Although, like this on these marigolds, a certain amount of ash remains from the North Breeze bonfire,
the prevailing wind has changed and the fire much less prevalent. The mechanical digger glimpsed over the fence is levelling the now plantless next door garden.
This afternoon we both took up deadheading again. When I became bored with snipping, I wandered around with the camera for a while.
This is a view from Margery’s Bed looking towards the Rose Garden
where Rosa Gaujard is among the flourishing roses
and Clematis Duchess of Albany festoons the arbour.
Alongside the Brick Path
lies the Palm Bed with its resplendent rudbeckia and Japanese anemones.
From the Shady Path we are led towards the house.
Just visible among the wisteria leaves these rich red dahlias stand proud,
while a striated variety remains out of range to the left of the picture.
This similar view from further along the path
contains the hanging basket featuring bell-like begonias.
Delicate pink Crinum Powellii swamp lilies float over
the Cryptomeria Bed.
All the hanging baskets demonstrate their gratitude that their thirst has been regularly slaked.
Clematises like Star of India continue to shine,
and New Guinea impatiens brightens several beds.
I didn’t get around to deadheading these cosmoses, because
Jackie brought me the telephone which emitted the voice of our mortgage advisor. I needed to return inside, turn on the computer, download some documents, and endeavour, with his assistance to understand their contents. This took some time, and I wasn’t up to returning to the gardening afterwards. Instead, I drafted this description of the condition of our garden as September approaches.
This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Quilla where, despite the fact that they were very busy, we received our usual warm welcome and friendly service with excellent food. My choice was lamb naga. We shared special fried rice, a plain naan and an onion bhaji; and both drank Kingfisher.
The weather this morning was splendid. The morning was to become more so, with a visit from good friends.
In eager anticipation of the arrival Jackie was out early sweeping the corridors, manicuring the green carpet, refreshing the flowers, and generally tidying up the reception room that is the garden. It seemed only right that I should get out there and help.
Right on time at 11 a.m. Geoff Le Pard arrived with the Textiliste, the Vet, and Dog.
We all sat on the patio with coffee and sparkling water. This is one view across the Kitchen bed.
Everyone then wandered around the garden. Here are a couple of views featuring the Textiliste, a skilled gardener herself.
This was the first bench tried out by Geoff.
Partly for the benefit of our mutual friend, Pauline, the Vet reprised a photo of Geoff and me taken a year ago. Dog wasn’t in the last one. He didn’t get the joke his master and I shared.
The Vet, of course, was, herself, far more worthy of the camera’s attention. Was Dog feigning an ailment in order to obtain a scratch?
The large chimney pots, one of which holds this bidens, were much admired.
Jackie, amused by the photo session,
was soon to be joined by Geoff and Dog on the Nottingham Castle Bench. In the right foreground of this shot is another of the chimney pots.
The opposite corner of the Dead End Path contains this heuchera and these day lilies.
On a final visit to the Rose Garden before we set off for lunch, I spotted a bee slaking its thirst on Summer Wine.
Watched over by an Ogre we all lunched at The Beachcomber Café at Barton on Sea. He seemed to be having as much fun as we were.
Afterwards, Jackie drove me to the Birchfield Dental Practice in New Milton for a clean and check up. All was well.
We arrived back home in time for the televised Wimbledon tennis semi-final between Johanna Konta and Venus Williams.
I then wandered around the garden again, along the Head Gardener’s Walk to the Shady Path
beside the Dragon Bed,
where a glowing begonia shines like a beacon.
A rather tatty Comma butterfly took a rest,
then flitted across to join a Red Admiral in the sunshine.
To the left along the Gazebo Path,
a large cluster of agapanthuses, in different stages of emergence, are bursting from their cases.
This is the trunk of the dead tree that supports solanums and clematises.
In the corner of the Rose Garden beside the orange shed, fuchsia Mrs Popple provides a strong contrast to Lanarth White hydrangea.
Finally, I thought Bruce would like to see how the sweet peas are coming along.
This evening Jackie and I dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips, pickled gherkins and onions. I drank Arborescence Fronton 2016.
It was very rash of me to assume that I would know the entirety of the group at our meal at Lal Quilla last night, and to predict what I would eat and drink.
On our entrance the staff, with their usual warm and friendly greeting, said that someone had telephoned the night before to add two people. We didn’t know anything about that, and in any case, Ian had made the booking. He had a quiet word with Raj and we were whisked to a larger pair of tables, according to the manager so we could spread ourselves out a bit. He presented us with a bottle of Beaujolais, so I did not drink Kingfisher. After a while I received a kiss on the cheek. Elizabeth had joined us. Soon afterwards, Danni and Andy came through the door. We were nine plus Poppy after all.
