hollyhock – Page 2 – derrickjknight

Our Industrial Past

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I forgot to mention yesterday that when I returned home I found that my cheque from Laithwaite’s had been delivered.

The Félicité Perpétue rose in the front garden has been sending thorny tentacles across the drive. This morning I restrained them with green wire.

Alongside the marguerites that accompany the rose,

a nasturtium trumpeted its presence.

Opposite, the clematis Mrs. N. Thompson and solanums

twine amongst the honeysuckle from which bees flit to and fro.

This new hollyhock is in bloom along the back drive.

In June 1981, I made a series of colour slides of gasometers. I scanned them this afternoon.

Here are sections of side views;

and one of a top.

There are glimpses of three in this image.

I cannot, for the life of me, remember where these were. Maybe the car wrecks could provide a pointer for anyone who may help identify them;

or maybe these snapdragons? Perhaps not.

The major problem for anyone attempting to assist is that these emblems of our industrial past may no longer exist.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about our gasometers: ‘A gas holder, sometimes called a gasometer, is a large container in which natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures. The volume of the container follows the quantity of stored gas, with pressure coming from the weight of a movable cap. Typical volumes for large gasholders are about 50,000 cubic metres (1,800,000 cu ft), with 60 metres (200 ft) diameter structures.’

Today, there are very few left standing. The reason for this is described in this short video made by Tom Scott:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SopJr0yHt-w&w=560&h=315]

One iconic gasometer, protected, or, listed since earlier this year, is visible from The Oval cricket ground. I spent many a day in the summers of my teens watching the rise and fall of this famous cricketing symbol. Wikipedia provides this photograph.

For our dinner this evening, the Culinary Queen produced smoked haddock, piquant cauliflower cheese (recipe), new potatoes, crunchy carrots, and sautéed leeks and peppers. We both drank Marlborough Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc 2015. Needless to say, it was all delicious.

Hammock And Hollyhock

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This morning we shopped at Lidl, mainly to load up the car with more of their large bags of compost. Quite a number of the on the heap outside the store were damaged and leaking. Some fell on stony ground.

So popular was the photograph of Sam in the hammock from yesterday’s post that I scanned the rest of the set of colour slides made in August 1981. Matthew was wonderful with his younger siblings.

Here, his and Sam’s enjoyment of time in the hammock at Meldreth is quite clear.

Mat’s friend Adrian was of similar ilk.

No, this hollyhock has not crept in from our current garden 35 years on. It was taken along with these others. Does its progeny still soar from the sunlit borders of ‘The Dumb Flea’? (the Drapers’ home where these shots were made).

Here in Downton we have experienced very strong winds for two or three days. These have dried up the hanging baskets and broken a few stems. Jackie therefore has been taking a few down. She continued this today, and I did some watering.

This evening we dined on a second helping of Hordle Chinese Take Away. We now know the proprietor’s name is Chan, which is a pity because Mister Chatty Man suits him so well. I finished the Carignan Vieilles Vignes and Jackie drank her Hoegaarden and Bavaria mix. Well, she had to do something with the non-alcoholic beer bought by mistake.

The Unidentified Fir Bed

I began the day by watching a recording of the England v. Australia match in the Rugby World Cup. In case there is any rugby fan in either hemisphere who is yet to watch it, I will say no more.

Encouraged by yet another warm, sunny, day, Jackie began work on clearing, and settling down for winter, the bed between the Heligan and Phantom Paths. We will call it The Unidentified Fir Bed, in honour of the large evergreen that enhances it. My contribution was to gather up and shift the debris to the respective compost and combustible heaps; to dig out a tree peony that encroached upon the Heligan Path; and to rake up fallen leaves from the gravel.

In addition to releasing a number of choked plants that had not seen the light of day for a year or two, Jackie discovered another row of large rocks, and a length of perished buried hose from an ancient irrigation system.

This afternoon, deciding to dig over the exposed ground, she found much rubble therein. I, oblivious of this added difficulty, watched TV rugby matches between Argentina and Tonga, and between Ireland and Italy.

Elsewhere in the garden this morning I had discovered yet another owl perched on a stump,

and the aerator acquired from the dump yesterday piercing the grass patch. The pheasant and kiwi didn’t look impressed.

One of Margery’s hollyhocks still stands sentinel to the left of this scene.

Today’s bouquet of roses includes

Laura Ford,

Festive Jewel,

and Absolutely Fabulous.

Butterflies like this well camouflaged Speckled Wood (thanks to Paul Clarke for pointing out that this is not a Wall Brown) have not yet given up,

neither have the slurping bees.

This evening we dined on cod in mornay sauce with broccoli florets; and crisp carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. We both drank Cimarosa Pedro Jimenez 2014.

The Monet Arch

Oscar, that fine blogging poet of In So Many Words, recently expressed wonderment that I got any work done with all the photography I did in the garden. I wonder, did he know that the camera is a preferred delaying tactic; and that a new rose arch has stood in the hall porch for the last three days, awaiting assembly?

The arch leading into the front garden was such a ramshackle structure that it was being held together by the roses, honeysuckle, and clematis it was meant to support. I therefore ordered a replacement from Agriframes. Today we decided to substitute the new metal Monet Arch for the existing rickety woodwork.

Anyone who remembers our last struggle with an Agriframes Arch may well understand our reluctance to begin this project, and Oscar, in particular, will understand my need ramble round the garden first.

The overnight rain had once again left sparkling gems on the flowers:

on geraniums;

on begonias;

on trailing antirrhinums, less their tails battered by the winds;

on Margery’s long- lived hollyhocks;

on a giant fuchsia Pink Marshmallow;

and on the rose Mamma Mia, to name a few.

The ripening apples on the tree also benefited from a wash.

The two beds Jackie has planted up in the last week welcomed the nurturing rainfall. These are

the former site of the ficus,

and the triangular bed linking the Pergola and Brick Paths.

Having removed some overgrown shrubs from the latter opens up the view through to the Agriframes Gothic Arch.

At every corner the sun lit hosts of grateful blooms like these Japanese anemones.

That little wander was just one of the ways we managed to defer tackling the arch until after lunch. Spelling mistakes in the instructions didn’t inspire me with confidence; neither did the fact that the suppliers had equated 1.2 meters with 4 feet.

This was the paperwork.

Before anything else, we decided to take step 2. It seemed rather important to make sure we could fit the four posts into gravelly soil with concrete and stone embellishments. This meant heavily pruning the plants in situ, then piercing four holes in the right places. Every time I extracted the hole maker, bits of gravel fell back into it. That was rather frustrating. Next came step 1. We then applied the top section to the four posts of step 2, to check we had them properly aligned. After a bit of tweaking we found we had.

Step 1 was then removed so we could build step 3, and apply it as in step 4. Eventually, that worked. This meant we were ready to put step 1 in place.

I trust that is all very clear. The next time we need an arch it will come ready-assembled from an architectural salvage outlet such as Ace Reclaim.

Did I mention that it rained during this procedure? No? Well, it did.

This evening we dined with Giles and Jean at her home in Barton on Sea. Jean produced an excellent meal of Sea Bass, new potatoes, broccoli, and mushrooms; followed by a succulent autumn pudding, being a seasonal variant on my favourite summer pudding. I drank a rather good mourvedre, while Jackie drank Peroni. Naturally we had our usual stimulating conversation.