Yesterday evening, through the window beside my desk, Jackie photographed glistening pearls strung out by a furry spider.
For reasons which will become particularly apparent from my post “The Foam Rubber Mattress”, patient readers who may have notice an hiatus in the drafting of my autobiography, may be pleased to know that I picked it up again this afternoon. Hoping to have lifted my block I have taken material from that post and from “Chocolate Surprise Pudding”
Jackie carried out more planting, ably hindered by Nugget.
This afternoon we experienced more showers than sunshine as we drove to The Wheel Inn to book a table for lunch to celebrate Mum’s 97th birthday tomorrow.
The rain really set in as we continued into the forest, but desisted just as we had decided to return home. We stayed on at Brockenhurst where
pair of donkeys trotted alongside the school buses transporting youngsters home from Brockenhurst College
and idled past our windscreen.
Ponies
and cattle happily grazed among huge oaks just outside the village.
Pied wagtails are to ponies as robins are to gardeners. We watched one nipping around nearby hooves and muzzles.
Back at home, Jackie took her camera into the garden.
She is particularly pleased with this clematis, shrivelled and wizened when we arrived here five years ago.
Another great survivor is the Phoenix grass we tried to kill, now rising triumphantly from Elizabeth’s Bed.
The Dragon Bed, seen from the Gazebo, was a jungle five years ago.
Sculptural grasses come into their own at this time of the year. These are in the Palm Bed.
The helianthuses Lemon Queen sit before a curtain of Virginia creeper.
She cannot remember the name of this gorgeous fuchsia.
Other favourites are osteospermum;
the waving verbena bonariensis
and the peripatetic cosmoses mingling with them.
This evening we dined on roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing; roast potatoes, including sweet ones; crisp Yorkshire pudding; crunchy carrots and cauliflower with which I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2018.
