hanging baskets – Page 5

Spoiler Alert

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We were both reprieved from gardening duties this morning by the rain.

I scanned a few more colour slides from 1981/2.

Here Sam enjoys swinging in a hammock at the Drapers’ home in Meldreth near Royston in Cambridgeshire. This was August 1981.

In December that year we had a rare heavy fall of snow in Gracedale Road, Furzedown, South London. Matthew and Becky made the best of it. That was probably the only time in their childhoods that it was possible to create such a magnificent snowman.

Another Cambridgeshire venue was the home of Nigel and Judy Pearson at Pastures farmhouse in Caxton. At a Christmas party there, Sam tucked into his first pheasant. I remember biting a piece of shot. This was also the first time I had sampled such fare.

In September 1982 we spent a couple of weeks at the Vachettes’ chateau at Fontaine in Normandy.

This is the garden in which Jessica basks in a deckchair with Arnoux, Marie-Helene, and the Vachette parents. As can be seen by the colour of the grass this was a very hot autumn.

Lying at Jessica’s feet

is Louisa in her carrycot;

while Sam enjoys the toys she will soon grow into.

This afternoon the sun shone, not only here in Downton, but also in Wimbledon where a tense Gentlemen’s Final took place. I watched it on television.

I will not reveal the winner, but his wife looks on.

Afterwards I wandered around the garden, doing some sporadic dead-heading, whilst Jackie watered some more hanging baskets

containing petunias, mimuluses and lobelia.

She also slaked the the thirst of this urn containing petunias, trailing geraniums, and bidens, with penstemons at the side,

suspended in the Rose Garden.

The hydrangea at the corner of Elizabeth’s Bed is thriving;

as are the lilies and clematises in the New Bed;

and the hebes are coming into bloom.

This evening we dined on Mister Chatty Man’s Hordle Chinese Take Away. Jackie drank a blend of Hoegaarden and Bavaria non-alcoholic beer, while I consumed more of the Carignan Vieilles Vignes.

Remembering 7/7

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We have a number of hanging baskets around the kitchen doors.

This one contains fuchsia Blue Angel;

here clematis Warsaw Nike, from its pot clambers up to another containing petunias and lobelia. The white pot contains apple mint, and borage occupies the bed.

Nearby, bidens blooms.

The New Bed is now taking on its summer garb. Fuchsia, dahlias, lilies, clematises, and solanum are all in evidence.

As it is my birthday today, I received a lot of messages. Some of these were texts. For the last couple of months anyone trying to phone me on the mobile when I am at home has not been able to receive a reply and has been sent straight to voicemail. I have then received a text saying I have a voice message which I have not been able to access.

I have refrained from boring readers with this, but today I decided to visit O2 in Christchurch in an attempt to resolve the issue. The problem seemed to have been a faulty SIM card. This was changed, and hopefully things will have improved.

While the O2 man was fetching the new card I reflected on another birthday when I could receive no signal on the mobile phone. This was the day of the London Underground suicide bombs. I is hard to believe that was 11 years ago.

This afternoon we enjoyed, within minutes of each other, visits from Helen and from Shelly and Ron They came bearing gifts. Including Bill, each couple had brought a birthday card and presents of wine and a book, and we drank sparkling squashes on the hand-made garden chairs, of which we now have four, and one, otherwise relegated, perfectly serviceable in black plastic.

An additional gift from Helen and Bill was an intriguing bookmark, made of cork, that they had brought back from Portugal.

Ian and Becky’s present to me was a meal for the four of us at Lal Quilla. This was great fun, particularly as the staff entered so well into the spirit of the occasion. My choice of a main meal was Purple Tiger (a king prawn dish) and special fried rice. We shared onion bahjis, parka dahl, and an egg paratha. Becky drank red wine and the rest of us drank Kingfisher.

At the end the head waiter sang happy birthday and brought me a ‘cake’.

