Tag: garden views

Continuing Maintenance

On a much brighter morning Jackie trimmed the lower limbs of myrtle while I bagged up the clippings and added them to the row awaiting the local recycling centre.

This, and further tidying, work has improved the views from the patio and down the Dead End Path.

Also in receipt of attention has been the Westbrook Arbour and that beside the clematis on the Wisteria Arbour. It was Mark and Steve of A.P. Maintenance who tidied up the Westbrook clippings this afternoon. They also dug out the roots of unsatisfactory un-flowering forsythia and thorny berberis; took away the garden refuse,

mowed the lawn; and continued weeding the Back Drive.

Meantime, I transferred the compost in the wheelbarrow beside the Oval Bed, shovelled the last of that in the centre bin into the barrow and started to fill the space again.

Later, I read a rather beautiful Anton Chekhov story, namely “The Lady with the Little Dog”.

The spare, subtle, descriptions of place, scene and situation contribute their own appeal to the tale of illicit lovers who struggle with living two lives – one conventional and stifling, the other secretive and stressful. As translator Elisaveta Fen observes ‘The story has indeed a rare delicacy and poignancy in its portrayal of the first genuine love between an innocent young married woman and a middle-aged married man with many love affairs in the past. They see no way out of the impossible situation, yet go on hoping against hope that a solution somehow will emerge’, even if it takes a very long time.

This evening we dined on succulent roast lamb; new potatoes; firm carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli; and meaty gravy with which Jackie drank Blue Moon and I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2020.

Hod-Carrier Once Again

Yesterday evening Jackie produced two photographs from along the Shady Path and Dragon Bed beneath the strong evening light,

and later of the strawberry moon claiming the sky from the sun.

On a much duller morning she recorded the current progress of her replanting in the Pond Bed.

For more than a week now, the Head Gardener has been slowly emptying and sifting the contents of our centre compost bin. This process is made more time consuming because a full wheelbarrow is too heavy for her to shift to where she wants the material.

Now she has nearly finished I decided to lend a hand and

filled a barrow to capacity and wheeled it over to the Oval Bed which, like all the others, will require extensive weeding before its soil can be topped up. Once again I was performing the role of “The Head Gardener’s Hod Carrier”.

This afternoon we lifted the New Dawn rose that had been dropped by the recent storms, retied it, and placed the white aluminium bench in its corner.

Are your dreams worth waiting to bring to fruition at the expense of a more pleasurable earlier life? This is the essential question behind Anton Chekhov’s story ‘Gooseberries’. I was impressed with what translator Elisaveta Fen describes as the ‘evocation of the Russian countryside on a rainy day and the feelings of relaxation, cleanliness and comfort, experienced by the men after hours of exertion ….. conveyed with Chekhov’s characteristic directness and subtle power’. The author’s simple descriptive skill is so evident in this narrative.

For ‘Nikolai ate the gooseberries greedily’ Nigel Lambourne has depicted this man’s happiness which is questioned by the narrator.

This evening we dined on oven fish and chips, garden peas, cornichons with chillis, and pickled onions, with which we both drank Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2020.

More Garden Assistance

Early this morning we shopped at Ferndene Farm Shop for three more 60 litre bags of compost and another tray of bedding plants.

This afternoon we were treated to a most welcome visit from Danni and Ella.

Our great niece made straight for her box of mice that hide under the TV, after which she dragged Jackie into the library where

the toy box lives.

She found a paper bag with which to go shopping. Her Mum was the willing shopkeeper.

The story that came next required an equal amount of rapt attention from mother and daughter.

There was time for a few bubbles to be blown before the contents of the tube found their way to the floor.

Because of lockdown at Easter we were overstocked with eggs which could not be distributed. Ella was the happy recipient of a chocolate Bunny which she was generous in sharing.

After a while, our great niece was happy to wander in the garden.

She offered assistance in sweeping paths and watering plants.

Danni joined her at times.

Individual members of the above gallery bear their own titles – Compassion rose; day lily; pink rose; Welsh poppies beside an owl log; a red climbing rose with a blue clematis; yellow rose, Summer Time; pink Festive Jewel; Gloriana, For Your Eyes Only and Summer season sculpture; and Florence’s basket of bacopa.

When it was time to return home, Ella refused to say goodbye because she didn’t want to leave.

Later, Danni e-mailed me her photograph of me watching Pets2 with Ella on Netflix. I don’t appear terribly impressed, and Ella’s interest soon waned.

