fender – derrickjknight

Advent Day 16

Jackie is now into her third decade of maintaining her tradition of making fairy dresses for Flo, granddaughters and now a great granddaughter.

She began with Flo’s first in 1999.

Our granddaughter’s last was produced when she was about 10.

Here the creator displays her own mother’s petticoat material bulking

out the dress, and Flo’s last alongside Ellie’s first, including wings,

which she wore last year.

Because Flo refused to take off her dresses, even in bed, much repair was usually needed as can be seen when the images are enlarged.

Maybe ten years ago Mat and Becky gave us the fireplace fender for Christmas. After Jackie put up the decorations I just had to supply a good polish.

This afternoon I finished reading ‘Gentian Hill’, which I will feature within a few days.

This evening we dined on tasty baked gammon; cheese and mustard white sauce; firm carrots and cauliflower with its chopped leaves; and tender runner beans. I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rasputin

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.

Shed by trees and strewn around the garden’s beds and paths, last winter’s twigs would have filled a mattress.

Those I gathered this afternoon certainly occupied the best part of one of our orange bags of ‘green’ refuse destined for the recycling centre.

Father Christmas was generous with hose this year. Even so, my sock drawer gradually became surprisingly full to overflowing. Jackie’s, however, was rapidly emptying. Eventually she realised that I had been mistaking hers for mine.

I really have no claim on these.

Also shown here are the cast iron fireplace and the wooden surround still awaiting final fixing. The copper fender was a present from our son and daughter, so must be accommodated. The blue tiles were already in situ. Whilst the laminate flooring is quite good quality, if you like that sort of thing, it has been appallingly fitted and we really would like to see the back of it. That, of course, would require lifting it to reveal what we hope will be the original floorboards. With any luck these will not have been butchered. Fingers crossed.

Readers will remember that, hands flattened on our kitchen window, bewhiskered nose twitching, an amiable rat peered longingly at our Christmas dinner. Some time after that Jackie discovered holes in the birdseed on the utility room shelf; later still, she heard rustling. It was time to put down bait. On a daily basis, the poisoned seed was disturbed in the morning. Either our visitor deserved the name Rasputin allocated to him, or his whole family had followed, or come to look for him when he didn’t return.

We were rather sad when, today, we discovered an undisturbed pile of bait.

This evening we dined on starters of prawn toasts and spring rolls from Tesco; Jackie’s sublime egg fried rice; and Lidl’s tender oriental pork. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank San Adres Chilean merlot.

The Fender

The garden looked glorious in the morning light. In fact the morning glories lived up to their name. It was difficult to remember that the newly created bed through which runs the head gardener’s path was a jungle of bramble and overgrown shrubs completely obscuring the fence behind, on which were trained unseen clematises and camellias.

A clerodendrum Trichotomum is coming into flower. These delicate blooms have various transformations to go through before they are done with delighting us.

A very leggy hardy fuchsia, rescued from the jungle at the far end of the garden now clings to the netting fixed to a tall dead tree stump.

Most of our Japanese anemones are white, but there are some strategically placed pink versions, like this one growing through the red leaved maple.

The lace cap hydrangea attracts insects like the hoverfly in this picture.

I have mentioned before that the small white butterflies flit about barely settling for a second. They are partial to the plants in the iron urn. If you have managed to find the hoverfly above, you may care to try your luck with this well-camouflaged butterfly on the lobelia.

This afternoon I read Hisham Matar’s introduction to Ivan Turgenev’s ‘On The Eve’, then started on the novel itself. I also did a little watering of plants, and staked up a gladiolus.

Early this evening, Becky, Ian, Flo, and Scooby, came to stay for a few days. With them, they brought birthday presents for Jackie and me jointly from them and Mat and Tess. The major shared present was a beautiful copper Art Nouveau fender which fits quite well in front of our wood burning stove. On each side of the stove itself tands one of a pair of bookends that Becky had given me about five years ago.

We all dined this evening on a splendidly authentic Jackie curry meal, consisting of lamb jalfrezi (recipe), chicken and egg korma, vegetable samosas, and pilau rice (recipe). Hoegaarden and fruit juice was consumed by the others whilst I drank Castillo de Alcoy 2010.

After this Ian and I walked with Scooby around the maize field.