fly – Page 2 – derrickjknight

The Dump Can Wait

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Much of today was spent planting roses, tidying beds, and pruning and lopping trees and overgrown shrubs.

I cleared up Jackie’s maple cuttings from yesterday, then concentrated on the myrtle behind the Compassion rose. Both these trees were depriving the rose of light and air, and the variegated myrtle was full of sports anyway.

Garden view from Fiveways to Compassion rose arch

The arch, as seen from the bench on the Dead End Path and from the distance of Fiveways, now awaits the retrained rose. The young leaves of the copper beech, the last to arrive, can be seen to the top left of the first picture.

Looking through the Agriframes Arch from the Dead End Path, one can see that the yellow bottle brush plant and

the Chilean lantern tree are both coming into bloom.

Elsewhere, Sweet Williams and Cerinthes romp ahead of the fuchsia beneath them.

Bright marigolds attract flies like the one in this image.

The viburnum Rhytidophyllum, with its delicate scent, creamy white clustered flowers, and crinkly leaves, is enjoying its best year since the surrounding jungle was opened up.

Gloriana, Crown Princess Margarete, and Jacqueline du Pré have all put in an appearance in the Rose Garden.

I chopped up all the tree branches and filled two orange bags with them. We had intended taking them to Efford Recycling Centre, but we ran out of steam and decided that the dump could wait.

This evening we dined on meals from New Forest Tandoori takeaway in Pennington. We both enjoyed prawn puri starters. My main course was king prawn naga with special fried rice; Jackie’s was chicken buna with fragrant pilau rice. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2014.

An Enforced Eviction

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Early this morning the sun shone on the wall-bound wisteria aiming for the en suite bathroom.

Lingering early raindrops rolled around the Diamond Jubilee tulips

Raindrops and fly on tulip Diamond Jubilee

onto which a thirsty fly dropped for a drink.

Another rhododendron, leading the eye to the pieris on the grass, is beginning to bloom.

The day dulled over as it progressed. We spent the morning working on the garden. Jackie did some general planting and weeding, and sprinkled chicken pellets over the newly composted beds. Before you imagine otherwise, we do not keep chickens. The pellets come in a large bucket and are marketed as manure.

Vinca makes an attractive ground cover, but it does have a tendency to sprawl, take root, and make life very uncomfortable for bed-mates. So it has been for the Weeping Birch Bed. I therefore concentrated my efforts on that. Fast approaching is the warmer weather when a thinner duvet will be in order.

A black-spotted ladybird and a tiny striped snail suffered an enforced eviction as I ejected their shelter.

Our stone urns and other containers are mounted on dry brick pillars. The ground under one of these subsided a bit last autumn and it fell over. We spent the last few minutes before lunch levelling a space and beginning to rebuild the column.

This evening we dined on succulent roast pork and apple sauce, roast sweet and savoury potatoes, with al dente carrots, cauliflower, and runner beans; followed by rice pudding and blackberry jam. I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

Making It Through The Winter

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Once the heavy overnight frost fringing these heuchera leaves had thawed, the garden was warmed by the sun

which was low enough to light lily leaves and grasses,

while pearly jewels dripped from naked and semi-clad twigs,

and lingering rose leaves.

Autumn-hued hydrangeas hang on to life.

The first clusters of precocious onion-smelly alliums have pierced the soil,

and a pendulous leycesteria has already produced its kindergarten mobiles.

Shadows slanted across the Shady and

the Brick Paths.

Three winter flowering pink Viburnum Bodnantense Dawn,shrubs are doing what is expected of them.

One camellia has begun to flower and has even provided evidence that some flies are capable of making it through the winter.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s brilliant beef in red wine, boiled new potatoes, and piquant cauliflower cheese. I finished the merlot.

Getting The Hang Of It

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Naturally, I couldn’t wait to get out into the garden and play with my new toy. Confining myself to the Creative Automatic setting with the zoom lens, I made a few close-ups. I had about a 60% success rate.

Starting with lilies, here are some Asiatics dappled by sunlight;

a day lily basking in full sun;

and a fly exploring one in the New Bed.

Now to roses. Mamma Mia is maturing nicely;

Love Knot is prolific;

and this is For Your Eyes Only.

These beautiful penstemons also grace the Rose Garden.

The red Bottle Brush plants, now that the yellow one is over, are coming into their own.

I also did some dead-heading and cut the grass, while Jackie watered the pots, and tidied and catered for our weekend guests. These were my long-term friend, Jessie, and her flat-mate, Guru, who arrived in time for lunch.

After lunch we visited the New Zealand graves at St Nicholas’s church in Brockenhurst. This was of interest to Guru because he has recently been learning about the Indian Army involvement in World War One, and there are three Indians buried there. I photographed one of these on our previous trip. (The pictures that follow were made with the CanonSX700 HS)

Here are the other two.

On that day the light had been too strong for me to photograph the stone of the unknown Belgians who had worked in the hospital. Today was less bright.

One of the nineteenth century stones has had a tree push it over;

the lichen on another blended well with the wild flower meadow.

