horses – Page 8 – derrickjknight

Early Morning Sun

On her way to an early morning shopping trip Jackie dropped me at Silver Street near Ashley, and i walked back via Everton Road and Hordle Lane. It was a relief to turn right into the lane after walking directly into the glaring sun. The explosion of red, yellow, and green baubles picked up by the camera lens beset my own irises, gradually changing to purple and blue, blinding me to much else, especially oncoming prams and buggies.
This experience took me back to Harrow Road, N.W.10, in the early 1970s when my Social Services Area Office was housed at the Ladbroke Lane end of that thoroughfare. This busy road runs East to West from Central London. On a morning such as this I witnessed the aftermath of an accident in which a driver, similarly dazzled, had, coming from the West, crashed into the back of a stationary bus. I reflected that, perhaps, like me today, he had not been wearing sunglasses.
Opposite the children’s nursery in Hordle Lane, a forlorn little bear sat on a wall. Perhaps an equally sad infant will return to retrieve it and her happiness.
Beyond the school and the church the lane is bounded by fields, and the pavement disappears. Long shadows of trees and me were cast across the grass, and that of their gate crisscrossed the drive to Apple Court Nurseries. Oak trees were silhouetted against the landscape.
Horses that had worn protective masks against swarms of irritating flies in the height of the summer, now clad in colourful sleeveless overcoats, slaked their thirsts in pools of water lying on the surface of their paddock.
Back home, the winter flowering plants, such as these violas, soaked up the sunshine.
Such was the buoyant mood in which I returned from my walk, that even BT couldn’t shatter it. But they tried. Oh boy! Did they try!
Anyone who has been following the fiasco that began at the end of October may have been surprised that I had stopped writing about it. That is because for a few days now we have enjoyed an uninterrupted Broadband service. At 10.51 a.m. I received an e-mail telling me that my new service would begin on 15th December. Further down, in a section headed ‘small print’, subsection ‘cancellation’, was a statement that the new service had already started. What the service was, other than simply ‘broadband’ was not indicated. Since the five working days after which we should have reverted to our old copper system is well passed, and the broadband is working satisfactorily I thought that was the end of it. I had been promised an e-mail telling me when it had been activated, but didn’t receive one.
I then had the first of two conversations with an adviser who was as confused as I was. She suggested I waited until 15th December to see what happened. Whilst I was speaking to her, at 10.55, another e-mail came in telling me that the new service was ready. This prompted a further call from me. After a lengthy time listening to music whilst the sensible adviser discussed the matter with the orders department, a comprehensible answer was forthcoming. We had reverted to the old system. The 15th December service was faster broadband, but not Infinity. The Hub 5 should still work. I had, of course been told that it wouldn’t function with the old service and I would have to change back to the old Hub 3. But it did, so I hadn’t.
While I was at it, I said I wanted to revert to paper billing. This was arranged, and my adviser asked if there was anything else she could do for me. Great hilarity was occasioned by my reply: ‘Yes. Sort your company out’.
at 11.45 I received this e-mail:

‘Dear derrickjknight@btinternet.com

Thanks for contacting us.

We found an answer on our Help website that you’ll be interested in:

Ten great reasons to visit BT.com

Our website at BT.com is changing all the time, so please visit for:

Help – find fixes and tips, download user guides and watch video demos at www.bt.com/help.
My BT – view your bill, make a payment, track orders and manage your services at www.bt.com/mybt.
BT Life – check www.bt.com/btlife regularly for the latest news, offers and much more.
BT Products & Services – see our range of products, services and tools at www.bt.com

Thanks,

BT Customer Service’
If this is all doing your head in, just imagine what six weeks of it has done to mine.
This evening all was again right with the world when we dined on flavoursome pork chops roasted with mustard, brown sugar, almonds, and mushrooms; crisp carrots, cabbage, runner beans; and swede and potato mash. Dessert was spicy bread and butter pudding. I had custard on mine. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I enjoyed Mendoza Parra Alta malbec 2014.