Focus On The Back Drive

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While Jackie continued her creative magic in the garden, and between televised tennis sessions, I wandered around admiring the fruits of her labours, and, of course photographing them.

We have a number of different day lilies;

and the first water lily has now bloomed on the tiny cistern pond.

An astilbe thrives in the shady western bed.

In the Rose Garden Penny Lane adorns the potting shed,

And Margaret Merrill hosts a miniature beetle drive.

Looking through the Back Drive barrier towards the Rose Garden, I noticed a robin perched on the mid-way arch.

It flitted off, so I stalked it for a while.

The barrier provides a floral frame for the drive,

which is now bordered by full length planting.

Poppies,

snapdragons,

and achillea, are just a few examples.

Naturally there are also hanging baskets, better lit in the afternoon.

This evening we dined on fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and mushrooms; baked beans and toast. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Gilbert & Gaillard Châteauneuf du Pape 2014. Well, why not?

Clearly The Day For It

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The meteorologists having informed us that the bright, albeit nippy, early morning sunshine would be covered by cumulus soon after mid-day sent us off into the forest, after a brief wander round the garden where

hanging baskets are now mostly filled with plants, like these pansies at the front,

which catches the dawn rays,

particularly lighting blossom such as that of the prunus Amanogawa;

and a sparrow surveyed the terrain from the safety of a holly tree.

The back drive,with its own share of hanging baskets, was also looking bright and sprightly.

On the road out of Lymington towards Beaulieu, a collection of cattle lounged along the curving verge. Only after she had finished using this to have a good scratch under her outstretched jaw,

did the first one find the energy to lift her head and satisfy her curiosity.

Further on down the road, a passing cyclist, when informed that she was in the shot, quipped that had she known she would have smiled.

Donkeys, joining the queue for the bus at East Boldre, preferring to stay on their feet, made use of bus stop, phone box, and wooden bollard to shift their ticks. Note that the telephone box has been saved and dedicated to the memory of John Kitcher.

Across the green behind the bus stop stands a hawthorn tree very handy for the ponies. This one, risking possible entanglement, vigorously rubbed its rear against a broken branch. This was clearly the day for relieving an itch.

Beyond Beaulieu, the approach to Fawley refinery and power station varied the vista.

When we last visited Calshot beach the Hoegh Osaka was stranded on Bramble Bank. The strand that today we had to ourselves had then been packed with reporters, photographers, and sightseers; and the empty lanes choked with parked cars.

Today the Southampton Spinnaker was a focus of my attention. Someone appears to have set up cricket stumps for Jesus. I cannot think of anyone else who could play on this surface. (But see the Quercus Community comment below!!)

The paths of a yacht and a motor boat passed at speed.

Having recently watched the BBC’s magnificent adaptation of Bleak House, in which the long running Court of Chancery case of Jardyce v. Jardyce is pivotal, I was intrigued to read the basis for privacy of this section of beach (should you be equally intrigued you will need to enlarge the image of the notice.

We drove on to King Henry VIII’s Calshot Castle in time, once more, to watch a tanker passing.

Also passing each other, emulating the two boats above, were an oystercatcher and, I think, a sandpiper, each striding along ignoring the other.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s pork chops in redcurrant jelly; fried potatoes; crisp cabbage and carrots; and the peppers, onions, leeks and garlic melange. This was followed by Bread and Butter pudding, with cream for her, and custard for me. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the madiran.

In response to popular request, the Culinary Queen has penned her method for making Bread and Butter Pudding.

The Peacock Spring

A welcome visit from Shelly and Ron, to collect the platinum anniversary photographs, broke the monotony of a morning spent on too-long-deferred paperwork. We enjoyed the usual ensuing conversation, naturally involving a certain amount of reminiscing.

Afterwards, beset by the raging gale-force winds, I visited the postbox.

Despite Jackie’s distressed efforts to bring the hanging baskets and raised pots to protective ground level

some were repeatedly blown over and their contents broken.

