eucalyptus – Page 5 – derrickjknight

Diversions

Early morning light on the garden was most enticing today.

We have eagerly awaited the emergence of the splendid red poppies from their hairy chrysalises:

The first picture in this post shows part of the brick path at the back of the house, and demonstrates its need for weeding. Following my effort with the patio two days ago, I had planned to remove the grass and other small plants from the cracks in the paving. But I changed my mind.

To the right rear of that same photograph there is a triangular patch of ground that was covered in plants, for instance a tree peony, that had been purchased or potted up ready for insertion in the soil. There are perhaps a couple of dozen. I decided to do something about sorting these out and maybe planting some of them.

I removed all the pots and lined them up on the path. The next job was to clear the weeds, including tentacles of catch-weed, a few nettles, and the odd bramble. This done I had to summon the head gardener for identification of specimens and suggestions as to planting. I complicated the process a little by deciding to plant the pieris and the azalea mentioned on 6th April in some of the space. I had had these two shrubs in pots for six years. It seemed only right that they should have a permanent home at last. But it did mean that there was less room for those left by our predecessors. And there are of course 80 potted plants awaiting collection from Shelly and Ron’s.

Some of the items I was working on today were trees, and therefore did not belong in the flower beds. Jackie suggested a position for the tree peony in part of a shrubbery that didn’t seem to have too much of importance in it. This area, and its invisible gravel access path, was in fact filled with brambles, sticky Jack, and other weeds entwined among some lovely shrubs and a huge rose bush that Jackie tied to a myrtle tree to keep it from gouging my scalp. So, here was another clearance task that diverted me from the planting. The path will also need raking when I’ve finished.

Again, there were trips down the garden to the compost heap. On my way there, I tended to step into other areas of growth and emerge with armfuls of the multiply nicknamed gallium aparine mentioned a few days ago. This becomes more and more urgent as the weeds’ little white flowers multiply.

Gardening, in these circumstances, is full of diversions. Maybe I’ll get the planting done tomorrow. On the other hand, I might cut the grass. After all, we did buy a strimmer for the purpose.

Regular readers will have followed the progress of the cleaning up of our new home. Now the worst of this is over, Jackie, the practical member of our team, has been applying herself more to the task of righting some of the appalling DIY efforts. She is still working on the master suite bathroom. Some rather amazing colours have been used on the walls over the years. Recently a white wash of sorts has been sloshed over these.

It is not enough simply to clean and polish fixtures and fittings. Spatters of blue, turquoise, orange and red paint have to be scraped off. Even cover-up magnolia has left its spots. To this end, Jackie, having polished it, found it almost impossible to remove a toilet tissue holder from the wall in order to scrape off offending material. Until she tried the almost unthinkable.

‘He couldn’t have’, she thought.

But he had. This photograph of the fixture was taken the right way up.

Not realising the aberration, Jackie had been, as expected, pushing the container up to release it from the wall. How was she to know that this one should be pushed downwards? She thinks it was only frequently painted-over masking tape that kept the object clinging to its perch.

We dined this evening on delightful chilli con carne (recipe), peas and rice, and garlic bread.

Marevna

On learning of my penchant for history, our friend Margery lent me ‘The Crusades’ by Thomas Asbridge. I began reading it yesterday evening.

As I took a series of photographs in January 1965, at the ripe old age of 22, I thought: ‘these will be an historical record one day’. Now, nigh on 49 years later, they are. I did not start illustrating these posts until June last year, so when I mentioned on 22nd May that I still had the colour slides I took of the queues for the lying in state of Sir Winston Churchill, I did not add them to the post. I rectified that this morning, by adding five.

After this a deer made its quite slow, elegant, way across the lawn, until, disturbed by our attention, it fled into its bolt hole.

I then walked the two underpasses route, starting at the Malwood Farm end. A summer’s usage by pedestrians and ponies has produced such reasonably clear footpaths as to make my earlier errant efforts at this trip during the waterlogged spring seem somewhat meandering. The farm’s gravel heap is higher, harmonising even better with the pipes upon, and logs beside, it. I reached the Rufus Stone car park in very quick time, just as Bob and Lyndon were preparing to move on. These two friendly men were volunteers for the Forestry Commission, engaged in litter picking. I wondered if the family decanting from a car behind them might render some of their work in vain. I spoke with them for a while, and told them I had seen their equivalent in Morden Hall Park last year. They knew of the National Trust’s similar system.