A Ploughing Contest

Yesterday’s ploughing reminded me of that misty morning of 26th September 1992 when I took a set of photographs of a ploughing contest in Southwell in Nottinghamshire. I could not find the negatives, so I scanned the prints. These images were in such good condition that I had no adjustments to make.
Most of the contestants were very skilfully handling horse-drawn ploughs. The powerful animals were splendidly tacked.
Those tractors that were in operation were not as well-equipped as Roger’s modern one from yesterday.
The Abbey Life cart became stuck in the mud. Watching the efforts to free it, I thought it unfortunate that all the heavy horses were otherwise engaged.

Jessica, Michael, and Heidi could be seen in the sparse distant crowd, and nearer at hand.
Backtracking a further 21 years in my slide collection, I traced a couple of out of focus photos of Becky in the original mob cap mentioned yesterday. This prototype was trimmed with lace from Jackie’s wedding dress. Here is the most acceptable image:
Sam, The Lady Plumber, came this morning and fitted new taps and hoses to the guest bathroom, and fixed the shower to the wall. She confirmed that the freestanding bath in our en suite room should be fixed to the floor, which it isn’t. Now we have an unblocked shower, we are unlikely to climb into it again. Apart from the two occasions mentioned on 24th April, this has never been used. It is free to anyone who would like it. Sam is quick, efficient, pleasant, and careful with your money.
Having this morning established that I had, indeed, begun to unearth a complete row of concrete slabs yesterday, I set to and extracted a few more today. The future rose garden is looking more and more like a building site. Removing all the unwanted materials will be a long. slow, process.
As she was scraping earth from a building block that had been buried several inches down, Jackie disturbed a drowsy newt, hiding in a crevice. Very, very gingerly, she cleaned up the stone, and, with a trowel, transferred her amphibian friend to the side of one of our tiny ponds. She took the photographs herself.
Later this afternoon we bought a new shower head and flexible hose, from City Plumbing in New Milton, for the shower Sam had worked on, and went on to Curry’s at Christchurch to order a Kenwood dishwasher, the fitting of which will be our plumber’s next assignment.
It was, of course, Jackie who attached the shower head. Sadly, the Mapperly family will not be able to avail themselves of this facility tomorrow, because they all have bad colds and need to defer their visit.
This evening we dined at our local pub, The Royal Oak. I enjoyed possibly the best sirloin steak ever in an hostelry, whilst Jackie chose her favourite butterfly chicken. My dessert was apple crumble served in a cup with a jug of custard to dispense when you had made room for it. It was delicious. Jackie also enjoyed her Mississippi mud pie. She drank peroni and I drank an excellent rioja.

The Green Man

Today’s weather pattern was similar to yesterday’s. I therefore delved into the archives again and came up with another black and white picture of Sam looking remarkably like his daughter Orlaith, among a collection of shots of still naked trees that must have been taken early in 1982 somewhere in Surrey. I love the contorted shapes and the images they sometimes reveal. Study, for example, the last picture above. Can you see the Green Man of legend? He is a mythological figure representing rebirth, and, reproduced in every art form, whether drawing, painting or sculpture, is frequently seen as an architectural symbol or a pub sign. Very often he is painted as if formed from foliage. I have never seen him depicted in bark, which is my excuse for breaking my normal rule and altering an image.

Perhaps the fossilised Picasso-like deer in this shot is easier to spot.

As the day brightened up, I wandered along Hordle Lane as far as the path by the side of Apple Court Garden, and along this until my way was barred by a locked five-barred gate. I then retraced my steps. Two of the horses in the paddock still wore their protective masks, although the day was less fly-blown.

We now have a delicate little clematis Campaniflora rambling across the plants in the front garden.

Water lilies are still forcing their way to the light in the tiny pond created in an old water tank.

Among the most fidgety of the butterflies we have is the small white, which, like Tigger, never seems to be able to settle. They are constantly, restlessly, flitting around the garden. I managed, fleetingly, to catch one on a bidens. It didn’t stay long enough to disturb the other two basking insects.

Having noticed that Apple Court were advertising rare and unusual plants, I returned this afternoon with the head gardener to make some purchases. We bought a Persicaria microcephalus Red Dragon; a Hydrangea paniculata Phantom; two Athyriums, one Metallicum, the other dictum Red Beauty; and a Dryopteris erythrosora Brilliance.

