This morning we drove to Highcliffe for coffee with Caroline and Keith Martin, with whom Margery had put us in touch. This was a very enjoyable meeting. All thanks to Margery.
Meanwhile our garden tour continues.
We call this Elizabeth’s red climbing rose, because it is in a bed she cleared last autumn.
A bee burrowed into one of the recently blooming rhododendron flowers,
which can be seen alongside the Phantom Path, so called because of an eponymous ghost-like hydrangea, not yet flowering and not seen in this shot.
These are views from each end of the Heligan Path.
Another winding path leads from the proposed rose garden to the back drive. Jackie, on this very hot day, is to be seen watering her new tub planting.
Forming a kind of clef in branching off from this is a gravel track surrounding the Oval Bed. Along the back fence is Elizabeth’s Bed.
It is only this year that we have paid due attention to the small front garden. The freshly planted blue hydrangea has yet to mature, and is consequently dwarfed by the red potted foxglove.
It was the creation of this previously ill-defined path that gave us the necessary impetus.
The head gardener correctly informs me that two days ago I incorrectly termed The Brick Path The Agriframes Arch Path,
because it also contains The Gothic Arch. We erected this last year and, on one side, retrained two roses that had been lost in the jungle, and on the other, planted two clematises.
Just a few yards down Downton Lane
honeysuckle
and white roses festoon the hedgerows. (are those spider’s eggs behind the central bloom?)
After the usual long stint in the garden, Jackie roasted the succulent pork, and the crunchy crackling; baked the crisp Yorkshire pudding; and produced the tasty gravy for our dinner, whilst I prepared the vegetables. These latter included carrots, green beans, and mange tout; but I was particularly proud of the Anya potatoes, three weeks past their best before date, that, after complete desprouting and partial peeling, tasted as good as new, although they were somewhat reduced in size. I drank Casillero del Diablo cabernet sauvignon reserva 2013, but I was enjoying the potatoes before I began it.
The 2nd of January 1997 was bitterly cold day. Louisa and I were not even sure the trains would be running when we set of from Lindum House in Newark-on-Trent to Amity Grove in South London. But nothing was going to stop us. We had an excited hour and a half on the intercity train to Kings Cross; the usual cramped crush on the Underground to Waterloo; then, through Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Earlsfield, and Wimbledon, to Raynes Park. Speeding up Amity Grove to number 76 we eagerly rattled on the front door, equally keenly answered by Becky who introduced us to her sleeping daughter, Florence, born on 23rd December 1996.
Louisa tenderly cradled her new niece. I, of course, had to wait my turn.
‘Hang on a minute’, do I hear you think? ‘Who, then, is Auntie Walisa?’. Well, you see, Flo’s cousin Oliver, born to Heidi and Michael a year to the day before this little baby, took a while to be able to say his auntie’s name.
This was also the last time Jackie and I were to meet before the ‘Reincarnation‘.
For our return journey, Louisa and I had quite a wait on a freezing Raynes Park Station platform. Our bones were chilled, but our hearts were warmed.
Late this afternoon Jackie drove us to Redhill, a suburb of Bournemouth, for a visit to her great nephew Billy’s first birthday party. The adults sat inside whilst a number of children played in the garden. The birthday boy himself was peacefully asleep on his maternal grandmother’s lap when we arrived. When he awoke he did his best not to become overwhelmed by the gathered host, and, as is very common, seemed more interested in the wrapping than in his presents. Next year will, no doubt, be rather different.
Helen sent this photograph the following day. Pirates of the Caribbean is playing in the background, and we were issued with eye patches. Get it?
Afterwards Jackie and I dined at a packed Lal Quilla in Lymington. My choice of meal was lamb Ceylon with special fried rice; Jackie’s was chicken sag with mixed fried rice. We shared an egg paratha and both drank Kingfisher. Service, ambience, and food were as good as usual, except that I must remember that their lamb is not the best option.
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.
Jackie may have defeated the crow, but my suggestion that the squirrel baffle could be surplus to requirements was premature. This morning one of these bushy-tailed rodents climbed the central pole of the bird feeder, failed to circumvent the large concave upturned bowl designed to prevent it from nicking the avian fodder, sat on the grass, scratched its head, and pondered the problem. Although fat enough to suggest it’s a pretty smart cookie, when it devised its solution it demonstrated considerable agility by scaling the chimney pot and leaping onto the top of the plastic would-be deterrent from where it could stretch out a long limb and help itself. Jackie has now moved the feeding station further from the chimney pot. There ensued a persistent effort by the squirrel, seeking to rival Greg Rutherford. So far the creature has failed. Jackie photographed it on the petunias now doubling as a sand take-off pit; and, having conceded defeat on the jump, having a last attempt at driving itself up the pole. The sticks poked among the chimney pot flowers had deterred the crow. They didn’t trouble the furry invader who just elbowed them aside. No doubt this most intelligent animal will devise another method soon. Perhaps it will try the eucalyptus as a launchpad.
In the centre left of the wide angle shot of the garden containing the view of the intruder climbing the pole, can be seen an interesting new day lily that contrasts rather well with the geraniums beneath it.
As I walked down to the post box, steady motor traffic plied to and from the Shorefield Country Park. Cyclists freewheeling down the slope whirred past me. Others on the return trip announced their presence with the clicking of gears.
This morning I laid and raked the Dorset stone we bought yesterday, whilst Jackie sieved earth from the gravel, and raised a rows of bricks from sections of the old path to prevent overspill.
A foxglove appears on the left of the centre vertical picture above.
In the heat of this day glorying in a cloudless blue sky, the tinkling of the water feature installed yesterday was most tantalising.
A Pittosporum is a small shrub with attractive curly leaves. Except when it is allowed to grow into a tree. Our head gardener states that ours would have taken about five years to reach its current height. This is why those shrubs around it have been deprived of air, space, and light. My task this afternoon was to reduce its impact on its neighbours and, accepting that it is now a tree, to give it shape. This was done with the aid of a sharp saw and long loppers; and Jackie to poke levelling stones under the legs of the stepladder and hold it steady as I ventured aloft. The sun, screened behind the high branches, streamed through those that were left at the end of the effort. Hopefully, the myrtle, and the pink rose, will reap the benefit.
There hasn’t been much time for a while for a journey over to Poulner to visit the delightful Donna-Marie’s hair salon, so, before dinner, Jackie took up her scissors where she had left them off more than forty years ago, and cut my hair. They weren’t actually the same scissors. Dressmaking ones had to suffice.
Dinner was a gorgeously coloured and tasting beef casserole with mashed potato, carrots, and parsnip, followed by Post House Pud. Jackie drank Tsing Tao, whilst I opened a bottle of Las Primas Gran Familia tempranillo 2013 and consumed some of its contents.
The method for cooking the casserole is as follows:
Take about 1 lb. of frying beef in assorted Supermarket packs picked up on special offer; 5 medium onions; 3 peppers (in this case red); lots of mushrooms, and garlic cloves to taste.
Cook the beef in a pressure cooker (15 minutes in our new induction hob friendly one) with a Knorr beef stock cube.
Meanwhile stir-fry the onions, garlic, peppers, and mushrooms.
Then put all the ingredients together in a saucepan or casserole dish with about half a pint of red wine and simmer on a low heat for about half an hour.
because it also contains The Gothic Arch. We erected this last year and, on one side, retrained two roses that had been lost in the jungle, and on the other, planted two clematises.