Outside Shovel Cottage in Minstead four apples placed on the verge of the road seemed to be harbingers of the season when local residents put out food for the struggling ponies.

At mid-day we set off, Jackie driving, to Athelhampton Hall in Dorset to visit the privately owned house and gardens. It was a dull day and late in the year, but we saw enough of the splendidly designed gardens to know that they will look stunning in spring and summer, when we vowed to return. First built in 1485, the house has undergone various embellishments over the centuries, yet remains beautifully integrated.

The garden has been so well designed that wherever you are positioned, as in an open plan house, you are led to another living area. There almost seem to be more rooms in the garden than in the grand house, each one offering an invitation to another. There are more walls than in an open plan house, though. Fountains abound. Through one you can usually see another. Dahlias, Rudbeckia, sunflowers, Hydrangea were blooming. Some roses were still at their best, usually with their companions’ petals carpeting the earth beneath them. Sweet chestnut shells are developing to protect the nuts they nurture.

A thirty year old eucalyptus, in gentle pastel colours, sheds its bark and its leaves onto the brick paths around its base, two long roots stretching out like symmetrical tentacles. There are a number of pleached lime colonnades.

The delightful boy with his dog was just one of the many sculptures enjoying the flowers.

A bridge in the grounds crosses the River Piddle. (That just had to be done, didn’t it?)

At the entrance to the house I was intrigued by the dates of some of the graffiti. Once inside, we were permitted to take photographs; could roam freely without having to follow a prescribed route; and could, it seemed, sit anywhere.

There were bathrooms of different periods, one containing a magnificent polished copper bath. It had me wondering about the term ‘copper’ for a tub for washing clothes. The state bedroom had what must have been a rather early en suite.

Staircases were from very different periods, and always intriguing. One, an Elizabethan ammonite, led to the gallery where I discovered Marevna. Marevna was a Russian painter who lived in the house from 1948 -1957. She worked with all the great earlier twentieth century painters, her style embracing various forms, such as cubism and pointillism, to name just two I recognised. Obviously a favourite model, her daughter Marika, was her child with Mexican artist Diego Rivera who, incidentally, numbered the brilliant Frida Kahlo among his many lovers. At the top of the spiral staircase lies the entrance to the gallery, through the door of which can be seen part of her ‘Homage to Friends from Montparnasse’ of 1961. Her painting of The Great Court hangs on a wall adjacent to one framing a window through which can be seen the real thing.

When, like father bear, I tested a very comfortable chair, and Jackie decided to photograph me in situ, she found herself at the head of a queue of would-be David Baileys.

After an uneventful drive back Jackie produced a meal of lamb and mint sausages, potato croquettes, onions, mushrooms, cauliflower, cabbage and peas. It only needs a second’s power cut, to which we are prone, for the electric cooker to be thrown out. By this, I mean, its operation is upset. Mind you, it sometimes is at serious risk of being ejected through the kitchen window. The instruction manual has to be consulted, and much fiddling undergone if the food is ever to burn. We had one a couple of days ago. However, it was sorted, otherwise we wouldn’t have had our sausages. Mine went down well with the rest of yesterday’s Sicilian wine, and Jackie’s with her Belgian beer.

‘I Can’t Put A Ticket On That’

Blackbirds have begun to visit the bird feeder without flying off at the first sign of a human. Until comparatively recently they would stand on the bay hedge beneath the goodies, patiently waiting for spillage from the other birds. Now they take their own place at the table.

Leaving Jackie’s corner garden behind, we drove to The Firs for a weeding session.

There was a star shaped crack in the centre of the windscreen, fortunately well clear of the MOT failure position. This had been inflicted last week by a stone thrown up by an overtaking vehicle on the motorway. It needed repairing, so we stopped at Sainsbury’s superstore in Hedge End, where Screen-Care UK, in the form of Ryan, did an excellent. efficient, and friendly, job. Watching the young man perform with a kind of injection needle, it occurred to me that his arms were quite accustomed to needles.

