Félicité Perpetué – derrickjknight

More Sport And Dead-Heading

This morning I watched recorded highlights of the fourth day’s play in the Test match between England and India, and after lunch made a good start on dead-heading the second Félicité Perpétue rose, which regular readers will

recognise from an earlier picture on the Back Drive.

Later this afternoon I published https://derrickjknight.com/2022/07/05/a-knights-tale-144-the-bastides/

Early this evening I watched the last two sets of the Wimbledon tennis match between Cameron Norrie and David Goffin, followed by the highlights of the final day’s play in the Test match.

We dined on a salami and chilli pizza with plentiful fresh salad. No-one imbibed.

Watching Sport And Dead-Heading

Very early this morning I watched recorded highlights of the first two days of the current Test cricket match between England and India.

One rose I tend to delay dead-heading is Félicite Perpetue, of which we have two abundant examples. Today I could find not even the slightest reason for procrastination.

Here is the splendid spreading plant in the front garden, before I set about it.

I didn’t manage to complete the task today. The corner in the second picture in this gallery was not visible behind the Modus in my before picture, but I did clear it all.

The lace cap hydrangea now has a little more room to breathe.

I have previously dead headed the pink roses sharing the opposite trellis with Clematis Mrs N. Thompson – those that I can reach.

Jackie spent much of the day on similar work, for example

pruning the Red Bottle Brush tree;

tidying the Brick Path;

cleaning and tidying the decking, including repairing the parasol.

She is particularly pleased with the half dead clematis Venosa Violacea, which she brought back to life having rescued it from Otter’s pity bench.

This afternoon I watched Wimbledon tennis fourth round matches between Jule Niemeier and Heather Watson; and between Cameron Norrie and Tommy Paul.

Then came the highlights of this, the third day’s play in the Test match; before dinner, which consisted of cheese-centred fish cakes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and new boiled potatoes; with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden, Flo drank water, and I drank The Guv’nor, a very smooth and tasty Spanish red wine given to me by Shelly and Ron.

Nurturing

Our good friend Carole has given me the perfect illustrated information on yesterday’s mare and foal colouring. I have added this to the post which now reads: https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/08/my-little-snipper/

Warmed by this morning’s sunshine I completed my work on the front garden gravel path, and, ignoring a nesting sparrow’s warning cry, and scattering slithering woodlice seeking safety, opened up the stepping stones to the compost bin that stands behind the hydrangea and the red carpet rose.

This afternoon I dead headed Félicité Perpétue and in the process stripped out yards of binding convolvulus. Much of this prolific white rambling rose needs tying back and pruning. This will be done tomorrow when I will also have to cut down many of the Leucanthemum Superbum marguerites in the corner which obscure Jackie’s view when driving out.

After this I settled down to watch the second Wimbledon Men’s Semi Final between Novak Djokovic and Denis Shapovalov. During a tie-break in the first set we experienced an hour long power cut. There was nothing for it but to go into the garden and clear up some of the debris from Jackie’s all day long weeding, pruning, and planting. The following photographs are hers:

The first two images are of the Pond Bed which appears at the bottom right of her work in progress along the Brick Path.

She is very pleased with her dahlias, kniphofias, and day lilies.

The Westbrook Arbour has received further planting; the Shady Path Bed’s recent planting is flourishing; the Owl Urn has been cleared of a surfeit of obscuring Japanese anemones, and the bed fed with compost.

These giant mulleins seem to reach the top of the greenhouse; The Head Gardener is particularly pleased with the arching diorama; the plentiful Polish Spirit clematis; the climbing Brownie rose;

and most of all with the Japanese maple that, as a spindly seedling, she dug out of a gravel path and has nurtured into life.

We had our electricity back in time for me to watch the second half of the match.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty cottage pie; crunchy carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, and meaty gravy, with which she drank Blue Moon and I drank more of the Cotes du Rhone.

