This morning I completed my mega filing task while Jackie carried out more planting under the watchful eye of Nugget
with whom she happily conversed. “Where’s Nugget?” (25).
Beside the Weeping Birch Bed with its kniphofias, petunias, heleniums, and pelargoniums.
The yellow kniphofia is Popsicle Mango; the terracotta one has attracted a wasp.
Small White butterflies and bees still cluster around the verbena bonariensises.
continue to thrive.
Autumn crocuses have arrived.
The Rose Garden, the Palm Bed, and the Oval Bed glow with aureate colour;
spiders have spun fine chains for golden seeds;
Virginia creeper is beginning to take on a ruby hue,
with which penstemons are trimmed.
Early this warm and sunny evening we took a drive into the forest.
I disembarked from the car on the road between Brockenhurst and Beaulieu.
I walked along a gravelled path and over the dry terrain,
the sweeping sounds of my sandals answering those of the jaws of the ponies cropping the grass they shared with a few cattle joining them on their way in from the verges.
This evening we dined on Hordle Chinese Take Away’s usual fine fare with which Jackie drank Blue Moon and I drank sparkling water.