Tag: garden views

The Garden At The Start Of July

Yesterday evening Jackie finished her work on the Lawn Bed.

She also continued her general maintenance, such as the Weeping Birch Bed weeding and replanting, following Flo’s earlier work on the footpath.

Early this morning Jackie and I transported the last of the garden refuse to the Efford Recycling Centre, after which we purchased three more large bags of compost and a few vegetables from Ferndene Farm Shop.

Later, I finished reading ‘If The Old Could’ and published https://derrickjknight.com/2022/07/01/if-the-old-could/ after watching the third round Wimbledon tennis match between Heather Watson and Kaja Juvan.

Before dinner I produced

a gallery of garden views, each of which bears a title.

This evening Jackie and I dined on her spicy paprika pork while Flo preferred meat and vegetable pasty to accompany the boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots, and firm cauliflower and broccoli, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden; our granddaughter, Raspberry Rhubarb and Orange Blossom cordial; and I, more of the Chianti.

A Sunless Sultry Day

On this sunless sultry morning Jackie watered, I dead headed, and Martin carried out the heavier garden maintenance. Before he left, I printed him an A4 portrait I had produced on his last visit.

Later, I wandered around with my camera. As usual, individual titles can be found in the images gallery.

This evening all except Ian dined on oven fish, chips and peas with which Jackie drank Entire-Deux-Mers white wine 2020, and I finished the Shiraz.

A Walk Round The Garden

After a lengthy session of dead-heading, incidental weeding, trips to the compost bins, and a sit down this morning

I wandered around the garden with my camera. As usual these images are all titled in the gallery.

This afternoon we attended a family gathering at Elizabeth’s with Jacqueline, Joseph, Angela, Danni, Andy, and Ella, with Jack asleep upstairs. Sandwiches from Jacqueline, savoury rice from Angela supplemented Elizabeth’s sandwiches and cake. I drank low alcohol Old Speckled Hen. We brought home various goodies for lunch tomorrow..

Where’s Martin?

Martin and Jackie spent several hours between them this morning weeding and clearing; I chipped in with some of each and mostly dead heading, largely concentrating on

the Rose Garden, of which I wish I could convey the scents.

After lunch I recorded the general scenes, as usual titled in the galleries.

View east from Heligan Path. Where’s Martin?

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent beef and onion pie; boiled potatoes; crisp cauliflower and carrots; tender green beans; and meaty gravy, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Douro.

Slaking Its Thirst

On another bright-sunny-cool afternoon I took a tour of the garden

In the front crab apple blossom, and clematis Montana, the first accompanied by budding pink climbing roses, the second by hybrid bluebells.

I made a number of images from upstairs,

The views from the stable door and from the kitchen path towards the greenhouse were taken at ground level, as were

new rhododendrons and tulip.

Afterwards, Jackie drove me into the forest.

Golden gorse glows alongside Pound Lane where it reflects in a roadside pool.

The ancient bank with its mossy roots at the junction of Bennett’s Lane and Bisterne Close was striated by lengthy shadows.

A solitary pony slaked its thirst in a pool beside Wilverley Road,

on either side of which others cropped the dry grass.

For this evening’s dinner Becky added some chicken pieces to her perfect pork casserole and served it with more of her delicious savoury rice, and green beans, with which she and Jackie drank more of the Rosé, and I drank more of the red Ponce de León. Flo’s beverage was Kombucha Ginger and Lemon.

Used Fireworks

All was quiet and still early this morning. Storm Eunice had passed on and the sun shone.

We began by shopping at Tesco. After half an hour the skies darkened, the wind speed rose seemingly faster than the predicted 46 m.p. h., and heavy rain steadily descended throughout our subsequent forest drive.

A team must have been on standby to carry out the amount of early clearing up that was in evidence.

A fallen tree on Silver Street had brought down a telephone line which stretched along the verge and across the road. Everyone drove over the cable on the tarmac. Open Reach engineers were in evidence throughout the day.

Broken branch debris, like this on Agars Lane and along Brockenhurst Road remained scattered.

Some fallen limbs, such as these either side of Silver Street and Brockenhurst Road had clearly traversed the thoroughfares.

On the corner of Silver Street beside the bank of snowdrops at Congleton,

lay a burgeoning branch ripped from a tree that was nowhere in sight.

Trees had fallen in South Sway Lane;

and in Mead End Road.

This fallen and sawn tree along Brockenhurst Road had already been well chewed by an ungulate, but I don’t think that is what brought it down.

These smaller branches were nearby.

As we kept our eyes open for fresh fallen trees we remembered our childhood searches for used fireworks along London streets the morning after bonfire night. Chris and I simply salivated over them as we sorted and graded the empty shells; Jackie and her sisters had scraped out powder residue and attempted to light it on the open fire.

The rain kept up into the afternoon. When I woke up after dozing with my hand on the mouse the sun shone once more and the wind had lessened, enabling me to photograph

scenes of the garden from above, showing that we had come off quite lightly really.

Today’s sunset was much more cheerful than that of yesterday, although when walking down to the back drive to find these shots I did discover

a displaced section of fallen fencing fortunately not our responsibility.

Elizabeth is experiencing a lengthy power cut so she came to our house to warm up and have dinner which consisted of more of yesterday’s with more chicken and more rice and tender green beans with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and Elizabeth and I drank Azinhaga de Ouro Reserva 2019.

Later my sister discovered that the problem would not be fixed until tomorrow. Fortunately she had brought her pyjamas just in case.

