ferns – derrickjknight

Warm Spring Sunshine

I enjoyed a pleasant conversation with David of Mistletoe Cottage in the garden this morning where we discussed his plans for Aaron to replace our shared fence. It was good to extend our talk as we remained among our plants for a while.

Crab apple and Amanogawa cherry blossoms have survived the recent gales.

David will continue to enjoy these camellias and the Vulcan magnolia from his side of the fence.

Yellow-flowered euphorbia and more delicate comfrey are now prolific.

Ferget-me-nots and bluebells are now casting carpets and

attracting bees,

as are the lamiums.

Ferns unfold fiddles.

Honesty

also attracts flying insects such as the constantly flittering yellow brimstone butterflies.

Muscari and pieris are blooming well.

Is the autumn sculpture’s heart bleeding for the dicentra?

The orange marigolds in a hanging basket can be seen from the Gazebo Path.

Later I received a telephone call from SpaMedica contracted to NHS offering me an assessment interview for an anticipated cataract operation. This is at Poole tomorrow morning. I received a 12 page e-mail I was required to print out, complete various forms, and take with me tomorrow.

I then read more of Kristin Lavransdatter.

This appears to have been published prematurely. I have updated it and now add that this evening we will dine on second helpings of yesterday’s Chinese meal.

Anna Lane

Early this morning I watched the recording of last night’s rugby World Cup match between Wales and Australia.

Later, wishing to keep our new car cleaner than our Modus workhorse when transporting garden refuse to Efford recycling centre, we bought a polythene dust sheet from Milford Supplies, then took a forest drive.

Anna is one of those ageless Lanes that, on our wandering, seems to have a characterful identity of its own. So narrow that should any vehicles encounter another head-on, unless they were prepared to

leave tracks on a slightly wider section of verge, one would be required to reverse quite some distance.

As I walked I idly wondered what I would do if I met a moving car. Maybe I would be lucky like the pheasants above and do so on the one spot where I could tuck myself in.

There is just about room for a slender motor to span the central lawn running down the middle, which is why the grass is such that many gardeners would me proud to mow it.

It is hoped that no-one would be suicidal enough to reach the permitted speed limit, albeit obscured by healthy sward, emblazoned on the pock-marked tarmac.

Jackie parked at the Sopley end of the road enabling me to walk along to photograph samples of the contents of the narrow, banked, verges.

Does anyone ever use this public footpath, I wondered?

I refrained from showing any other example of the food and drink containers lobbed from car windows, but MacDonald’s gets everywhere, doesn’t it?

This evening we dined at Lal Quilla, with its usual excellent food, and friendly, efficient, service. My main choice was Lamb Taba Shaslick Jalfrezi; Jackie’s a tasty chicken dish; we shared pilau rice and peshwari naan, and both drank Kingfisher.

Getting Cold Feet

Fierce gales that gusted throughout the night had somewhat lessened this morning, although they set up again with increased fervour, beating a tattoo on the unflinching Modus, as we set off for an afternoon forest drive.

An unusually long tailback on Christchurch Road gave us the opportunity to turn round and head for home, but we persevered. Eventually we saw that the cause had been a stationary large lorry with flashing lights which reversed into a side road in which was an emergency police car and another vehicle blocking the road. We have no idea what had happened, But of course drove past.

In a field alongside Sowley Lane entered by muddy ruts bearing puddles, on the surfaces of which swam gradually increasing raindrop ringlets,

a soggy group of horses silently tolerated their damp surroundings.

Further along the road a small herd of cattle cropped the verges and chomped branches stripped from trees with their lichen and ivy coated trunks surrounded by dripping ferns alongside

a glistening five-barred gate.

From May to October I customarily adopt footwear of sandals without socks. Throughout this July I have been getting cold feet. This is predicted to continue until September.

Becky left before tonight’s dinner to return home to Southbourne. She had made some flavoursome chicken stock with which Jackie cooked this evening’s sticky savoury rice to accompany meaty barbecue spare ribs and tender baby sweetcorn. The Culinary Queen drank Vineyard’s Juicy Spanish Rosé, while I finished the Douro.

Garden From 2014 To Today

This morning I converted the following posts from Classic to Block edits, changing the categories of Fag Ends and Gauntlet to Garden:

The Siren Deer

Fag Ends

Tales From The Window Sills

The Gauntlet

A walk in the garden sunshine this afternoon produced

these photographs, each of which bears a title in the gallery. In particular we have rhododendrons, peonies, aquilegias, wisteria, ajuga, and ferns; and I must point out that the shrub with clusters of white flowers is not a philadelphus as I recently incorrectly named it, but a viburnum plicatum.

The featured image did not exist in 2014.

Beckie joined us this afternoon to stay for a few days.