We haven’t dared approach the rose garden.

In 1975 I bought a first edition of Rumer Godden’s ‘The Peacock Spring’. In 1996 the novel was filmed for television. Directed by Christopher Morahan and starring Peter Egan, Nareen Andrews, Hattie Morahan, Ravi Kapoor, with Madhur Jaffrey, this production was well received. It still took me until this year to read the book. I finished it today.

Set in 1959, a slow fuse burns with ever-increasing tension, until the explosive finale of the tale of a tragic relationship. The author’s trademark poetic description and insightful characterisation enables her to build an enthralling story of a flawed family and the conflict of cultural mores. I will not give away details, but can say that the picture to the left here shows the father with his two English daughters who have been brought to India to provide a veneer of respect to his relationship with the woman portrayed.

MacMillan’s publications comes in a striking book jacket designed by David Baxter.

It is not unusual for me to take forty years to read a book in my possession. As with this one, I sometimes wonder why it took me so long.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s sublime cottage pie, crisp orange carrots and green cabbage. I drank more of the Cuvée St Jainé and Jackie enjoyed Blanche de Namur, a different Belgian wheat beer. The filmy quality of the above photograph comes from the wisps of steam rising from the dish, possibly encouraged by the layer of smoked cheddar cheese over the mashed potato topping.

The Shed In Situ

This morning, whilst Jackie went shopping, I wandered around the garden waiting for delivery of the garden shed. Now that the pink roses on the front trellis have died back, their places have been taken by clematis Mrs N Thompson, honeysuckle, calibrachoa in a hanging basket, and two varieties of trailing nasturtium.

A marbled white butterfly, swayed on a wind-blown verbena bonarensis

The Ballerina now dances freely at the cleared entrance to the rose garden.

Ground cover, like that provided by this unnamed succulent, is important,

but it is hanging baskets that lift a garden.

Here is a view from the brick path.

This trailing antirrhinum sits nicely above the patch of grass,

and these petunias lead us to The Head Gardener’s Walk,

as others, enlivening the dead Snake Bark Maple, overlook the Heligan Path and beyond.

Sometimes, as with this symphony in orange and red, serendipity intervenes. The orange sunburst beneath the cut plastic container is a clever little device with a thread that fits two litre supermarket water bottles, thus keeping a supply flowing for two days.

As can be seen from this later shot of The Head Gardener’s Walk petunias, Jackie’s shed was delivered and erected this afternoon.

Two splendid Wimbledon tennis matches were televised this afternoon. I watched them both. Serena Williams took just over an hour beat her sister Venus in straight sets. This was closer than the score looks. Andy Murray then had to battle it out for three hours and more, with Ivo Karlovic, to win a four set match. Murray is by no means a small man, but, slugging it out with the six foot eleven Croatian must be the tennis equivalent of a boxing contest with the giant Italian, Primo Carnera, of the 1930s.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb sausage casserole (recipe); creamy mashed potato; and crisp carrots, cabbage, and cauliflower. In celebration of her new shed, Jackie drank one of the small bottles of P. Desroches & Cie Brut Champagne Alison had given us. I drank Teroldego Rotaliano superiore riserva,2011.

Water

This morning Jackie cooked a superb sausage casserole (recipe) lunchtime meal for our friend Norman. Crisp vegetables and amazingly smooth mashed potato supplemented the dish. Dessert was an excellent plum, greengage, and apple crumble. Jackie drank sparkling water while our visitor and I shared a bottle of La Croix des Papes Chateuneuf du Pape 2012. Norman had travelled in reverse my usual fortnightly journey from his home in Preston Road, to visit us. We collected him from New Milton Station in the car.
After coffee Jackie drove us to have a look at the sea and the Isle of Wight before taking him back to the station for his return. Our octogenarian friend of more than thirty years, dating from when he had been my Deputy in Westminster Social Services Department, had, in his youth, lived in Southampton and had circumnavigated the Romans’ Vectis on many an occasion. As I have mentioned before, he is writing a book about passenger ships plying the Bay of Naples. He loves travelling on the water.