Finally, as we gathered ourselves to depart, a small cake with two lighted candles advanced towards our table followed by the entire staff group who led the family in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.
I’ve no idea why I felt rather muzzy all day. I dozed through a bit of Wimbledon tennis on TV, and managed a little weeding, watering, eradicating a few brambles, and tidying up after Jackie’s work on the rose garden. We took a rest with water on the patio from which I enjoyed
This view across the Kitchen Bed with its day lilies in the foreground and verbenas in a hanging basket beyond;
pot planted petunias and geraniums over an erigeron carpet;
and self seeded mimuluses and feverfew.
A dahlia nods to the clematis on the wisteria arbour;
pink discias, red geraniums, and yellow bidens flow over the iron urn at the entrance to the Gazebo Path;
while blazing crocosmia Lucifer leads us into the Palm Bed.
As can be seen from this Special Anniversary rose, I haven’t dead-headed the Rose Garden today.
White solanum and a bright blue clematis stream down from the dead tree at the end of the Brick Path.
This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s Hordle Chinese Take Away with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank tap water.
The moral of this post is that when I say I will report on an outing the next day, I must not assume there will be no more surprises.
Jackie continued her planting today. My major task was dead-heading.
This section of the Dragon Bed shows how what was a large, gangly ficus until Aaron removed it six days ago has been replaced by the Head Gardener’s selection.
The chimney pot in this shot of the view from the butler sinks at the end of the Dead End path
is one of the three in which Jackie has now completed this year’s arrangements.
The stone planters in the Kitchen Bed have received similar treatment, as have these two urns leading us to the original section of the Brick Path taking us from the south end to the house. This pair necessitated an urgent trip to Otter Nurseries late yesterday afternoon to buy a few more geraniums.
A yoked pair of hanging baskets introduces us to Margery’s Bed,
alongside which raking of the Phantom Path has commenced. The gorgeous pink rhododendron seen through the arch on the Cryptomeria Bed
is also visible from the brick section of the Oval Path, along which coils
the hose delivering sprinkled refreshment to the Weeping Birch Bed.
A white rambler and a purple clematis share the Gothic Arch;
The combination is similar on the Agriframes Arch, and we can name the rambler which, yet to bloom, is Wedding Day.
These Rozannes behind the iron urn are perhaps the most unusual of the blue geraniums.
Beside the potting shed at the corner of the Rose Garden sambucus nigra and geranium palmatums sit happily together.
Rose Absolutely Fabulous
occupying the foreground of this image is now beginning to bloom;
Just Joey and Love Knot are at the far end.
Lady Emma Hamilton
peeps round pink foxgloves at Absolutely Fabulous.
The aptly named Little Rambler scales one of the pergola posts.
I concentrated much of my dead-heading efforts on the Rose Garden, giving me ample opportunity to photograph hoverflies like these skimming For Your Eyes Only. For this purpose my camera hung round my neck as I snipped.
The beds alongside the Back Drive have demanded that they now be called the herbaceous borders.
They contain different varieties of poppy,
and Félicité Perpétue now wears a green and white shawl.
This evening we dined on pizza supplemented by a topping of bacon rashers; plentiful salad, and cold baked beans. I drank Cahors malbec 2015. Jacke had previously slaked her thirst with fizzy water, or, as she termed it, ‘eau petillante’.
This morning, not only did Aaron prune a hawthorn and a maple; take out an old, not really productive, vine; and heap compost and bark mulch onto the rose garden, but he also cut the grass, thus relieving me of my first task this afternoon.
I did, however, participating with the customary division of labour, assist the Head Gardener in pruning and clearing the shady side of the Palm Bed, with the effect that
the vista from the decking, across Aaron’s well mown grass, to the Compassion rose visible through the cleft in the eucalyptus is revealed.
Long-term visitors may remember that the yellow-leaved tree, also seen from this point, looked rather dead when we first arrived here. Only the long diagonal limb on the right bore any leaves. It has, however, from a reduction of encumbrances and an increase in light, recovered well. We might even be able to improve the shape by removing the now stray branch.
After this, Jackie continued filling and watering her hanging baskets which will soon lift the garden to the next level.
Later, I drafted the next section of A Knight’s Tale, making use of these two pictures from ‘Cricket In The Street’;
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THE PAIR ACCESS A GALLERY THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.
In my ‘Farringdon and Paddington’ post of two days ago, I featured a view of the Paddington Basin Development from Praed Street. Here is one from Star Street W2. Several million pounds, even then, was required to purchase one of the top floor apartments. Perhaps the terra cotta arcs are an attempt to remain in keeping with the chimney pots of the older terraces. Central Wash laundrette is still in business at 17 Star Street.