Hunting In Pairs

“The Bishop” was the penultimate story that Anton Chekhov wrote while seriously ill with tuberculosis from which he died at the age of 44. This is a deeply emotional tale of the main character’s life and death, and his effect on family, prelates, and congregations alike. I finished reading it last night, and with it my Folio Society 1974 edition of translator Elisaveta Fen’s selection from the author’s prolific output of short stories.

Fen’s introduction to the book is informative and insightful. She includes a specific section for each story and it was interesting, after almost half a century in which to forget my first reading, to study these pieces after I had revisited their relevant story and to compare my thoughts with hers.

Nigel Lambourne’s occasional full page aquatints are well drawn, but on the heavy side for some of the characters.

It is perhaps appropriate that ‘ ‘Don’t disturb His Eminence,’ Sisoy told Maria’ should be the last of these illustrations.

Much of this warm day was spent on continuing garden maintenance consisting of weeding, pruning, dead heading; and bagging up for removal or adding to the compost bin all the resultant refuse.

Towards the end of the afternoon, while Jackie, sharing views with Florence sculpture, surveyed the fruits of our labour, I wandered round with my camera.

Hanging baskets and other containers now bear, for example, various petunias, geraniums, cineraria, calendulas, hot lips, Erigeron and their shadows.

As can also be seen in the foreground of the Florence picture above, geranium palmatum is prolific throughout the garden. One of our Rosa Glauca bushes blends nicely with the geranium in the first of this pair of photographs.

Here are a few more of our various day lilies, the first bearing a hoverfly.

I traverse paths like the one named Gazebo quite regularly. Today I also ambled along the Back Drive and selected for attention

roses white Félicité Perpétue; a yellow climber; pink Doris Tysterman; paler pink rose from Ringwood’s Pound Shop; and rich red Ernest Morse.

Wedding Day is now coming into flower on the Agriframes Arch which it shares with a deep mauve clematis.

Magpies hunt in pairs in our garden. This evening, as we took our drinks on the patio, the enjoyable, sweet, birdsong was interrupted by

the raucous rasp of these predators communicating their casing of the joint from the branches of the copper beech. All of a sudden they took wing and sped off in another direction. Soon our own avian friends came back to life.

Our dinner consisted of chicken marinaded in a tangy mango and chilli sauce topped with yellow and green peppers and onions; new potatoes; firm cauliflower, and tender green beans, with which Jackie drank more of the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and I chose more of the Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.

A Lesson In Economy

I find it easier to photograph white, pink, or red flowers in diffused light. That is why I paused before entering the car for our trip to visit Mum this morning to photograph the prolific white abundance of Félicité Perpétue and the pale and deeper pink roses over the porch.

We visited my mother in the garden at Woodpeckers. Whilst waiting for her to be wheeled out to join us I focussed closer than last time on the splendid colour of the beautifully kept borders, containing, amongst others,

cultivated aquilegias; marvellous mauve geraniums; clusters of allium puffballs fit for ’80s dresses; perfectly produced roses; and shapely white lilies.

Plants in larger pots are strategically placed, as is a resting flowerpot woman.

Mum is no longer able to walk at all, but is content to sit comfortably, despite missing her mobility. Unusually, although her recent recall is quite good, she is currently struggling to remember details of long ago.

What she does does remember from the past is procedural processes which have become automatic.

What do you do when, aged 21, with two small boys, and a husband fighting in France, you leave Leicester for London to find rented accommodation to be near your in-laws; it is 1944 and everything is rationed, and will be for the next decade, by which time there will be five children; women didn’t work outside the home, and the family were living on a van-driver’s salary?

If you have the intelligence and the internal resources, you economise – you make all the family’s clothes and you cut essential expenses where you can.

Mum needs fairly constant use of a tissue for her nose. This morning she came out without any. Jackie returned to reception to ask for some, and came back with a stack of generously-proportioned serviettes. No way will Jean Knight use the whole of one of these even to catch her dinner.