In the sales area Meadow Brown butterflies and bees flocked to the cone flowers. In the garden itself, a magnificent catalpa shed its shaded blooms, vying with the sunlight in dappling the lawn beneath, and Primrose was having her photograph taken.

Water lilies in the capacious carp ponds had no need to force their way into the sunlight.

When we returned with our spoils, seizing upon the opportunity to contribute to the planting, and, more significantly, to take a break from digging up concrete slabs, I volunteered to dig the holes for the new residents. This turned out to be somewhat unwise. I began with the ferns, which were destined for a comparatively fallow spot where only weeds seemed to be growing. Almost immediately I hit upon large lumps of tufa. Tufa is a porous rock, formed near mineral springs, upon which some hardy plants will grow. It is popular for rockeries and alpines. Maybe a rockery was once intended for this bed. The large piece on the left of the pile in the picture demonstrates that it is useful on which to grow certain plants. Not ideally those it was harbouring. Having dug all this out, the craters left had to be filled with soil scrounged from other parts of the garden. Then we planted our ferns.

The lair allocated for the Red Dragon involved piercing a mixture of clay and gravel. Fortunately for me Jackie did most of it.

Finally, I only had to negotiate a tree root before setting the Phantom hydrangea standing proud.

This evening we again dined on Jackie’s luscious lamb jalfrezi with boiled rice, followed by evap on strawberries on raspberry twirl cheesecake. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Chateau Chataigniere Bordeaux 2012.

Where Did That Come From?

This morning I delved into the archives of black and white negatives. Firstly, I made three more prints for Norman, of his photographs for the book he is working on. He had not been happy with the first versions of these; two he considered too dark; and in one I had undeniably snipped the stern off the ship. I couldn’t understand why I had unwittingly cropped this picture. After a few more efforts at printing from iPhoto I remembered that this method does have that unfortunate effect. That we had discovered when engaged in our card factory. It took me a while to work it out again, but I did. And wrote it all down. Had I referred back to the Clipped Wings post of last August before I began to wrestle with the problem, I could have saved myself some time.

Having completed the task for my friend, I turned to my own unsorted negatives. Next in line for my attention were some rather atmospheric shots of the banks of the Thames from about 1982. Apart from their displaying scenes that the developments of the next thirty years would change forever, they also show either a remarkably rapid feat of building or a miraculous appearance.
I haven’t studied these pictures in the intervening years, and if I made prints of them they have vanished. Since, however, they are still on the strip of Ilford film, I know the order in which I took the photographs, and have repeated it here. The second image down, provides the mystery. Examine the Booth’s Gin building. Then look at it in the next two.
Or maybe it is just a matter of perspective.

Michael was almost sixteen when, in 1980, the year of Sam’s birth, we moved to Gracedale Road in Streatham from Horse and Dolphin Yard in Soho. In his earlier teens Michael had been Soho’s only newspaper boy. At seventeen, he graduated to becoming the relief manager for the chain of newsagents, Rippon’s, from one of whose shops in Dean Street he had delivered the papers. When he was given the peripatetic job, he had bought himself a Yamaha motorbike for transport between the branches spread London-wide.

As soon as Sam was big enough, probably three years later, he would mount the steed and imagine he was driving it off into the unknown. Here he is in the street outside our house.

The buddleia in the garden is now attracting a variety of butterflies. Here are a pair of peacocks.

Early this evening I walked along Hordle Lane as far as the paddock and back. Horses wear protective masks to keep the flies off, but still have to use their tails as whisks.

The cow parsley in the verges has run to seed and now looks quite sculptural. Kenneth Clark in his study of ‘The Nude’ likens the classical ideal human figure to architectural forms. Perhaps all our creations take inspiration from nature.

The barley in the fields along the way is coming on nicely.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s divine sausage casserole (recipe) with crisp vegetables and smooth mashed potato garnished with our own chives from the garden. I received four bay leaves, this time not a source of embarrassment. Dessert was mixed fruit crumble and custard. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, while I began Villa Blanche 2013, an excellent Pinot Noir given to me for my birthday by Helen and Bill.