The problem with having potted plants and hanging baskets wherever Jackie can find to place them, even perched on the walls at the front, is that, especially on this, the hottest day of the year so far, they need constant watering. My task this evening, was to irrigate those at the front of the house. There are water butts all around the building, collecting the life-giving liquid from the guttering. It was just my luck that the one in the front garden should be empty. That meant I had to traipse round the side of the house to fill my can from one at the back. Still, Jackie had already watered far more at the back.
Afterwards, as we sat on the patio, with our books, and drinking sparkling water, we were visited by the timid pigeon that comes nightly to drink from the minuscule lily pond that began life as a household water tank.

So shy is the bird that as I reached for my camera it flew away, but had left its mark on one of the convex leaves as it sucked up the water cupped in a concave one.
The novel I finished reading this evening was ‘December’ by Elizabeth H. Winthrop. Once I got over my irritation at the continual use of the historical present used by the writer, I was gripped by this book. Winthrop has a keen eye for detail and an insightful approach to her characters. The story concerns Isabelle, locked into a self-imposed silence, and her parents’ struggles to encourage her to speak. The eleven year old child is, herself, unable to break out of the prison in which she is trapped. Her parents feel guilty and helpless, and their nerves are stretched to the limit. Psychotherapists cannot help. Eventually the girl is freed by a shock. The author’s understanding of the condition is sound and plausibly represented.

Embellishments

This morning was wasted trying to access e-mails. Just two days after BT changed their system, possibly indicating a parting from Yahoo, I could log on to BT but not to my e-mails. After wrestling with the problem for far too long, I eventually gave up and phoned their help line. This was clearly inundated with similar issues. Having forged my way through the machine response, I had to wait half an hour to reach a real live, and very helpful, individual, who took over my screen and grappled with it for another half hour before acknowledging that BT had suffered an ‘outage’ which they were working on. I should be able to access my e-mails within 24 hours. When the system was changed I had to provide a new password. Today I had to produce another. Don’t they realise old fogeys have memory problems?
In the last few days, whilst I have been gallivanting, Jackie has, among numerous other tasks in the garden, virtually cleared the skip pile and completely eradicated the extraneous foliage from the back fence;

embellished the area with hanging baskets; chopped up most of the branches into suitably sized pieces for the pyre; and transferred them to the site for burning. After I had posted yesterday’s entry, I completed this latter task.

I look forward to the new embellishments developing into the maturity of those Jackie planted earlier.

The Kiwi sculpture Michael and Heidi gave me for my birthday now perches alongside the patio.
This evening we dined at our neighbours The Royal Oak. I enjoyed my ham, eggs, chips and peas, as did Jackie her chicken wrapped in bacon and cheese. Her sweet was chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. My choice was apple crumble and custard. She drank Becks, while I drank Doom Bar.

Fuchsias

This morning we completed a task Jackie had begun yesterday. We had a very leggy fig tree that practised the can-can through the foliage of surrounding trees. We have now reduced it to a much more modest level, trusting that it will soon be wearing a billowing skirt of suitable leaves.

Near this plot, suspended from one of the arms of a tree that now has no fig’s legs wrapped around it, hang two galvanised buckets filled with potted begonias. Wherever there is a hook or a place to put one, Jackie is inclined to attach a hanging basket, or anything else that might serve the purpose, containing an array of different flowers. One of her favourites is the fuchsia. A selection of these comprises of:

La Campanella, Harry Gray, Pink unknown, and Jennifer Anne.

There are many more that are either past their first flush, or have not yet reached it.

Another plant that is also manifested in numerous forms in our garden, is the day lily. We have two more new ones today. One is a deep mauve/red, the other, the most delicate pale yellow.