This evening we dined on Hordle Chinese Take Away’s excellent fare, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cotes de Gascogne Merlot Tannat 2019.

Across The Weeping Birch Bed

On another warm yet mostly dull day

Jackie continued planting, including various pots, and mending the bed into which I fell beside the Heligan Path two days ago. She had been most concerned about the foxglove which, after she had extricated it from beneath my shoulder only lost a couple of leaves. I can now see that the shrub into which I took a dive was probably the still standing euphorbia.

I made a start on reviving the footpath through the Weeping Birch Bed. This involved lifting stones in order to remove the unwanted alliums from beneath them and removing others from the edges. These beasts even attach their babies to daffodil bulbs from which they had to be extricated. My chair was not stable enough for this task, so after a while I used the long fork standing up, and bent when necessary. I was able to take respite by leaning on the implement, but could not crouch enough to replace the narcissi. Either I’ll have another go tomorrow or the Head Gardener will need to step in.

Aquilegias, such as those seen in the bottom right of the Gazebo Path, and the Rose Garden beds, are ubiquitous. Maybe my next weeding job could be along the Rose Garden paths which look a safer prospect.

Various shrubs, like viburnums, and rhododendrons, are spreading for summer at last.

Clematises such as the blue Daniel Deronda and the white Marie Boisselot are now flowering, and Dr Ruppel buds are raring to go.

Other climbers, for example, the blue solanums and rose Arthur Bell are on their way.

The rose scales the arch beside the Dragon Bed which houses these peonies.

This is the view from the Rose Garden, past Florence, and across the lawn towards North Breeze;

and these are, in turn, from the pieris overlooking the Nottingham Castle Bench facing the Brick Path diagonally opposite the West Bed.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s most flavoursome sausage casserole; creamy mashed potatoes; exceptionally tasty carrots from Tesco; firm cauliflower; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019.

Where’s Games

Just as she began working on the garden this morning Jackie witnessed Nugget 3rd wondering how to get down from the kitchen wall pebbledash.

She spent much of the day gathering up various items blown around the garden; retying loosened climbing plants; and redesigning the Pond Bed, while this afternoon, listening to tittering and songs from birds and the buzzing of bees, I finished weeding the Oval Path. Early this evening the sun put in its first reasonable appearance of the day, and I stumbled around the garden photographing a few current views.

This is the rest of the Oval Path

Here is Jackie’s current work on the Pond Bed and

the Brick Path. This last image should provide a clue to

Where’s Jackie? (6)

Other images include

the corner of the Palm Bed beside the Gazebo Path;

the Shady Path, which needs more work, including replacing the collapsing Ace Reclaim bench with the new wooden one we still have to assemble;

the Rose Garden where tulips are still holding the fort for the roses to come;

seedlings in the greenhouse;

and Where’s Nugget Jnr? (3) which might need bigifying.

For this evening’s dinner we enjoyed third sittings of Jackie’s splendid jalfrezi meal with the same beverages as yesterday.

The March Garden

Bluebell is the young lady I photographed yesterday between her partner, Aaron, and the Shetland pony he was photographing.

She photographed me photographing them from beside my trusty steed, and has e-mailed me a copy of it, for which I am very grateful.

This morning I made a further five illustrations into ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. Regular readers will know that these are by the inimitable Charles Keeping.

‘Messrs Codlin and Short’ were extremely uncomfortable in their unaccustomed environment. Keeping has depicted this just as Dickens described it, even to the extent of their perching on the edges of their seats.

In the theatre ‘Everything was delightful, splendid, and surprising’. The artist has captured the whole gamut of audience reactions.

‘ ‘Stay, Satan, stay !’ roared the preacher again’. Charles Keeping leaves us in no doubt as to the kind of cleric he was.

‘The boat was towed by a couple of horses who were resting on the path’ of a most evocative waterside scene presented as a double page spread.

‘Tall chimneys poured out their plague of smoke and made foul the melancholy air’ subtly depicted in the wavy lines across the background.

This afternoon I gathered

a few garden views, each of which is identified in the gallery which can be accessed by clicking on any image.

This evening we dined on boned chicken thighs marinaded in mango and lime sauce; boiled new potatoes; and tender green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon.

On The Brink Of December

On a bright and sunny morning I wandered round the garden in my shirtsleeves.

Individual titles of these views can be found when accessing the gallery with a click on any image. The last two pictures show a Japanese maple before and after it had been pruned by Aaron and his A.P. Maintenance team who also

tidied up some of the beds.

Even a sleepy bee on a cobea scandens didn’t seem to realise that we are on the brink of December.