Spring

The gloriously sunny weather that has welcomed us to Downton continued today.

I took a walk up Hordle Lane alongside the extensive rape fields that glowed beneath the cloudless blue skies. A footpath on the left led around one field and through another. At first the fields were on my left. Horses lazed in a paddock on my right. Further footpaths put the rape on the right and woods on my left.

Bluebells enlivened the forest floor through which they had penetrated as they sprung from their hibernating bulbs.

Naturally I took a path through the woods where primroses were equally abundant. This wound around a bit, but I could hear the roar of what I hoped was Christchurch Road, distant on my left. Some of the time. Otherwise I heard the cawing of rooks, the humming of various insects, and cackling of hens and geese. A bleating and baaing led me along another track in the hope I might see some lambs.

I was not disappointed. They littered wide open grassland to my left. Farmland to the right contained Shetland ponies and black sheep, one of which was a magnificent three-horned ram that took to its heels at the sight of my camera. Maybe I’ll catch it next time.
The wide track through Peter’s farm took me to Lower Ashley Lane, where I turned left to the junction with Lymington Road, a section of Christchurch Road. I returned home along this undulating, winding busy thoroughfare lacking a footpath. I had to be rather vigilant.
This afternoon we took delivery of Flo’s wardrobe from Oakhaven Hospice Trust. The men took it upstairs and our granddaughter manoeuvred it into its alcove.

Flo took some rather lovely photographs of the garden. This one she entitled ‘Spring’.

My manly tasks today were helping Jackie to put up more curtain rails, then to add to the skip pile. Anyone from Globe Removals may wish to skip what follows. Their stalwart men moved four dismantled IKEA wardrobes, all carefully marked up by Michael, from his Wimbledon house to storage; out of storage; and into our garage ready for us to reassemble. They are too tall for our ceilings, which is why we bought another from Oakhaven Hospice Trust. We have been unable to give them away. This afternoon I began humping the extremely heavy sections from garage to garden heap. I didn’t finish the job. But there is a lot more room in the garage.
This evening Jackie drove to the Hordle Chinese Takeaway in Stopples Lane and returned with a plentiful feast on which we dined with Flo. I drank Spitfire ale.

A Rude Awakening

We have packed the long life milk, so it fell to my lot, this bright morning, to walk down to the village shop to buy some more. I returned via the church path, The Splash, and Furzey Gardens.
Burgeoning spring has come to Castle Malwood Lodge garden, with its flowering cherries and its shrubs; to those in the village; and to the verges and hedgerows.
I stopped on the way to say goodbye to Alan. We discussed the ‘bedroom tax’, which in my view is far more complex than it seems to some. There is no doubt that many elderly people, often recipients of depleted and diminishing Social Services, are struggling alone to keep going in family houses when all their offspring have moved away, whilst younger people, faced with mounting rents, strive to bring up families in one-bedroomed flats. Whether penalising those Council tenants who cannot, or are reluctant to, move from their life-long homes is the answer, remains to be seen. Nevertheless, somehow a balancing of this problem needs to be achieved.
At the village green I met a couple seeking a walk before lunch in the Trusty. I now have plenty of experience with which to set them on their way.

Celandine, violas, primroses, and hawthorn sparkled in the sunshine. I find it almost impossible to photograph primroses in bright sunshine, so I settled for an equine one who, with Champion, her male escort, basked at the trough.

Moss adorned the little-used public telephone box.

A flaming bright orange berberis blazed alongside the road leading up to the church.

A number of trees bordering the still soggy church footpath have been cut down. They leave fascinating forms reminiscent of a child’s wooden jigsaw puzzle.

At one end the signpost has been embellished by the addition of an outstretched gauntlet. Clearly someone thought the direction of the thoroughfare needed some clarification.

Less hardy than the New Forest ponies, many of the adult thoroughbreds in the fields still wear their winter warming coats. The youngsters seem to be deemed not to need them.