They have to be divided into four. Normally, as she did with dressmaking patterns during my early years, she cuts them into equal squares. There were no scissors on hand here so, before she allowed herself a sniff she had to manage the process with her arthritic fingers. The rest will be squirrelled away to be quartered in her room.

I have some of these ingrained procedural memories, too. If I don’t use a generous restaurant serviette I pocket it to add to Mum’s stash. My youngest children were amazed that I ate bread that they would consider stale. Well, while still in primary school I would be sent to buy yesterday’s bread because it was cheaper and lasted longer, as were bags of broken biscuits on which Chris and I spent our bus fares.

I will probably never get to the end of my drawer of scrap paper only used on one side, and I still have a button box that Mum is the last person to have used.

Later this afternoon Elizabeth popped in for a chat and stayed to dinner which was more of the same as we had enjoyed yesterday. Jackie drank more of the rosé while my sister and I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2019.

Trichology

Yesterday evening’s meal at Lal Quilla was a real treat. It really was rather crowded, but there was enough room for social distancing to be maintained. We were greeted as old friends by Raj, the manager, like his staff sporting a mask. After the long lockdown we had imagined that there would be a new staff group, but at least one of the old team recognised us, although, as I said to him, we could not recognise him behind his face covering. Despite how busy they were, they all remained both friendly and efficient.

The food was, if anything, even better than usual. My naga lamb was lean and tender with hot and complex flavours; Jackie enjoyed her butter chicken; and we shared an egg paratha, mushroom rice, and sag bhaji. Unfortunately the staff couldn’t get the draft Kingfisher to work, so we both drank bottled Cobra.

Between occasional peeking of the sun we experienced regular rain showers. Like most of us, Félicité Perpétue has been unable to attend the hairdressers for some months, and was

in need of a good cut

During the drier spells I tried my hand at trichology and administered a trim. Chopped up for adding to the compost I filled two barrowloads and transported them to the bin. There is still much to be done, and at least I can get into the car now.

Jackie carried out a similar exercise in the Rose Garden.

This evening we dined on juicy fillet steak; fried onions, mushrooms and tomatoes; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots and cauliflower, with tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Chateauneuf du Pape.

Gnomes Won’t Be Warned Off

While gardening this morning and photographing

“Where’s Nugget?” (83),

Jackie turned to admire her mushrooms

and was amazed to find that warning off gnomes had been of no avail.

This afternoon we jointly continued Jackie’s work on refurbishing the front garden. The Head Gardener weeded, pruned, and planted and I raked, swept, and added refuse to the black compost bin. As usual, the gallery can be accessed by clicking on any image.

Robin Ronnie, still feeding a family in the field across Christchurch Road, was rather disappointed to find that the bird feeders have, for the summer, been replaced by hanging baskets.

“Where’s Ronnie?”

Later, we visited the pharmacy at Milford on Sea for a repeat prescription, after which we took a drive into the forest, uneventful save for

an opportunity to study the back of a tractor and trailer travelling at 10 m.p.h. for the whole length of Jordans Lane and even into Pilley Street before Jackie managed to turn off right.

This evening Jackie produced a meal of cheese centred haddock fish cakes; in the absence of any macaroni, her own penne cheese; and juicy ratatouille, with which she drank Becks and I finished the Fleurie.

All Neat And Tidy

On another warm and sunny day Jackie continued the

refurbishment of the Westbrook Arbour begun yesterday.

Apart from recording the event and carrying out a little dead-heading of Welsh poppies I cleared up some of Jackie’s weeding and pruning which I added to the compost, being careful not to cover Félicité Perpétue, the splendid climber providing a scented canopy to the degrading material.

I wandered around the various paths seeking trugs filled with the garden refuse. The Brick Path was viewed from beside the Westbrook Arbour; the second image takes us from the Weeping Birch towards the Rose Garden; the third contains the house seen from the Shady Path – the Chilean lantern tree is on the left and pink pelargoniums hang from the baskets on the right. The larger picture takes us from the concrete patio towards the Rose Garden.