‘So enchanting was the vision of a stateless society, without government, without law, without ownership of property, in which, corrupt institutions having been swept away, man would be free to be good as God intended him, that six heads of state were assassinated for its sake in the twenty years before 1914. They were President Carnot of France in 1894, President Canovas of Spain in 1897, Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898, King Humbert of Italy in 1900, President McKinley of the United States in 1901, and another Premier of Spain, Canalejas, in 1912. Not one could qualify as a tyrant. Their deaths were the gestures of desperate or deluded men to call attention to the Anarchist idea.’ So begins the second chapter of my Folio Society edition of Barbara W. Tuchman’s ‘The Proud Tower’, namely The Idea and the Deed – The Anarchists: 1890-1914′.

This chapter deals with the Anarchism that swept Europe during this period leading to WWI – the theory of the intellectuals and the actions of those prepared to carry out ‘The Deed’ with which it was hoped the populace would be terrified into changing the orders of society. As always in such events, more ordinary people were killed than those for whom bombs or bullets were intended. Interestingly, it seems that Germany, who used the terror tactics espoused by their military theorists to suppress the Belgian people in August 1914, was the major European country least affected by the Anarchists.

Tuchman’s descriptions of the avowed terrorism bears alarming similarity to that technique practiced today. Unfortunately modern bombs are far more destructive than those that were available more than a century ago. Perpetrators are prepared now, as they were then, to sacrifice their own lives for their espoused cause.

The fluid writing in this work is far more literary than that permitted by the requirements of ‘The Guns of August’.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent shepherd’s pie; a leak and pork sausage; roast potatoes; moist ratatouille; and firm cauliflower, carrots and Brussels sprouts with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra.

No More Dado Rails

Although the fierce winds that we have experienced for the last few days continued to pound us for much of the day, it was warm, sunny, and bright, encouraging me to wander round the garden with my camera.

A few trugs were transported, and a few pots blown down;

some trees were being stripped of their foliage,

although others still sported autumn hues.

Flower beds remained reasonably colourful.

The good news of the day is that Nick Hayter was able to start our decorating project on time and that the impending lockdown allows him to work on. Living up to Barry’s recommendation he is a relentless, thorough, worker, and, given the atrocities we inherited he needs to be.

He began today with a zinsser primer on the false ceiling rafters, and progressed to

the momentous removal of the equally fake picture rails, which longer term readers will remember are in fact dado rails – still bearing the supplier’s bar codes – and as such flat topped and therefore useless for picture hooks.

It was later that Nick realised that the original wall paint had not been thinned and consequently simply peeled off like stiff paper.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy lamb jalfrezi and aromatic savoury rice with a plain paratha. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Coudougno Faugeres 2019.

Raindrops Inside And Out

Recent heavy rains have opened another leak in the roof of our kitchen extension.

Jackie made these photographs of the kitchen floor, then

of what we think is the faulty lead flashing.

While she was at the upstairs windows

she then produced aerial shots of the soggy garden, after which

during a lull in the rain I toured the paths in search of raindrops on fuchsia Delta’s Sarah, begonias, pelargoniums, rose campion, various roses, chrysanthemums, Edinburgh dahlia, Rosa Glauca hips, and fallen beech leaves.

For dinner this evening we finished Jackie’s choice chicken and leek pie with crisp roast potatoes; al dente carrots and cauliflower; tender cabbage, and most flavoursome gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Montpeyroux.

From Garden To Woodland

Jackie spent much of the morning working in the greenhouse, alongside which this is the

view to the yellowing weeping birch.

Pansies are blooming in the iron urn and in hanging baskets;

others of which contain such as petunias and calendulas.

It is still the season for dahlias of varying hues.

A variety of fuchsias continue to thrive, as do

clematises, calendulas, nicotiana sylvestris, Chilean Lantern tree, heucheras, Compassion rose, nasturtiums, geranium Rozanne, sweet peas, and hot lips.

These final views are of the Gothic arch and the Shady Path with its owls.

Drops from the early morning rain may be seen on a number of the individual images which may need bigifying (a word which the internet owes to the late Pauline King).

Late this afternoon we shopped for toiletries in Old Milton before driving into the forest where

I rambled among the ponies foraging in the woodland alongside Bisterne Close.

Clouds loured over the Holmlsey skyline as we returned along the eponymous Passage.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s golden smoked haddock; piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potatoes; green peas; and bright orange carrots, with which we both drank Valle de Leyda gran reserva Suvignon Blanc 2019.