Florence sculpture – derrickjknight

Something Interesting

On another soporific, gloomy, mid-afternoon I ventured into the garden in search of something interesting.

First I needed to negotiate the accumulated rubbish bags outside the stable door. There will be more by the time the bin-men collect them tomorrow.

Our temperature has warmed enough to set the Waterboy fountain flowing freely.

Jackie’s weatherworn wooden mushrooms have been uprooted.

Our garden statuary such as Autumn and Florence continue to gather lichen.

A few stubborn leaves cling to the almost stripped copper beach.

Just a minute. What loiters there behind the bushes?

Ah. Becky had said to Ellie: “Let’s lurk and be something interesting for Grandpa”.

Then the rain set in.

This evening Jackie kept a warm turkey and vegetable stewp on the hob and we all helped ourselves in our own time to portions of this wholesome repast accompanied by fresh crusty bread and butter with which we scurried away to our chosen nests for tasty consumption.

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.

The Roble Turnberry Bench

This morning we bit the bullet, unpacked, and assembled the new wooden Roble Turnberry bench. The last picture in this gallery shows what I look like when I have just straightened after an extended bending of my knees.

As can be seen from the first of these seated pictures we took of each other, the agony soon passes.

We have moved the new bench up to Fiveways, where we can enjoy the same views as Florence sculpture.

Here are some of Jackie’s planted urns, the first containing the last surviving purple tulip; the second, petunias and geranium against honesty in the bed behind; the third, some of her many pansies.

While I was at it, I photographed campion, rhododendron, aubretia, aquilegias, and Welsh poppies fronting the budding Chilean lantern tree.

Later this afternoon we will be driving to the Lamb Inn at Nomansland where we will meet Elizabeth and Danni for our first permitted inside a pub meal since the last lockdown that was forever-ago. I will report on that tomorrow.

Still Going Strong

This morning I cut the grass and produced a few photographs.

Individual titles appear on the galleries.

This afternoon I almost finished reading Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley which I will feature tomorrow.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of sag bhaji and mild prawn curry starter from Forest Tandoori followed by the main event in the form of Jackie’s spicy lamb jalfrezi and aromatic pilau rice, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Shiraz.

A Central Rectangle

Louise DeSalvo’s work on Virginia Woolf which I featured recently in https://derrickjknight.com/2020/05/19/seeking-acquaintance/ prompted me to return to ‘Between The Acts’, the writer’s last novel. Dr DeSalvo had sought metaphors and other phrases in the novel which could be referring to Woolf’s childhood sexual abuse. I could see the possible reasons for the doctor’s interpretations, but, of, course they can never be proven.

Bearing in mind that the novel never received a final revision by the author, who drowned herself before this could happen, I did think that the family story of a watery death in the duckpond may have suggested her impending demise; however, the book was completed on the eve of the Second World War which looms in the shadows over the final pages.

None of this can detract from the delicious, spare, uncomplicated, language used by Mrs Woolf in her keenly observed descriptions of her characters, flora, and fauna, relationships, and village life from a much gentler age than our own. This is a sensitive and insightful writer.

The dramatis personae include the characters taking parts on stage in a local pageant, and in the assembled audience who play their parts between the acts. As usual, I will tell no more of the story.

My Folio Society edition of 1974 contains an introduction by Quentin Bell and lithographs by Gillian Barlow. It is bound in boards bearing

a design by Fiona Campbell.

Well composed, from interesting perspectives, Gillian Barlow’s illustrations have captured the essential isolation of her subjects which does perhaps reflect those of Woolf and her family.

The book by DeSalvo is illustrated with contemporary photographs which I chose not to include in my above-mentioned post. Barlow’s illustrations were so tuned into one page of photographs that I now include them here:

Was Barlow influenced by these paintings, I wonder? Or did she acquire all her inspiration from her reading of the novel?

While I was drafting this material Jackie continued gardening and produced some views.

Florence sculpture stands at Fiveways.

Here are two views of the Shady Path and another of the vista from the Wisteria Arbour.

We designed The Rose Garden with paths spanning from a central rectangle shown in the first image. This group of pictures finishes with the rickety entrance arch which is all that is left of the rubble-encrusted vegetable garden that we inherited.

This evening we dined on succulent roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing; crisp Yorkshire pudding; perfect roast parsnips; creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower; tender cabbage; and tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Syrah.

A Little Short Of Perfection

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

After three days of cloud and rain, this one was hot and humid. Too much so for making a start on restoring our plants to their best condition.

The sun did, however, cast friendly light upon such as these heucheras and leaves of barren crocosmias.

Those crocosmias my not have bloomed this year, but many have.

During last week’s storms the container of our aptly named Tumbler tomatoes was blown down, smashing another underneath. It has recovered reasonably well.

The hydrangeas have probably fared best in the wet weather.

Roses such as Mamma Mia

and Special Anniversary have become rather spotty.

The New Guinea impatiens plants have thrived,

as have various cosmoses, like those adorning Florence.

Canna lilies stand proud in the Palm Bed.

Various delicate penstemons, like this one with a lodger, also remain upright,

while the stems of this unusual antique pink foxglove has stooped a little.

The clematis Marie Boisselot still climbs her obelisk.

The begonias and geraniums are doing well, but we have a lot of dead heading to catch up on.

As will be seen the garden is currently a little short of perfection.

This evening we dined on pork and apple sausages with strips of pork belly, fried mushrooms and onions, crisp cabbage and carrots, and mashed potatoes. I drank Meszaros Pal Kekfrankos 2013, while Jackie chose fruit jiuce.