Tag: geraniums

The Light Of Day

This morning I handed in my sample for sending to the lab and enjoyed a telephone conversation with Doctor Moody-Jones who gave me an appointment for a week’s time after which the test results would be in and I would have completed the course of antibiotics.

One of the advantages of ignoring the steady drizzle and drop in temperature of an overcast day is that the diffused light is helpful for

photographing flowers, which I did this afternoon. These examples all bear titles in the gallery.

Bearing witness to Martin’s opening up of the beds is this

rhododendron which has never flowered since we came here a decade ago. Having experienced too much shade it now sees the light of day.

This evening Jackie visited Red Chilli for one of their excellent takeaway meals. The establishment was in darkness; closure notices and bailiff’s warning on the windows.

So she came home and we fed on pizzas and salad.

Warm Rain

I began my day by watching the ITV recording of last night’s rugby World Cup match between England and Argentina.

Although the air remained humid, the temperature hot, the breeze absent, we did at last receive rain, albeit warm.

It continued to require an effort to catch raindrops with my camera; the resultant images bearing titles in the gallery.

This afternoon I dozed through the rugby match between Japan and Chile, then gave my undivided attention to the game between Scotland and South Africa.

For dinner this evening Jackie produced her classic cottage pie; tasty ratatouille; crunchy carrots; and firm broccoli, with which she finished the Zesty and I drank François Dubessy GSM.

By this time the skies had darkened, the temperature dropped by several degrees, and a cool, light, breeze blew.

Comedienne Mode

Around this time of year we are normally visited by small green

crickets, one of which Jackie photographed this morning.

Later I photographed Ellie in her comedienne mode. Each one of these faces is a deliberate attempt to be funny, which of course warrants and receives the desired response.

These last two were taken in the garden where we were seated with Elizabeth who had visited for a chat and a couple of cups of tea, on the still breezy patio where we watched

fuchsias and verbena bonariensis swaying;

hanging baskets swinging;

shadows shifting;

windmills whirring;

potted impatiens quivering;

and listened to such as laundry baskets sliding across the paving; the clanking of metal artefacts and thud of wooden items falling somewhere, and the ubiquitous swishing of foliage.

This evening we all dined on further helpings of Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi meal and her fresh batch of pilau rice, with which she drank more Zesty and I drank more Gran Selone.

A Lesson In Economy

I find it easier to photograph white, pink, or red flowers in diffused light. That is why I paused before entering the car for our trip to visit Mum this morning to photograph the prolific white abundance of Félicité Perpétue and the pale and deeper pink roses over the porch.

We visited my mother in the garden at Woodpeckers. Whilst waiting for her to be wheeled out to join us I focussed closer than last time on the splendid colour of the beautifully kept borders, containing, amongst others,

cultivated aquilegias; marvellous mauve geraniums; clusters of allium puffballs fit for ’80s dresses; perfectly produced roses; and shapely white lilies.

Plants in larger pots are strategically placed, as is a resting flowerpot woman.

Mum is no longer able to walk at all, but is content to sit comfortably, despite missing her mobility. Unusually, although her recent recall is quite good, she is currently struggling to remember details of long ago.

What she does does remember from the past is procedural processes which have become automatic.

What do you do when, aged 21, with two small boys, and a husband fighting in France, you leave Leicester for London to find rented accommodation to be near your in-laws; it is 1944 and everything is rationed, and will be for the next decade, by which time there will be five children; women didn’t work outside the home, and the family were living on a van-driver’s salary?

If you have the intelligence and the internal resources, you economise – you make all the family’s clothes and you cut essential expenses where you can.

Mum needs fairly constant use of a tissue for her nose. This morning she came out without any. Jackie returned to reception to ask for some, and came back with a stack of generously-proportioned serviettes. No way will Jean Knight use the whole of one of these even to catch her dinner.