But, I couldn’t dwell among the flowers all day. This morning I finished cutting down the brambles and clematis from the kitchen garden fence whilst evading the dodgy wire network. This afternoon Jackie and I worked together to move the last of the cuttings pile nearer to the defunct wheelbarrow in which they shall be burnt.

Early this evening we did a big Tesco’s shop in preparation for our guests tomorrow.

As is usual, Jackie made enough chicken jalfrezi yesterday for us to enjoy it once or twice more. Tonight’s dinner was the once. It was accompanied by Cobra beer.

‘Put Your Money Down There’

As usual for a London trip, Jackie drove me to Southampton Parkway where I boarded a train for Waterloo. I then travelled by tube to Paddington and walked to Safe Store at Paddington Green to buy ten more storage boxes for another book-packing session at Sutherland Place.

Walking through Paddington Basin I reflected on the huge residential developments that have emerged from the sunken waste ground that I knew in the ’70s and ’80s. At that time the only residents were travellers and their dogs in their caravans and more permanent denizens occupying narrow-boats moored along the canal side.

Today colourful deck-chairs glowed in the sunshine. Most were empty during the morning. Some were placed conveniently for spectators to watch the impromptu games of table tennis for which the wherewithal was situated beside the water. I have seen such tables in Paris and in Soho as reported when meandering through it on 17th October last year (click here to see post).

I left the basin via Hermitage Street for which the sign was almost obscured by the ubiquitous buddleia that will take root anywhere.

The splendid hanging baskets high above Harrow Road almost rivalled those with which Jackie has surrounded our flat.

The original building of the Children’s Hospital once serving the public on the Green now appears to be partitioned into residential apartments. The Green itself is the only recognisable feature of the scene depicted by R. Sayer in the eighteenth century.

Coming away from the store with my flat-packed boxes strapped with material designed to cut into your hand, I set off to walk to Sutherland Place. After about ten minutes I thought better of it and hailed a taxi.

The final move has been fixed for 2nd September, well clear of the Notting Hill Carnival. Margaret, who has continued working in the flat which is now to be re-let, helped me today, as she has done on the previous occasions. After this I am on my own, and will pack up the rest of the books and other items during the preceding weekend. She is to arrange for someone to hand me the keys for this. Brian has obtained a relaxation of parking restrictions for the removal van, but Michael has suggested that what is needed is a suspension of the bays outside the house, otherwise we are leaving it to chance that no-one will occupy them. I will need to enquire about this.

Today’s packing over, I walked to Queensway and travelled by underground to Waterloo.

Buying my ticket at Waterloo was an interesting process. The monthly return with my aged concessions taken into consideration amounted to £23.15. I slipped a £20 note under the teller’s protective glass screen and said ‘the rest is coming’, as I pulled a handful of coins out of my trousers pocket. A cursory examination told me I was about 20p short, so I proffered a £10 note and asked the man if the 15p would be helpful. ‘You’ve got enough there’, he said, pointing to my coins. ‘No, I haven’t’, I replied. Giving me a somewhat withering look, he said: ‘Put your money down there’, pointing to the trough under the grill. I decided to humour him, and did so. He picked up each piece, sorted them into denominations, and discovered there was not enough there. I was rather more amused than were the people in the queue backing up behind me.

Jackie picked me up at Southampton and drove me to The Firs where she was in the process of cooking for us all.

Having finished early, I took a brief sojourn in Kensington Gardens, through which I have run many a mile. Londoners and visitors were basking in the afternoon sunshine. Some sat on the grass. Others walked or cycled. Boris’s Bikes were much in demand, and judging by the wobbling progress of some of their riders I thought it a good thing they were not travelling along Bayswater Road.

Jackie’s meal was a delicious chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice, followed by apple and blackberry pie and lemon tart. This was shared by the same family members as yesterday. I drank red wine and the others, except for Andy, had rose.

The bright white plate peering through the trees against an inky sky that greeted us on our return to Castle Malwood Lodge was a full moon complete with etched in face.