This Last Afternoon Of November

David Chesworth, who understands the degrees of family relationships, and knows he is my second cousin once removed, this morning sent me his version of yesterday’s

sunset that he named Le Dragon.

I really do think I finished with the paperwork today as I emptied the second little cabinet that stood beside my desk, and Jackie and I carried it to the shed to await disposal.

After lunch I wandered around the garden, once more in a temperature warm enough for shirtsleeves, and photographed

the garden just as it is on this last afternoon of November. Each image in the gallery bears a title.

Later, I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/11/30/a-knights-tale-73-mine-was-bent/

This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s tasty sausages in red wine with fresh vegetables. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Merlot.

Hollow Post On Fire

I’m doing my best to rest my right shoulder today, which severely limited my angles of focus as I held my 35 mm lens to photograph

some garden views on my way to examine

the last of the Head Gardener’s incineration, to which I could make no contribution. The pictures show the final demise of a hollow wisteria arbour post.

I also cannot type much, but the images are all labelled in the galleries.

This afternoon Joe and Angela visited for my brother to sign the final Probate Application forms and to have dinner with us; Elizabeth joined us later and we enjoyed a few pleasant hours together. Angela brought Jackie a beautiful pearl and green gemstone necklace from China, various plant pots, and some of her authentic spring rolls.

The Culinary Queen provided what our sister-in-law called a Saturday, as oppose to a Sunday, roast lamb, roast potatoes and parsnips, Yorkshire pudding, multi-coloured carrots, green Brussels sprouts, white cauliflower – all cooked to perfection – with tasty gravy, followed by a fruit meringue and mince pies. Elizabeth, Angela, and I drank Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2020, Joseph drank Kopparberg alcohol free cider, and Jackie drank alcohol free Nozeco; the last two produced by Angela. Elizabeth brought the red wine.

Preparing For Winter

Today was one of administration spent on Mum’s estate; e-mailing photographs; and Max’s home visit from Peacock Computers.

The photographs were for a WordPress interview coming up soon.

I was able to access the Probate Forms on line and actually begin to fill them in. Some sections offered yes or no choices with boxes to be clicked. The very first of these wouldn’t work. Longer boxes required the addition of dates. When these had been typed in the spaces were split into boxes for the individual numbers.

Let’s start with Mum’s date of birth. This was 2nd October 1922. I typed 2.10.1922. This was translated to 2. 10 .1. So I typed 02101922. That worked.

I can’t be bothered to list other problems.

I was therefore most relieved when Max arrived early for his appointment, and I could abandon this task.

This pleasant young man, who fortunately, has the same model of iMac as mine checked everything and established that the core problem is probably the Broadband uploading speed. The downloading, however, is far quicker than he would have expected. I had not realised this difference when I checked the speed myself. When I have problems in transferring from iPhoto to WP I am probably being timed out.

Max has shown me how to transfer photographs through Downloads rather than the Desktop, and is going to investigate the current availability of fast fibre in our area which was not available when we joined EE Mobile.

Before setting out on the Probate fiasco, because we had noticed the expected overnight heavy winds picking up, we began once more to carry out protective efforts in the garden.

Jackie had laid down the patio chairs before the last gale and we had left them lying. This picture shows that the parasol has been removed from its base. Today we removed all three garden parasols and stored them in the orange shed.

After clearing pigeon droppings the Head Gardener covered wooden chairs and benches for the winter. Mind you, today was warm enough for us to work in shirt sleeves.

While Jackie was covering the benches I photographed the garden views from above. “Where’s Jackie?” (10) appears in a few.

We still have a colourful view from the kitchen widow,

the Wisteria Arbour still lurches.

There is still plenty of colour.

This evening we dined on second helpings of yesterday’s Chinese Take Away, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Montepulciano.

Ready For Her Close Up

This morning we drove Jan, Bob, and DeAna to New Milton station for the next stage of their journey to Switzerland. Jan e-mailed me three photographs taken on the platform for Waterloo.

Jackie and Jan by De;

Jan and Derrick by De;

and Bob and De by Jan.

A brief inspection of further storm damage revealed that Jackie’s favourite view from the stable door has been ruined by

a wind-blown lurch of the Wisteria Arbour.

Jackie had laid down the chairs on the decking, but simply closed up the parasol which had been lifted clear of the table through the centre of which it normally stands, and gently placed against the fence.

Plenty of flowers have, however, happily survived.

This afternoon we took a forest drive, intending to take the route to Pilley via Undershore.

A large tree had, however, been thrown across the now puddly path, so a reverse sweep was required on a lane requiring a numerous point turn.

As can be seen the day began with strong sunshine. This rapidly deteriorated into one of bright, brief, sunny spells forcing their way between dark, heavy, showers pattering on the car roof; spreading racing, rippling, rivulets such that the wipers could not keep pace to provide clear vision; and turning my T-shirt into a wet dishcloth when I stepped out at Pilley lake to photograph its current condition.

The water was now filling up, so that the lone pig which had a couple of weeks ago been part of a group that had frolicked over the dry bed must have been disappointed as it

stood on the surrounding landscape.

Rain now pelted where porkers had pootled.

On Cadnam Lane ponies reflected on pools; sheltered from the rain; or failed to dry their hair after another downpour.

Pigs were unperturbed by the elements, one was certainly ready for her close up.

This evening we sat at our lonely table and raised our glasses, containing more of the Sauvignon Blanc, and Chevalier de Fauvert Comté Tolosan Rouge 2019, to absent friends while reprising last night’s repast of sausages in red wine.