They have to be divided into four. Normally, as she did with dressmaking patterns during my early years, she cuts them into equal squares. There were no scissors on hand here so, before she allowed herself a sniff she had to manage the process with her arthritic fingers. The rest will be squirrelled away to be quartered in her room.

I have some of these ingrained procedural memories, too. If I don’t use a generous restaurant serviette I pocket it to add to Mum’s stash. My youngest children were amazed that I ate bread that they would consider stale. Well, while still in primary school I would be sent to buy yesterday’s bread because it was cheaper and lasted longer, as were bags of broken biscuits on which Chris and I spent our bus fares.

I will probably never get to the end of my drawer of scrap paper only used on one side, and I still have a button box that Mum is the last person to have used.

Later this afternoon Elizabeth popped in for a chat and stayed to dinner which was more of the same as we had enjoyed yesterday. Jackie drank more of the rosé while my sister and I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2019.

“Where’s Mouse?”

While watching for an opportunity to photograph the field mouse yesterday, Jackie made a few more pictures.

Seated beneath the wisteria she could see the Dragon Bed with its pelargoniums, geraniums, foxglove, and ivy; her favourite garden view; a baby blackbird, not yet having acquired fear; and a greenfinch screeching from the Weeping Birch.

She did produce another image of the mouse, the leaf on which it stands providing scale. “Where’s Mouse?”. Enlargement and the clue that appears on the gallery should aid location.

Today we were able to take it easy because the temperature had dropped by a good 10 degrees and intermittent light rain fell throughout the day.

I finished reading a posthumously published collection of stories by Virginia Wolf bearing the title “A Haunted House” (1944). My Penguin Modern Classics edition of 1973 bears a foreword by Leonard Woolf explaining that his wife had not made final revisions to some of the tales included in the slender volume.

The works offer snippets of her imaginative creative genius; her splendid descriptive skill; her flowing language lacking superfluity; and, perhaps surprisingly, her love of life. She is insightful of people and a loving observer of nature. She enjoys playing with words and their use. There is a richness of simile and metaphor. Some of the stories demand a little work from the reader and often ultimately leave us thinking.

This evening, as is customary, we dined on a second sitting of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s excellent fare. Jackie drank Becks and I drank more of the Carles.

Redundant

The Head Gardener has renamed what I have been calling the Kitchen Bed because it runs alongside that room. It has become

the Pond Bed because it sprawls across a sunken pond filled in by our predecessors. At the western corner stands the frog pond created from an old cistern; at the eastern end

the Waterboy fountain. The Waterboy was found in bits in the undergrowth at the far end of the garden. Now he provides drinking water for thirsty birds, and a backdrop for

diurnal poppies.

Some of the bronze fennel in the first picture is flanked by the now ubiquitous Erigeron.

The Head Gardener, during her husbandry today, produced all the photographs in this post. We have images of

camassia,

bluebells;

a hyacinth,

lithodora,

and clematis of similar hue.

Blue solanum spreads over this arch spanning the Brick Path.

heuchera leaves,

aquilegias or columbines,

and rhododendrons, in various shades of red.

Tulips,  especially

 

Queen of the Night, continue to attract.

Honesty and a New Zealand flax

can be seen sharing a berth beyond the Weeping Birch Bed.

Daffodils,

including those named after a Pheasant’s Eye, continue happily to bloom,

as do the various colours of cyclamen.

Orange Flash marigolds accompany lilac diasica.

Comfrey and

geraniums hang well together.

This hydrangea now spins a fine web.

Spirea Pink Ice has responded well to nurturing,

as have all the pelargonium cuttings in the greenhouse.

Just how much food can this rapacious blackbird carry off?

While Jackie was tidying the pots on the decking she was aware of Nugget’s presence, but not sure where he was.

She therefore moved a container exposing a collection of luscious worms.

It took her robin familiar about twenty seconds to alight. “Where’s Nugget?” (71)

and “Where’s Nugget?” (72). Bigification will probably be essential for these puzzles, but the second is rather easier.

