the open land and among the trees. A tennis ball bobbed about in one running rivulet.
Many areas of scrubland normally cropped by the ponies now bear darkened patches and trails that are inchoate lakes and streams. At the moment Football Green retains enough dryish terrain to support animal sustenance. Further into the forest the skies are brought down to earth in their reflections.
The rose bush that had scratched at the side of the car has been cut back and tossed onto the muddy verge near the Minstead village sign.

At the corner of Shave Wood near the A337 an elderly tree suffering from osteoporosis appears to be using one of its branches as a crutch to prevent it from staggering into the road.
As the wind got up and the rain came down again, with each howling gust the tall creaking beeches caused me to become somewhat wary. In the darkening skies of noon, Minstead Lodge looked even more the Gothic pile. (Thank you, Arthur Koestler, for writing your 1940 novel giving me today’s title). The day remained changeable. Soon after this photograph was taken, we were treated to a rainbow, yet by the time I reached home I was beset by rain falling from dark clouds and buffeted across the cattle grid on Lower Drive.
This afternoon we visited Elizabeth. When Danni returned home with Andy we dined on Elizabeth’s spaghetti Bolognese, followed by a Firs Mess. We began with an English bacchus wine, after which Elizabeth, Danni and I drank various red wines and Andy consumed cider. After this we went home.

Holly’s Beauty

Light rain began to fall just as I left home to repeat the walk I had taken with Matthew and Oddie on 7th. This precipitation was to take the form of intermittent showers for the first three quarters of an hour or so. During the few periods when the sun pierced the grey cloud cover, the hedgerows, now counting convulvulus among their constituents, glistened with the raindrops. Not having the excuse of Mat’s ageing little terrier to call Jackie to collect me from the bottle bank, I had to walk the final stretch up Running Hill as well.

Once I had emerged from the forest at Little Chef I was alongside the A31 for a short time. I passed that building, the Travelodge, the Esso garage and various houses which are found roughly at the area where the signs to Stoney Cross bring the hopeful traveller.

What is now a major East/West dual carriageway has very little in the way of pedestrian thoroughfares. The derelict footpath from just past the Esso garage to Forest Road betrays the fact that ordinary people without cars once trod this way. Now it is only people like me who venture along it. A row of hardy hollyhocks, having escaped to the central reservation, clung to the thin soil as passing vehicles did their best to create enough turbulence to tear them up.

I exchanged waves with a woman working in a garden not far from a tall, isolated, house called Rufuston that seems to have its own Royal Mail collection box. The name must come from the nearby Rufus Stone (see post of 19th November last year). As I reached this house I paused to photograph it. The woman tentatively, with a quizzical look, approached me from my left. She wondered why I was taking photographs. It seemed a reasonable question really, especially as it was her house whose image I had just pocketed. My explanation of what I was up to must have reassured her, for we parted pleasantly and she expressed the wish that the weather would stay fine for the rest of my walk.

At the bottom of the hill that leads from The Splash to the Furzey Gardens junction, Tim was digging mud out of the ditch that leads to his farm. This trench joins a pipe that runs under the road. Like the ditch, the pipe was full of soggy earth. Tim was working to clear as much as he could from the ditch and the underground pipe. I have before wondered whether there was a machine to carry out this task. If there is, Tim wasn’t aware of it as he plied his garden fork. Although the farm is his, he said the land on which the road lies belongs to the manor, the owners of which, in his view are responsible for the clearance. Apparently in the old days there was a villager with a technical title Tim couldn’t remember, whose job it was to keep the ditches clear. Tim also told me that the two goats and few sheep on his little farm are what might be called rescue animals. The goats were found abandoned as kids some fourteen years ago near Godshill; the sheep were ailing as lambs and bottle-fed in the same haven. I joked that if I found any stray creature in the forest I would know where to bring it.

This afternoon was spent once again grappling with security problems with BT e-mail accounts. Firstly I received one of those hijacking missives purporting to come from someone in urgent need of money. Because the whole e-mail address of the sender is taken over by these evil scammers, any reply never reaches the alleged originator. It goes to the crooks. This happened to Louisa a year or so ago. Chris and Frances were said to have been mugged in Rome where the Embassy was unhelpful. Chris was visiting our mother in West End at the time. These messages are instantly recognisable firstly because anyone in such dire need would use the telephone, and secondly because the English is so appalling. Neither Louisa nor Chris would write so badly. The whole business is a dreadful headache for the true account holder, because it affects everyone in their address book. All contacts are lost.