After this we attended the RNLI fundraising event at Gordon’s home in Downton Lane. This was an afternoon of jazz music and cream tea in the garden. It was very enjoyable.

We arrived too late for a traditional cream tea, but were amply compensated with home-made cakes and delicious strawberries and cream. Jessie amused us by furtling in her bag for sweeteners for her tea.

We dined on Jackie’s classic chicken jalfrezi, pilau rice, and parathas. She drank Hoegaarden, and I drank a Georges du Boeuf Fleurie 2014 that our guests had brought. Jessie’s choice was Irn-Bru, and Guru’s orange juice.

He Was Not Alone

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Here is my third photograph in the seven day Filling Facebook with Nature project. I posted it after lunch. It first appeared in Walls, my post of 21st September 2014.

On another wet day, I scanned some more black and white negatives from October 1983. These covered a trip to Covent Garden, and another to Bulcote in Nottinghamshire. Since only the first set is complete, I will just feature them today. The others will follow when I have covered the rest of that collection.

While the Punch and Judy man was setting up there was not much interest shown in the top-hatted gent in the striped box. Maybe the man in the foreground was letting him know where Punch was hiding.

Once he got going, however, the audience was engrossed. Perhaps not the woman in the foreground.

The renovation and resurgence of this popular tourist venue was in its early stages in those days. Thus all the shops, restaurants and other outlets were quite new then.

It was also possible to sit at Ponti’s enjoying a cigarette or two.

No. This gentleman was not alone.

Really, he wasn’t.

There was just another call on his companion’s attention.

I am always careful about drawing conclusions about strangers, but I think we can safely assume that this was a close little family.

For our dinner this evening, Jackie combined her delicious beef stew with sausage casserole surplus. Potatoes, onions, and mushrooms were added, and a glorious meal was the result. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Fleurie.

Precipitation

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Keeping out of the kitchen this morning was just not an option. The enticing aromas of tonight’s dinner would not permit it. Preparation of Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi was under way. The spicy fragrance and enticing colours of food from the Indian sub-continent would, if necessary, compensate for lack of taste. They don’t even have to think about that, for their flavours are second to none.

Initially I resisted, until the bubbling sauce got the better of me;

and the tomato puree added rich colour.

Jackie normally likes to fry the chopped chicken pieces separately, but they had not been defrosted in time, so

in they slid,

and the tempting mixture continued cooking, until,

with the addition of ample chicken stock, the pan simmered away the early part of the afternoon,

until the lid was removed to release the condensed liquid and allow the meal to thicken up.

Heavy overnight rain and a thick cloud layer rendered the garden an inverted version of the pan lid. When the precipitation ceased

a bedraggled fly still sought shelter among the liquid drops on the crab apple blossom;

our first large blue clematis bloom had taken a battering;

and the first offerings of an early rhododendron,

rose Shropshire Lad,

and tree peony, were all somewhat soggy.

Early this evening the weather was dry enough for us to sit in the rose garden for pre-dinner drinks. The higher and brighter notes of the small birds combined with the deeper ones of the wood pigeons, against the repeated refrain of The Needles lighthouse fog warning.

A weeping Madame Alfred Carriere had popped out during the day,

in time to catch the mist rolling in from the sea.

Meat samosas, egg fried rice, and paneer in a curry sauce, were served with the aforementioned stependous jalfrezi. Sticky toffee pudding and cream was to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I started another bottle of the Cotes du Rhone.

Ann Won The Contest

Leaving Jackie prancing, sans crutches, about the house, on another glorious morning I wandered around the garden, down the lane, and along the footpath between the fields of Roger Cobb, the only local farmer who respects ramblers’ right to roam.

Rising above our front fence, we now have a clematis Diversifolia Hendersonii.

In the main garden there are more varieties of poppy;

and day lily.

A fly on a blackberry leaf in the hedgerow on Downton Lane reminded me of my late friend Ann Eland and her naming of our Newark dog, Paddy. The family pet was a puppy collie/labrador cross. A very gentle dog, she was never actually cross. On one of Ann’s visits with her husband, Don, we had a competition to name the new puppy. Paddy was black, with white paws. Ann won the contest.

At one corner of the barley field I met and had an enjoyable and interesting conversation with a neighbour, Pete Blay, who was walking with his dog, Dave. Pete is a sports psychology coach. He can be found on http://peteblay.com/Info. He told me that deer are often seen in the field. Sam and I had seen a stag in the field on the other side of Christchurch Road a couple of days ago.

This evening we dined at La Vina in Lymington, where we were joined by Ian who is spending the remainder of the weekend with us. We enjoyed our meals, a variety of tapas, paella, and tortilla. The service was very efficient, if rather slow. They were very full. So were we by the time we left. Becky drank merlot and the rest of us drank Estrella.

And What Came Next?

This morning’s bouquet includes:

petunias;

clematis Polish Spirit;

foxgloves;

hydrangeas;

and delicate gladioli.

A veritable cacophony reverberated along the kitchen facia as the parent starlings jointly strove to satisfy their screeching offspring.