Forget-me-nots flourished throughout The Firs garden, and the amount of weeding required was daunting, especially in last year’s new beds, now sprouting rich new grass. The three of us worked on the beds and made some impact.

The fledgeling robin we had seen last year was now an adult, and certainly appreciated the work on the scented bed. This little bird was enjoying a few worms and seemed to be using grass to clean his teeth.

I described the moving of the eucalyptus on 13th September last year; and the first useful purpose found for it on 5th of this month. Elizabeth’s creative friend Geoff has been commissioned to make a cross with some more of this dead tree. He showed us the result, which has a pleasing flowing shape. He still has some of the wood. Watch this space for any further artefacts.

Gardening over for the day, we repaired to Eastern Nights for the usual excellent meal; Cobra, and Tiger beer. The conversation turned to classic cars Dad had owned, a Singer Hunter and a Daimler. This led me to relate a story about Rob and his Jaguar 240 g which had been beautifully restored with a wonderful dark green paint job. On one of the family visits to Newark, possibly twenty years ago, I found myself with my then brother-in-law in a shop in the town with the ‘marvellous toy ‘ parked outside where it shouldn’t have been. We emerged into the daylight to see a traffic policeman, pad in hand, scratching his head in bewilderment. As Rob unlocked the vehicle, the man, full of wonder, asked ‘Is this yours?’. When the owner replied in the affirmative, the constable said, with awe, ‘Well, get it out of here. I can’t put a ticket on that!’.

Moving The Eucalyptus

I’m happy to say Jessops sorted out my computer problem, so I was able to add photographs to yesterday’s post. We then drove back to The Firs, arriving just after midday. The Three Graces, first mentioned on 11th. September, is, in fact, a bird bath. When we arrived, a pigeon was drinking from it.

In the first stage of preparing compost bins to replace the heap we have at the moment, Jackie and I moved the trunk of a deceased eucalyptus tree. This had originally been carried from one side of the garden to the other by two strong young tree surgeons. We now wanted it in yet another corner in order to make space to build the bins. As this was rather a complicated procedure for a couple with 134 years between them, it may be helpful for it to be outlined. The most simple method is, of course, to borrow a chain saw and massacre it. Unfortunately the lady of the manor wishes to make a garden feature of what is an attractive, if extremely heavy, piece of timber. Woodlice are already enjoying it, and it would be very unkind to disturb them more than is necessary. So, what you do is obtain a sack barrow. That was the easiest bit, because Elizabeth bought a strong antique one quite recently. You push this under the middle section of the trunk and gradually lever it into position. Then you find you can move neither it nor its load. Then you get Jackie to think about it. She suggests one person positioned with the barrow at one end, as shown in the diagram, with two people at the other end to lift it so it can be gradually swung round until it is facing in the right direction. Unfortunately we didn’t have two people at the relevant end, so I got the job. Well I couldn’t lumber Jackie, could I? Once pointing in the right direction you stagger along, a few feet at a time, until the person without the barrow yells ‘drop it’. If your ground is uneven, the barrow is bringing up the rear, and the person at the front is the stronger, you may have to switch places for a while in order to make the wheels go round. It may need a push uphill. This is repeated as often as necessary until you have the tree somewhere near what you hope will be its final resting place. Then the swinging round manoeuvre described earlier is repeated in order to refine the positioning. If your tree trunk is not exactly straight it is apt to swivel of its own accord, which can become rather awkward. It is then likely to fall off the sack barrow end. If the opposite end is higher and you have been forced to drop it in the process and can’t get out of the way in time it may potentially strike you a nasty blow. If this does happen and you are forced either to leap about or double up in pain, it is advisable to inform your partner, as soon as possible, that it is only your thigh which has been hit. This whole process is best tried before you do your backs in by sitting on bench seats at The Globe Theatre, as described yesterday.

Jackie and I shared an early meal in Eastern Nights before I went off with Paul for a drink at The Hampshire Bowman in Dundridge, near Bishops Waltham. This is an old style pub serving real ale which is accessed along one of those country roads where it is impossible to pass oncoming traffic without using one of the passing bays at its side. It is also known as the dog pub, because it appears to contain more dogs than people. I had to share an upholstered bench seat with a lurcher that kept stretching its legs in its sleep, thrusting them into my thigh as it did so. It has a very friendly atmosphere.