As I was contemplating the plight of my brother and sister-in-law I received an e-mail allegedly from Yahoo! Customer Care which seemed to me to be equally spurious and contained the usual booby-trapped ‘Click here’ message. It had not even been put into the Spam folder by BTYahoo! mail. I smelt a rat and phoned BT. When I finally got to an agent he said he didn’t deal with such technical matters and consequently put me in a queue for technical help. It took some time before I got a person, who didn’t know whether this latest message was Spam or not. After I read it out two or three times, pointing out the errors and where it didn’t seem to make sense, she decided it was more likely than not to be a scam. She advised me to put it into the Spam folder and send it to abuseadbt. I asked if that was all one word and we managed between us to establish that it wasn’t. The ad bit was the symbol @. When I asked how I was now to have any faith in BT security she told me that she herself had been unable to receive messages for six months because she had been hacked and her password rejected, until suddenly it was accepted again. This failed to reassure me.

I had opted to take part in a telephone survey after the call. It consisted of a triple choice questionnaire, 1 for good, 2 for bad, 3 for unsure; followed by an opportunity to make recorded comments about why I had scored it as I did. I took the opportunity. In the midst of this, despite the repetition of how important and helpful my views would be, I must have run out of time, for I was cut off in full flow. It was a machine that conducted the survey. I don’t think it was programmed to register when it has interrupted the customer and call them back to offer more time. Either that or I upset it when I mentioned that a difference in accents of spoken English makes for a certain difficulty in communication.

I am not convinced of the security of my e-mail account. I cannot understand how the survey as performed can be of benefit to anyone. BT, if you read this, I am open to all attempts at reassurance on either matter.

Of all the different varieties of fuchsia Jackie has been growing in her pots, the one the blooms of which she has most eagerly awaited is named ‘Holly’s beauty’ (otherwise known to her as Orlaith). This has come into its own today.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chilli con carne and pilau rice. My drink was Chilano cabernet sauvignon 2011 and Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway

The rain is back. There was no off-road venturing this morning. As I dripped round the ford ampersand, I sought comfort in the expectation that I would return with ‘that Brylcreem look’ which would resolve my bad hair day. I had awoken with it sticking out all over the place. Johnny Rotten would have been proud of it.

Able Piling’s crew, who were, with shovels and spades, laying stones in a drive, didn’t welcome the rain. They sensibly kept their heads covered.

The work of post-winter clearing of the ditches had begun. This involves digging out mud and debris which is then heaped by the side of the trenches. No doubt it finds its own level and is soon covered in greenery. I do hope this is now done by machines. I expect I will find out. Interestingly, if the ditch is alongside your property its maintenance is your responsibility.

The coned off pool described in, among others, the post of 17th December last year, has now been resurfaced and its drain cleared.

Champion (see 16th December) has his cough back.

Jackie drove us to Southampton Parkway to collect Alison who came for a visit. Leaked petrol glowed iridescently on the wet forecourt of the garage at Eastleigh where she filled the tank.

Later I applied my mind to iMacs. First I had to use an ordinary memory stick on which Elizabeth had collected the photographs of ‘Derrick through the ages’, that were a background slideshow at my 70th birthday party. This I had attached to my ‘veteran’ iMac, but hadn’t tried to save it. Given that I had bought a My Passport for Mac with which to transfer all the pictures from old to new computer, I thought I would initially attempt to put Elizabeth’s set into the pictures section of the old one. Miraculously I managed it.

The next task was to transfer the now enhanced collection of saved photos from my six year old redundant Mac. So the first box I opened was the My Passport for Mac. It carried a guarantee in goodness knows how many languages, but the directions consisted of a scanty sheet of paper with three pictures, numbered 1,2,and 3. I couldn’t make head or tail of them, except that I should first plug it into a USB port. So I did that, clicked onto the icon and stared at stuff. After much trial and error, I eventually clicked and dragged the Pictures icon to the My Passport one. Then we had lift-off. Perhaps the most scary bit was the message informing me this would take about two hours. So, in order not to spend that time hovering over a screen watching a thin blue line creeping across it and a white light flashing on the super duper memory stick, I sidled across the room to my laptop and played an on-line Scrabble session. After two hours I had a look. It was done. Ejecting the My Passport safely was problematic. I kept getting a message telling me it was in use and therefore couldn’t be ejected. So I shut down the computer, switched it on again and had no problem. Thanks to ‘The It Crowd’ for that little tip. I think I’ll open the new iMac box tomorrow. I don’t want to push my luck. But just to show you that I can at least transfer the contents of a memory stick to my soon to be obsolete iMac, here is a picture of Derrick from 1942.

Anyone under the age of five reading this, please understand that I’m an old man. You are probably already familiar with all this. If you are not there already, when you get to school it will be how you communicate and learn. When I went to school even biros had only just been invented. We didn’t yet have them, and dipped a pen with a steel nib into a dark liquid called ink with which to write on paper.

I felt I’d earned the wonderful chicken jalfrezi with homemade chutneys that Jackie served up for our evening meal. Bread and Butter pudding was my choice of afters. Hers was rhubarb crumble. I finished the Isla Negra whilst Jackie abstained. Don’t get the wrong idea, I would have given her some had she wanted it.

Today’s title comes from a classic self-help book by Susan Jeffers, first published in 1987. I’ve never read the book, but the title has always appealed to me.