The large portrait image here leads from the shadows of Fiveways towards the Rose Garden. Accessing the gallery by, as usual, clicking on any image will facilitate enlargement and reveal further descriptions of the contents.

Her task complete, Jackie gleefully reclined on the bench now free of plentiful guano and surveyed the rest of her creations.

From her vantage point she could look down the Phantom Path towards Florence sculpture with the Agriframes Arch on the left supporting clematis Dr Ruppel and red rose Super Elfin; and the two-toned rhododendron on the right. She could look to her left and view the section of the garden leading to the home of our neighbours in Mistletoe Cottage.

I have to confess that I took the last two photographs above before removing Jackie’s neatly stacked garden tools. Knowing that she prefers pictures to be devoid of evidence of labour and that she had made the Arbour all neat and tidy, it seemed only fair to reciprocate for the post. To my mind the tools tell part of the story, but my wife is, after all, the Head Gardener.

This evening we dined on a takeaway meal provided by Forest Tandoori. We shared crispy popadoms, onion bahjis, and a plain paratha. My main choice was king prawn jalfrezi with fried rice; Jackie’s was chicken biriani. Mrs Knight drank Hoegaarden and I drank Benguela Bay Shiraz 2018. We couldn’t eat it all so some of the leftovers will supplement tomorrow’s fare.

In A Flap

As I walked down to the Back gate to open it for Aaron early this morning I passed

the delicate pastel shades of Penny Lane which will have a powerful fragrance later in the day;

oriental poppies which have stubbornly clung to some petals despite the recent gales;

abundant Félicité Perpétue draped over a dead stump;

and rich red Ernest Morse.

A myriad of bees were already engaged in packing their pollen sacs.

Two masquerading as others were a striped hoverfly and a green shield bug.

A somewhat tattered Red Admiral fluttered by, occasionally pausing to rest.

The roses on the front trellis have been so weighty of late as to pull down their support. It was one of Aaron’s A.P. Maintenance tasks today to strengthen this section.

This afternoon we took a drive into the forest. First stop was Setley Ridge Garden Centre where Jackie bought some more trays of plants and I photographed

a bee on an ageratum.

We then took the Sandy Down route to the east.

There was a little delay on the road to Beaulieu as a foal was shepherded across the road.

At East Boldre several somnolent ponies occupied the road. Others, including a foal, snoozed on the grass. Unmoved, those on the road played havoc with the traffic of which they were oblivious for some time. One dappled grey seemed to have dislodged its reflective collar.

Suddenly, silently, the entire group took off for Masseys Road. The previously recumbent foal soon caught up.

Dangerously foraging on the verge of South Baddesley Road three ducks diced with death. The white one was sent out scouting. Eventually it got in a flap trying to convince its leading companion that crossing the road was not a good idea.

This evening we dined on a rack of pork spare ribs marinaded in sweet barbecue sauce and Jackie’s vegetable rice, with which she drank Blue Moon Belgian style wheat ale, and I drank more of the Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our First Cygnets

INDIVIDUAL IMAGES CAN BE ENLARGED WITH A CLICK OR TWO. CLICKING ON ANY OF THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESSES THEIR GALLERY, MEMBERS OF WHICH CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN AND CHECKING BOX AT BOTTOM RIGHT

Squeezing my left leg into the car, for a drive into the forest on this very dull day, was less painful again today. As I did so I admired the Félicité Perpétue rose facing me. This, and all the rest of today’s photographs were taken through the passenger seat window.

The planting in the lane opposite All Saints Church Milford on Sea was at its best.

Thinking that we might be rewarded with a sight of our first cygnets of the season, Jackie headed for Hatchet Pond, where this proved to be the case.

A rather high and mighty black-headed gull took exception to our presence.

Motley cattle roamed the woodland along Brockenhurst Road,

where foxglove flowers flourished.

This evening we dined on second helpings of the Forest Tandoori takeaway meal from two days ago.