Whilst Jackie continued the creative gardening, I did the ironing and applied the first layer of wax to the new stair-rails.

This afternoon our friend Harri and her dog Inka came for a brief visit.

I have chosen to illustrate the third of my Five Photos – Five Stories with a set of five photos taken in Brittany in September 1982. They were themselves to provide a board book I made for grandchildren Emily and Oliver quite a few years later.

Whilst I was contemplating getting up in the morning in the bedroom of a gite where Jessica, our two children, and Ann and Don spent an enjoyable holiday, a buzzing on a windowpane alerted me to the presence of a fly. I don’t know where the original book is now, but I will endeavour to write this in the language I would have used for small children.

One day a fly landed on a curtain flapping in the breeze.

Suddenly a butterfly landed on the windowpane. The fly looked at it,

and dropped onto the sill. So did the butterfly.

The fly walked towards the butterfly and did a little dance.

They reached out a hand to each other, and –

What came next?

Each of the children gave what may be considered a stereotypical response. If you would like to suggest a suitable finale, I will wait a couple of days before revealing what my grandchildren said. I wonder if anyone will match them.

This evening we dined at The Family House in Totton, enjoying set meal M3 in the usual friendly atmosphere. We both drank Tsingtao beer.

In The Hedgerow

Just a few yards down Downton Lane was enough of an amble for me this morning. Close inspection of the hedgerow revealed various insects soaking up the soporific sunshine. See if you can spot them. The first two are easy. If in difficulty click on the imagos’ images. (WordPress didn’t like the first piece of this alliteration. It persisted in changing it to the second. An alternative plural of imago is imagines. The site would have been happy with that). Apart from the ordinary fly, I think the others are all hoverflies masquerading as something more harmful. The hollies are sprouting new leaves and blossom. Spiders keep out of sight of probing lenses. One has only trapped dandelion seeds in its web.

Struggling through the ground ivy are what I take to be wild strawberries.

At home Aaron has begun to lay the projected rose garden paths.

A pair of goldfinches has taken to joining us for dinner. Note the male’s bright red poll. We enjoyed Jackie’s beef stew; boiled potatoes, cauliflower, and carrots; and roasted peppers, onions, and garlic, followed by sticky toffee pudding and cream.

The birds preferred their niger seed. I drank Madiran Reserve de Tuguets 2012. Jackie drank water from the fridge. Our visitors possibly drank later.

The Task Ahead Of Me

A.P. Maintenance have done a grand job on the back drive. The section in the foreground, abutting the road, is to be concreted next weekend.

The clematis Montana is now spreading down the dead trunk.

More rhododendrons are in bloom.

Yellow flowers, like those now appearing on tree peonies, attract insects, such as this iridescent-winged fly.

Today I finished reading ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, Harper Lee’s masterpiece from 1960. So many people have responded to yesterday’s post saying that it is one of their favourite books, and even more that it is on their reading list, that I will not give details here. Instead I will describe its impact. Set in 1935, this is a tale told through the eyes of a little girl from the ages of four to eight. It can be seen as an insightful piece of character building based on keen observation and a knowledge of what childhood was like. It also deals in a sensitive way with a profound social issue that was still relevant in 1960. For good measure there is a side-issue of a mystery beautifully solved at the end.

The writing is fluid. It has a gentle pace that picks up fast as the story unfolds. Characterisation and descriptions of small-town life are perfectly credible.

I did not want to put it down, and therefore consumed it in two sessions, one of several hours.

If it’s on your list, read it. If you intend to return to it, do so.

I probably won’t, because I’ll never manage to open many of my unread books. As I popped my Folio Society edition, that is enhanced by the fine pen and ink sketches of Aafke Brouwer, back onto it’s shelf, I was reminded of the task ahead of me.

The eight volumes on the left are some of my Heron Books set of the works of D.H. Lawrence from 1969, a reasonably produced cheap illustrated edition within the budget of a young family man. I have read most of them, which is more than can be said of the John le Carre quintet. I have read The Night Manager, but don’t remember much about it. ‘Our Game’, hasn’t even been removed from its cling film wrapping. The Aladdin I bought because of Errol le Cain’s illustrations. The next four I haven’t opened. I may have read ‘A Very Long Way From Here’, which I think was aimed at teenagers, although I was much older. Of the rest, only Doris Lessing’s ‘The Fifth Child’, and the two by Andrea Levy have been read. ‘Small Island’ describes the disappointing experience of early Jamaican immigrants to England; and ‘Fruit of the Lemon’, the, equally disillusioning visit of a descendent to the island from which her family originated. If you like ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’, you will like these. Doris Leslie’s ‘Peridot Flight’ is part of my Auntie Ivy’s collection, given to me when she moved into a care home at the end of her life. Maybe I’ll read that before my days are over. Maybe I won’t.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious sausage casserole (recipe), mashed potato, with crisp carrots, cabbage, and runner beans, followed by profiteroles. I drank Alexis Lichine cute exceptionnelle, Bordeaux superieur 2013, and Jackie imbibed Hoegaarden Belgian beer best before 15.08.16.