Were it not for the fact that I carry out the task of uploading all these pictures and putting the post together with the explanatory text, I would probably be redundant by now.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy hot paprika pork, boiled potatoes, and broccoli, with which she drank Tsing Tao and I finished the Bordeaux.

 

 

 

Five Years On

Today was another thoroughly wet one, so I decided to try a bit more than a test print with my new Epson.

It was in May 2014 that we took on the neglected jungle that was our garden. Soon afterwards I began to compile a kind of before and after record of the project, in extra large photo albums.

Now, five years on, I have decided to update this work. I began with the Back Drive. Here, for comparison is what it looked like in June of that year.

Today I printed a collection of photographs from May,

June,

September,

and October, this year.

Jackie’s borders contain asters, foxgloves, geraniums, hostas, poppies, roses such as Doris Tysterman and Ernest Morse, viper’s bugloss, and Virginia creeper, all of which can be seen in these photographs; and much more.

This time in 2014 we were burning so much on this space.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty sausages in red wine; creamy mashed potatoes;  crunchy carrots and cauliflower with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2018.

 

Better Than Expected

Today’s winds have dropped to 20 m.p.h.

When opening the gate for Aaron this morning I checked on the storm damage.

There really wasn’t much more than I had noticed yesterday. The downpipe to the water butt on the corner of the kitchen wall had become unstuck; a few extra pots had fallen; the sweet peas had been further loosened; quite a few smaller branches had been ripped off the beech and birch trees; some of the ornamental poplar branches were broken; just one rose stem had been torn; many plants have lost stems; and there was a certain amount of wind burn on one side of the winter flowering cherry and elsewhere, such as various fuchsias.

Aaron began the work of tidying up.

He gathered and bagged up many of the fallen branches and leaves;

trimmed the ornamental poplar, removing the broken branches;

and righted the fallen containers ready for Jackie to replace at her leisure. He observed that the morning had gone very quickly. He likes to be busy.

Bob of Lovewillbringustogether’s Weblog has recently suggested a regular feature of “Where’s Nugget” inviting readers to find our little robin. That, of course, depended on his surviving the storm and returning unscathed. I am happy to report that I heard his gentle chirp as he followed Aaron around.

He nipped up onto a chair for a chat, then flitted off into the Rose Garden.

I admit that the first “Where’s Nugget” puzzle is a little difficult.

The red scented sweet peas may have been blown awry, but there are plenty of clinging seed pods which benefited from an early shower,

and its desiccated leaves provide perfect camouflage for our Meadow Brown butterflies.

These dahlias

and the agapanthuses may have bowed to the elements, but, like the rest of the garden, they have fared far better than expected.

Bees, flies, and crickets have come out to play and to work again,

The Rose Garden has remained virtually unscathed,

and one lily kept its head in the front.

Other flowers, like these cosmoses, dahlias, and rudbeckia are wondering what all the fuss was about.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent beef and mushroom pie in short crust pastry; new potatoes; roasted sweet potato and parsnip; and crunchy carrots, cauliflower, and cabbage; with piquant cauliflower cheese, with which she finished the Austrian white wine and I drank Doom Bar.

Say “Bye”

I woke later than usual this morning. As I passed our upstairs windows soon after 7 a.m. I spied Jackie standing with a camera at the far end of the garden.

She was taking advantage of the early morning light, which was just as well for the first three images in particular.

Titles, as usual, can be gleaned after accessing each of the galleries with a click. Otherwise I will let her results speak for themselves.

This afternoon she drove me to

Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, where I walked for thirty minutes along this reasonably even path.

So crowded were the car parks that we only just managed to find a space. Surrounding the car park, golden St John’s Wort glowed in the sunshine that pierced gaps between the

majestic giant redwoods

surrounded by bracken.

Now the tourist season has begun, and children have been let out of school, I do not walk alone.

