This morning we received an e-mail from our good blogging friend Lavinia Ross attaching a photograph of the cedar tree (Calocedrus decurrens) she has planted in remembrance of my son Michael. We are very touched by this.
Jackie nipped out to photograph the evidence of last night’s sub-zero temperature.
We have light frost on various leaves;
and thin ice on the Frond pond – well, cistern actually.
Plants like primulas
and wallflower Sugar Rush Purple Bicolour seem unscathed.
After lunch Jackie turned her lens on the front garden foragers. in the process discovering
a dunnock and
a second robin happily coexisting with Ron. Robins are notoriously territorial, the males fighting to the death to repel invaders. Two companionable examples must therefore be one male and one female. When Ron first came on the scene we did speculate that the bird could in fact be a Ronette. We now have a real identification problem.
Is this Ron or Ronette waiting for the sparrows to finish feeding;
and which is sharing pickings with the pigeon?
Later this afternoon we took a drive into the forest.
The sun was quite low over the Burley Golf Course where one couple were nicely silhouetted;
another apparently caught in the rough;
and ponies,
one of which lethargically turned to observe me, dozing or grazing.
On the opposite side of Burley Road trees, like Narcissus, admired themselves on the surface of a deepening pool.
Before we left home I had remembered that Elizabeth had given me a long walker’s stick for my birthday last year. This is intended to aid balance. I therefore decided to keep it in the car. I was tempted to leave the road at Bisterne Close and walk into the woods. As I set off Jackie reminded me of the stick. Well, at least I had got it into the car without prompting.
It was a great help in traversing the undulating forest floor with its soggy, shoe sucking, areas, yet lacking yesterday’s booby traps.
Moss-covered raised roots were easier to negotiate than yesterday’s bare snaking ones.
Winter’s long shadows stretched over the terrain
much of which was reasonably dry underfoot.
There were, of course, more reflective pools.
One long-limbed mighty oak needed only a wildcat steed to present a passing semblance of the Hindu goddess Durga.
Somehow she has retained her mighty arms whilst another lost one of hers some time ago.
Back in the car and further down the road, even at 3.30 p.m. ice shone on the waterlogged verge.
This evening we dined at The Smugglers Inn at Milford on Sea where Jackie enjoyed spinach and ricotta cannelloni followed by sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. I would have enjoyed my otherwise good sirloin steak, chips, onion rings, and fresh salad more had my steak knife been thrown away. My great and butter pudding and custard dessert was excellent. The service was friendly, speedy, and efficient. Mrs Knight drank Hop House Lager while I drank Doom Bar.