This photograph is the first of a batch of a dozen Streets of London series colour slides from July 2004, that I scanned today. Star Street lies parallel and between the equally parallel Praed Street and Sussex Gardens, the latter of which form a rectangle with Edgware and Bayswater Roads. This contains a network of smaller streets
one of which is Porchester Place W2. This is of course part of the London Borough of Westminster, prepared to spend money on hanging baskets in honour of its visitors.
Another is Connaught Square W2, leading to Hyde Park Square where, 3 years on, I was to take out a nightmare rental, the story of which is told in AAARGH!
Seymour Street W2 crosses Edgware Road, and runs through Portman Square to Wigmore Street. What, I wondered, was this woman’s relationship with the child in the buggy.
Dunraven Street W1 lies parallel to Park Lane. North Row runs alongside Oxford Street. Marble Arch is very nearby, beyond the Big Bus Company‘s tour transport. The trees are in Hyde Park. I’m not sure who the uniformed gent represents.
A major refurbishment was underway in whichever this was of the streets crossed by Park Street W1, and leading directly into Park Lane.
Park Street leads us into the heart of Mayfair with its splendid buildings viewed here from Adam’s Row. Six months ago you could rent a 1 bedroom flat in Adam’s Row for £4,225 per calendar month. That was on the first floor of a period coach house., in other words not one of the grand apartments on view in this picture.
The Historic England website contains this listed building entry description of 2-8 Carlos Place, W1: “A quadrant block of houses 1891-93 by J E Trollope of Giles, Gough and Trollope. Red brick with lavish Portland stone dressings, slate roofs. Free English/Flemish Renaissance style. Four storeys, basement and attic storey with dormers and shaped and straight gables. Effective rhythm of canted bay windows through storeys, balustraded parapets and gables, enlivened on alternate houses by bands of carved brick Renaissance decorative ornament. The canted bays, with mullioned lights and glazing bars and leading, are in some cases capped with ogee copper roofs. Semicircular arched and recessed porches. No 8 has a polygonal bay window to corner and a 2 storey rear wing the upper part timber framed. Basement areas have ornamental cast iron railings. Panelled stone and brick chimney stacks prominent on ridge of roof. Part of the 1880s-90s rebuilding of Mount Street for the Grosvenor Estate. Prominent corner site.” Renting a three bedroomed apartment here would set you back upwards of £10,000 per calendar month.
On 22 September last year Stephanie Hirschmiller in The Daily Telegraph described Mount Street, Mayfair as “one of London’s most stylish destinations….home to a plethora of luxurious boutiques and restaurants with global acclaim.” One of these establishments is Delfino Pizzeria on the corner of number 1 and Mount Street Mews W1. Would Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert, whose busts look down onto these streets, I wonder, be amused at all this?
All I know about nearby Jones Street W1, is that it is not in Greenwich Village.
Hay Hill, W1 is as steep as it looks. The gentleman in the first picture is striding into Dover Street, where can be seen both the elegantly restrained window display of the corner antique shop, and a reflection of another across the road. The Club for Business at 12 Hay Hill claims that:
“Hay Hill has a history of good fortune
Beau Brummell was an iconic figure in Regency London. On an early summer’s morning in 1813, Beau was lamenting a run of bad luck, which had led him close to destitution. Wandering around the corner of Berkeley Square towards Hay Hill, he saw something glistening on the floor. It was a crooked sixpence. He took the coin home, drilled a hole in it, and attached it to his watch chain. Almost overnight, his fortune changed and the penny became his good luck charm and he always looked fondly on Hay Hill.
“Whilst at 12 Hay Hill we believe you make your own fortune, we hope that a bit of good luck from the place where Beau found his sixpence won’t do our members any harm…””
This evening we dined on Jackie’s classic chicken jalfrezi, wild rice, onion bahjis, and parathas, with which I finished the Shiraz.
We continued with the garden clearing after the storm today. It was so hot that it was a case of ‘In, Out, In, Out’ from the cooler indoors to the stifling outside as we continued with the tasks begun yesterday. Hopefully, we are back to normal now.
Here is a view of the Dragon Bed and Shady Path;
one of the Gazebo;
and another of the Brick Path. (the tall plant on the left is fennel)
With minor editing on my part, Wikipedia tells us that ‘The hokey cokey (United Kingdom), hokey tokey (New Zealand) , or hokey pokey (United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, the Caribbean, Mexico) is a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. Originating as a British folk dance, with variants attested as early as 1826, the song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in Britain and Ireland. The song was a chart hit twice in the 1980s – first by The Snowmen which peaked at UK #18 in 1981, and then Black Lace who reached #31 in 1985.’ It remains today a popular feature of cross-generational knees-ups.