Alex Schneideman, in a recent post, illustrated an enlightening article on the emotional impact of out of focus portraits against sharply drawn settings. I wonder what he would think of this shot of the horses seen through the hedgerow.

Whilst I was wandering this morning Jackie began the task of dismantling her portable garden. We continued it this afternoon. When she had installed it, she had disturbed a sleepy toad. The creature obviously survived the trauma, for today the horticulturist once again aroused it from its slumbers.

Jackie’s garden contained the deer-proof fencing, various assorted bricks, and a total of 84 pots of flowers, most of which were quite large. Some of the pots were in hanging baskets. There was the bird feeder with its squirrel baffle, and lots of both wooden and metal stakes. This was no mean achievement to put together, and quite a project to take apart. As I trudged backwards and forwards across the garden to return brick-loads to their previous resting place behind the garages, I wondered how she’d managed to carry them all across in the first place.

As I post this we are about to drive to the Curry Garden at Ringwood, where we will enjoy their usual excellent food and a pint and a half of Kingfisher.

A Squabble Of Seagulls

The air was much colder today, and the weak sun only briefly penetrated the mist after mid-day. Even late in the morning, as I walked to Lyndhurst via Mill Lane and Pikes Hill, the landscape beyond the first layer of trees was obscured. At the top of Mill Lane one pony chomped under a flowering prunus whilst another looked as if it had done battle with a bramble.
Further on a mare and her lanky adolescent offspring ceased nuzzling each other to wander across and pass the time of the day with me as I leant on a wooden five-barred gate.
The plan today was that I would walk to the Post Office in Lyndhurst to arrange postal redirection, and retire to the car park where Jackie would meet me with the Modus. In the event, I made good progress and didn’t take long in the Post Office, so I was half an hour early and sat on a bench watching the people go by. A mother was teaching her little daughter how to cross the road, by looking both ways I imagine.
I had phoned Malachi a couple of days ago to ask him what he would like me to send him from England for his birthday. He thought ‘something to do with stars’ would be ‘cool’. I was very surprised to find just the thing in Lyndhurst, so it looks as if another trip to the Post Office will be in order to send the parcel to Perth.
Jackie drove us on to Milford on Sea for lunch in the Needles Eye cafe, from which the Isle of Wight and its Needles were not visible.

Passing through Downton we stopped to investigate the entrance to a quarry which was not far from our new house. Gravel is being excavated a good distance from the house, and I was reassured by the gentleman on site who, reasonably enough, wondered why I was taking photographs.

There are a number of posts along the beach at Milford on Sea bearing notices warning of underwater obstruction. Each of these when we arrived was occupied by a gull. One of these perches was in dispute. The resident was assailed by two rivals. A noisy three for all ensued. Before the argument was settled it was continued on the wing. When the victor reclaimed its throne it kept swivelling its head around, keeping alert and ready to repel further boarders. In case you didn’t know, the collective noun for seagulls is a squabble.
After lunch we drove back through Downton and stopped off to visit Apple Court Nursery and Garden which is very near where our new home will be. Rightly termed ‘one of Hampshire’s loveliest gardens’ it is a well established all the year round garden on which the owners and staff were working in earnest. Only open from March to October on Fridays, weekends and bank holidays, we will certainly visit it again. Jackie found it particularly helpful in learning what is likely to thrive in our new garden. The answer is most plants that like a neutral soil. Today we saw a quantity of spring bulbs, camellias, magnolias, and euphorbia.
Particularly impressive was the Japanese garden with its small lake filled with monstrous carp.
Back home I dined on chilli con carne (recipe) whilst Jackie enjoyed a tamer chicken curry (recipe). I drank Campo Viejo rioja 2012.

The Forest Den

On another bright morning I had intended a walk based on The Splash ford, however, directly opposite the end of Lower Drive, I was tempted into the forest by the sight of five ponies foraging in what is an unusual location for them. Having gone in to make their acquaintance, I continued and repeated the walk in what my follower Jane was kind enough to describe as ‘the magic of the forest’ I had made in the mist of 21st January.