At 7.30 p.m. Jackie is preparing mozzarella sticks, halloumi cheese, and salad to accompany her own baked potatoes and Flo’s coronation chicken for us all to eat on plates on our knees while watching the Eurovision Song Contest which Dillon and I have been prevailed upon to watch for the first time in our lives.

More Attractive Than Triffids

Bright sunshine casting shadows beneath a clear blue sky shortly before midday when I took a chilly walk around the garden belied the temperatures skirting freezing which, during a current further cold spell below 0 centigrade sending rivulets of condensation from our bedtime breath dripping down walls and misting tightly closed windows until we were able to fling them open and dash shivering downstairs to our electric portable radiators timed to ignite at their lowest heat level an hour before Jackie but perhaps a couple after I expected to emerge.

Snowdrops and hellebores share the limelight with, at a higher level, a

variety of camellias;

daffodils are following up fast;

fern filigrees and honesty seed bud traceries are picked out by the clear light, as are

new shoots from our recently pruned roses.

When we first arrived here the garden of the then abandoned next door house, North Breeze, rampaged through our land, as demonstrated by

The Day Of The Triffids

Now we have the benefit of attractive, sweet scented, acacia,

currently in bloom, hanging over the Back Drive fence.

This afternoon I watched the Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and France – probably the most impressive contest I have ever seen.

For dinner this evening Jackie produced her omelette-topped egg fried rice on which to bed hot and spicy, and tempura prawn preparations, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

Older Than We Had Thought

Our brother-in-law Ron Salinger sent me an e-mail yesterday alerting me to a mention of our house in the New Milton Advertiser. We therefore bought a copy from Ferndene Farm Shop, and continued into the forest on a much brighter, more sun-sparkly morning than the miserable looking afternoon featured more recently along Christchurch Road below.

This set of pictures, gathered on a gleaming Braggers Lane, exemplifies the glittering foliage we enjoyed throughout the lanes we traversed, and demonstrates that summer has no intention of yielding to autumn just yet.

The seasonal conflict is most apparent in ferns and bracken, some of which remain stubbornly verdant and others curl in submission.

Grasses show signs of age and of youth.

Trees are not yet prepared to shed their leaves, although

pannage pigs would enjoy rooting among the varied mast dropped beneath them.

After lunch I applied myself to the newspaper article.

Forming part of Reflections: The A337 – story of a road well-travelled (part two) by Nick Saunders on https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk, the article suggests that the core of our much periodically updated house is older than we had thought.

Of the A337 from Christchurch Mr Saunders writes: ‘When the road crossed over the Danestream it also crossed the boundary into Hordle Parish. Here, too, the road has been realigned. The 1841 map shows a dog-leg junction at the crossroads with the Royal Oak Inn. The hostelry, recorded on the tithe map, was an important staging post for the horse-drawn transport of the 1800s. It was here that the mail could be collected along with goods and supplies brought to the area by wagon, and horses could be changed or given a rest and water.

The cottages on the entrance to Downton beside the car sales premises have an 1897 date stone and, therefore, would not have been something the traveller from 1841 would recognise. Opposite the inn was the blacksmith’s forge and house. In 1958 the junction was straightened out by demolishing a cottage and taking a large slice of the blacksmith’s garden.

Just a little to the east is the old post office, possibly built in the 1850s or later. (my italics). The tithe map shows the post office of 1841 on the road to Hordle village.’

We have https://derrickjknight.com/2015/07/23/an-historic-view/ of the house from probably earlier than the 1930s.

The changes undergone since the 1960s are detailed in https://derrickjknight.com/2014/07/30/friths-postcards/

This evening we dined on moist roast lamb, boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots, firm cauliflower, tender green beans and meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec.

New Life And Old

I have now received the money from Mum’s frozen bank account. No-one appears to have thought to inform me until I opened my on-line banking to pay a bill and noticed that there was rather more than expected in that – almost a week after it had been transferred. I had also been sent cheques representing Premium Bond winnings, so one of today’s various administrative tasks was to pay those in. I also paid the coming year’s car tax.

Then Jackie and I went for a forest drive.

We stopped on Rhinefield Road where I photographed neighing ponies and

wandered among the woodland, which,

among decaying broken and mossy trunks, nurtured fresh ferns replacing last year’s dried remnants.

The forest floor, with sections soggy or crunchy harboured a generous mix of old and new.

From Bratley View two spectral dead trees still stand against the sky while those with flourishing foliage adorn the living landscape. Last year’s controlled burning gorse will now rejuvenate among the ferns.

Outside Brockenhurst an adult pony grazed nonchalantly whist her offspring held up the traffic.

Another young foal, investigating mossy posts and bright buttercups, was less keen to wander.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent cottage pie; firm carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Shiraz.

Spring Verges

Rain yesterday had prevented me from photographing Martin’s garden work.

First he completed the tidying of the Back Drive. When our neighbours put up a new section of the fence between us the hook retaining our five barred gate disappeared. Martin fitted a new one, straightened the last of the line of bricks, removed refuse from beyond the gate, and transplanted some geraniums to brighten the bank opposite the raised bed.