The Snowmen, otherwise known as Ian Drury and the Blockheads, had a surprise hit with their Christmas single in 1981. They, and a bunch of assorted children, entertaining an elderly neighbour at her window, danced their hokey cokey in a blizzard. We, lacking an audience, performed ours in a heatwave.
Mr Chatty Man Chan, of Hordle Chinese Take Away, provided our dinner this evening. I drank Doom Bar beer and Jackie drank fruit juice.
As the wind has dropped and the temperature soared, we now enter into a heatwave.
The recovery work in the garden is under way. Clearing fallen branches, staking up plants, watering, and dead-heading were the order of the day.
Jackie staked up the nicotiana in the Palm Bed for the third time;
it can be seen through hanging baskets settled back in place,
but no longer bends across the Gazebo Path.
Standing planters have been set up again.
I have now dead-headed the phlox in the foreground of this view from the Phantom Path, but not yet cut the grass.
Fortunately most begonias did not suffer from wind burn.
This evening we dined on meaty beef burgers, crisp chips, a variety of baked beans, and lashings of fried onions, followed by zesty lemon tart and cream. Jackie drank fruit juice whilst I imbibed Moreland brewery’s Old Crafty Hen.
Early this morning Jackie drove me out to Mudeford Quay for a photoshoot.
Neatly piled up are fishermen’s equipment, such as
ropes and chains,
and what I believe are crab pots,
and marker buoys.
It must have been the hazy heat that led us to water for the second day running. Even quite early it wrapped The Needles and their lighthouse in clingfilm as a yacht slipped past the Isle of Wight and a buoy bobbed in the bay.
Holidaymakers were emerging from their picturesque accommodation,
but otherwise families had not yet driven in their droves when we arrived and I wandered around watching various aquatic activities such as rowing;
what I am grateful to several commenters below, to be able to call paddle-boarding;
yachting;
and casting for fish.
Discussion about plans for the day took place while leaning on a boat,
or by means of the mobile phone. This paddling gentleman was soon joined by two children and a woman who rang to ask where he was. He was amused when I showed him the picture.
Even the gulls kept largely out of sight, except for one looking startled on the water,
and another surveying the scene from a rather motley rooftop.
Nearby, a roofer’s head was already lit by the sun which would soon bear straight down on him;
and The Haven staff were already watering the hanging baskets.
In eager anticipation of the first ferry trip to Hengistbury Head
families surged onto the quay
and formed an ever-lengthening queue.
The transport arrived on time and eager embarkation began.
The barriers around the quayside are to prevent anyone taking a dive down the steps leading up to the platform.
This father looked as if he was feeling the strain;
until he entered the boat and his partner brought along the empty buggy.
The last few boarders took their places,
and the fully laden boat set off.
As I returned to the car I spotted a large sandy dog excavating the spit across the water.
This afternoon I gave Jackie token assistance with watering the garden.
This even we dined on the Culinary Queen’s wholesome sausage, bacon, and heart casserole. She drank Hoegaarden and I quaffed more of the Côtes du Rhône.
Whilst I am very happy with my Canon SX700 HS camera, I am becoming increasingly aware of its limitations. In particular I do miss my SLR film cameras with good quality zoom lenses. It was such a device that enabled me to fill the frames of the colour slides featured yesterday without poking a lens up the children’s noses and thus spoiling the spontaneity. This would also have captured our garden birds without their constantly taking flight. Who knows, I may also be able to catch them on the wing.
This morning I took the plunge, sought advice from my friend Alex Schneideman, and, following it, researched suppliers on the internet, and ordered on line a second-hand Canon EOS D5 Mark 2 DSLR with a couple of lenses from Camera Jungle. All I have to do upon its receipt is pluck up courage to try it out.
We have both been feeling a bit off colour for a few days. Jackie was able today to return to her weeding and planting
and set the sprinkler operating.
I spent some time deadheading and weeding. It was a dull day, which made work a little easier.
The front trellis now sports a couple of clematises, two pink roses, honeysuckle, solanum and nasturtiums;
while on the opposite corner of the entrance Marguerites blend with potentilla, hydrangea, and the rambling Félicité Perpétue rose. Nasturtiums and geraniums are also in the bed.
On the trellis covering the garage door, a clematis winds above lobelias and begonias in a hanging basket.
Other clematises, such as these over The Head Gardener’s Walk
and The Shady Path, now festoon the garden.
Star of India will soon wind around its obelisk in Margery’s Bed.
From the Kitchen Bed urn
there is a clear view of The Dragon Bed.
This evening we dined on pizza and salad. Jackie drank J.P.Muller Gewürztraminer 2014 and I drank Reserve des Tuguets Madiran 2012.