Two little boys ran on ahead of their parents, pausing while a woman approached engrossed in her mobile phone. Having put it aside, she greeted me warmly.

Two gentleman I took to be the fathers of the boys called them to stop, caught up with them and turned to communicate with the likely mothers with whom I had been conversing.

The woman carrying a younger child, I think did not speak English. Nevertheless when, realising that they were pacing me and my knees, I urged them not to wait for me she held up her little boy to wave and say “bye”. Her companion had good enough English to tell me about her aunt’s hip replacement.

On my return to the car I paused to photograph a trio playing catch. Anyone who has been accustomed to catching a hard cricket ball will appreciate that it is much easier to pouch than is this yellow tennis ball.

When we set off for home string of cyclists wheeled along Rhinefield Road.

Just outside Brockenhurst a leisurely pony and foal were instructing a patient motorcyclist in the rules of the New Forest roads.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious beef, mushrooms and peppers in red wine; Yorkshire pudding; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans with which I finished the Grenacha Syrah. Mrs Knight had downed her Hoegaarden while seated on the patio in conversation with Nugget.

Conwy Suspension Bridge

According to Wikipedia ‘The Conwy Suspension Bridge is a Grade I-listed structure and is one of the first road suspension bridges in the world. Located in the medieval town of Conwy in Conwy county borough, North Wales, it is now only passable on foot. The bridge is now in the care of the National Trust. It originally carried the A55(T) road from Chester to Bangor.

Built by Thomas Telford, the 99.5-metre-long (326 ft) suspension bridge[1] spans the River Conwy next to Conwy Castle, a World Heritage Site. The bridge was built in 1822–26 at a cost of Â£51,000 and replaced the ferry at the same point. It is in the same style as one of Telford’s other bridges, the Menai Suspension Bridge crossing the Menai Strait. The original wooden deck was replaced by an iron roadway in the late nineteenth century and it was strengthened by adding wire cables above the original iron chains in 1903. The following year a six-foot-wide (1.8 m) walkway was added for pedestrian traffic. The bridge was superseded by a new road bridge built alongside and closed on 13/12/1958 [2] when the Rt. Hon. Henry Brooke, MP performed the opening ceremony of the new bridge. [3]The suspension bridge is now only used as a footbridge and has been owned by the National Trust since 1965 who make a small charge for entry.[4]

Telford designed the bridge to match the adjacent Conwy Castle.[1] The bridge deck is suspended by four tiers of two chains each (a fifth tier was added later)[4] carried over castellated towers that have a central archway over the road with machicolation.[1] The chains are anchored on the east side of the river by a freestone and concrete plinth while those on the western side are anchored to the eastern barbican of the castle and bedrock. Part of the castle had to be demolished during construction to anchor the suspension cables.[4]‘

Standing on this bridge with the castle in the background is my maternal grandmother in about 1926. In the pushchair – they didn’t have buggies in those days – I imagine we have my mother and Uncle Roy. I think her companion in the second picture is the relative with whom they stayed. These were my two retouching efforts this morning.

Jackie has continued working on the stumpery, seen here in context at the corner of the Weeping Birch Bed.

From my vantage point on the Heligan Path bench I admired the planting of petunias and geraniums in this hanging basket beside the south fence.

Increasingly sleek and vociferous by the day, young Nugget is growing up convinced we are his family.

Darting around from stumps to gravel path and back, with an occasional foray into the ferns, at a speed which Usain Bolt would envy, he was ready with his observations and suggestions.

The afternoon was dull and humid, but cooler than the last two days. Jackie drove me to Waterstones in Lymington to spend a book token. We drove on to Lepe and back. The trip yielded no photographs.

This evening we dined on flavoursome fish pie; crisp cauliflower and carrots; and tender asparagus (left by Becky) and runner beans. Jackie drank Blue Moon and I drank Ian’s excellent El Zumbido Garnacha Syrah 2017.