Next, he cut the grass, then

weeded the Phantom Path and the southern half of the Brick Path.

Early this morning Jackie and I took a brief drive along the lanes to the east of the forest,

where wild flowers pack the verges, like these on the lane approaching Portmore;

and on the narrow section of Jordans Lane,

featuring a hole for a gate cut into a conifer hedge, and a horse and hound weather vane.

After lunch Jackie finished planting violas to complete the aforementioned Raised Bed, which she photographed herself.

We still have many camellias, a Vulcan magnolia, and burgeoning rhododendrons.

This evening we dined on fillet steaks, oven chips, and peas, with which Jackie finished the Cabernet Sauvignon and I drank Bordeaux Supérieur 2019.

Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe

I spent the whole morning foiling a suspected banking scam. This involved several phone calls, listening to long stretches of Muzak, and struggling with a Scots accent on a bad line.

Don’t ask. I couldn’t bear to go through it again.

This afternoon I reeled up the Gazebo Path to join Jackie who had spent the day so far eliminating fungus from the heuchera border in the Rose Garden.

The first picture shows the infested stems which I helped to bag up – the trug beside these contains the tiny rescued root stumps; the second shows Jackie applying liquid fungicide to the soil from which the plants have been removed; the third shows the rest of the border which will need to be similarly treated; and the last the planted stubs which should regenerate quite quickly.

It was truly the best part of a day for repelling pests.

While I sat by my desk with my mobile phone attached to my ear I had plenty of time to gaze at clematis Mrs N. Thompson through the window. The first of these pictures focusses on her. The other two are of what she looks like outside.

Later in the afternoon, when I was feeling less shell-shocked, we visited Otter Nurseries for some more fungicide and continued on a drive into the forest.

Just outside Brockenhurst a pair of foals trotted across the road and, ignoring another youngster, scampered across the heath. Where there are ponies you will usually find attendant crows.

We stopped at Puttles Bridge where Jackie parked the car and I wandered about around Ober Water with the camera.

As will be seen by the peaty water and the shallow bed this stream, albeit a bit fuller now, must have been quite dry during our absence. Reflections of trees and skies merged with the colours of the pebbles beneath. Dog roses abounded. The conversation with the very friendly young couple really cheered me up.

The last three pictures feature a group who put us in mind of Edouard Manet’s “Déjeurner sur l’herbe, except that all the women were appropriately clad and there were no fully dressed gentlemen in the scene.

While waiting in the car park Jackie watched the light moving to where she wanted it for this picture.

This evening we dined on meaty, spicy, pizza with Jackie’s mixed pasta cheese, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Malbec.

Orlaigh And Her Rabbit – Er, Brother

Early this morning I received a FaceTime call from Malachi in Fremantle. Trying to keep up with an 11 year old who was playing Lexulous, chatting with both voice and text, and teaching me various applications simultaneously is testing indeed. All coming at a rate of knots, you understand.

One application involved ‘effects’. These can be changed in rapid succession – both the faces and their expressions. This is Malachi as his Dad. I challenge anyone else aged 77 to follow this whilst at the same time seeking a Lexulous word that won’t be too difficult whilst using US English – I couldn’t even find the icon or whatever to access my app.

I did, however, learn how to take photographs of the people so far away.

At one point, in the Chat section of our word game, I received a long message about arrangements for a meeting. Since this allegedly came from Sam Knight, in whose name we play the game, I assumed it was one my son had intended for someone else.

No. It was my grandson sending a message on auto. I completely lost the plot when he tried to explain that.

We were joined by Orlaigh and her rabbit – er, brother.

The computer was eventually set up in the dining room so we could continue conversing over dinner. Unfortunately the signal there, at the back of the house, didn’t produce very clear images so the photographs of my granddaughter tucking into potatoes and salmon didn’t actually materialise.

Jackie spent most of the day working in the garden, with minimal assistance from me.

She photographed various different rhododendrons;

a number of unfolding ferns,

some in the stumpery,

along with a hosta transplanted from elsewhere.

The clematis buds were photographed against the backdrop of John Corden’s favourite shed.

These gladioli buds are burgeoning.

The Assistant Photographer also produced images of a mound of red Japanese maple beside the decking;

purple silene;

and yellow euphorbia.

The Copper Beech is now sprouting leaves.

While we enjoyed our pre-dinner drinks in the rose garden we watched and listened to

Nugget, winging from tree to tree and resuming his repelling rivals routine. “Where’s Nugget” (74)”.

The song is so beautiful that it is difficult to imagine that it is a war-cry.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken, vegetable, and bacon soup with crisp croutons and crusty bread. The Culinary Queen drank more of the Sauvignon Blanc, while I opened another bottle of the Rheinhessen and drank some of it.