The terrain was as soggy as expected, and I managed to become rather mud splashed, at one point having to wipe my camera’s viewing screen with my handkerchief. There were the usual new pools and helpful pony trails.
Just before Seamans Lane the open stretch of land is covered in the darkened patches described yesterday. Two of the deepest streams are spanned by wooden bridges which, judging by the hoof prints around them, are frequented by our equine friends.
Some way into the trees we come to the corner of fenced off land that is the side of gardens of the houses at the bottom of Running Hill, and the backs of those in Seamans Lane. There, carefully erected against a tree, was a child’s teepee-like den created by propping suitable fallen branches against one of the live limbs. This had me immediately transported back to a forest in Northern France in the summer of 1985 when Jessica and I had made a similar one for Sam.
In London Minstead the couple I had photographed on 8th December 2012 returning from a horse ride, were just setting off on one today. We stopped and chatted for a while.
Further on down Seamans Lane, the thudding of horses’ hooves on the turf of a field caused me to climb a low bank and peer over a prickly hedge. There, the horse wearing the bridle galloped friskily about whilst the other chomped away. It kept well out of range of my lens until it joined its companion for some nosh.
The negative of the black and white picture above was in my random files. You can imagine with what trepidation I set about searching for it immediately upon my return home, and my delight when I managed to identify it fairly early on. Undoubtedly assisted by the fact that I have far less black and white than colour negatives it was still a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. Holding strips of 35mm. film up to the light from the window and looking for the reverse image of that little face among all those leaves was rather daunting.
Becky and Flo came this afternoon and we were introduced to Zäneta, a companion for Kota the Pleo.
This evening the four of us enjoyed a roast lamb dinner followed by lemon meringue pie and rice pudding. Jackie drank another glass of the Nobilo while Becky and I imbibed Casillero del Diablo reserva 2012. Scooby gnawed a bone under the table, skilfully managing to avoid my stockinged feet.
We reminisced about the apple tree in the garden of Amity Grove, which was the theme for a book I made for Becky’s seventh birthday. Maybe she’ll scan a picture or two from it and send them to me so I can add them to this post.
P.S:
Later, having read this post, my daughter Louisa posted on Facebook this picture of Imogen taken on 25th October 2012:

and this of Jessica in the Peak District on 13th January 2013:

P.P.S. Scooby built his on 14th April 2013:

A Gift From Norway

We drove early this morning to Ringwood for a bit more shopping, then went on to visit Helen and Bill in Poulner, after which we meandered around the northern forest villages seeking a particular photographic subject for a card idea that Jackie had. We returned home along Roger Penny Way.

The plane trees around Ringwood car park are now mostly devoid of leaves, although many of the forest trees remain festooned with persistent clingers. Along Roger Penny Way, the rounded shapes of the oaks and beeches with their golden foliage are set off nicely by the pointed evergreen pines behind them. The gnarled and arthritic limbs of the oaks are beginning to reveal themselves.

Ponies, cattle, and donkeys were all motionless soon after midday. All these roamers seem to be growing winter coats. The equine varieties stood stock still, whereas the bovines lay basking in the sunshine glinting on their variously coloured ear tags.

High above the fields and chimney pots of Ibsley, a trio of helicopters, possibly military, glided silently across the skies. As Jackie brought the car to a standstill alongside someone’s house, and I leapt out to photograph the airborne vehicles, I rather alarmed a woman who stood quizzically shielding her eyes. I therefore felt obliged to explain what I was doing, by which time I had all but missed the shot.

Back in Minstead, where the horses of the Freshwater Stud were now wearing man made winter coats, we found the picture we had been looking for all along. This afternoon I worked on the prints required.

Yesterday, the Christmas season officially opened in Central London with the switching on of the lights to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree. Our annual gift from the people of Norway in recognition of Britain’s help during World War Two, the tree has been a feature of the capital since 1947. This is how I, with my Kodak Retinette 1b, recorded the scene fifty years ago:

The rows of people to the left of the picture are carol singers. Different groups still perform nightly carols raising funds for various charities.

This evening we dined at The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton, on the excellent buffet meal. Although called a buffet this is rather different in that for £18 a head you do have all you can eat, but you actually select from a normal full menu , and are given all the time you need with breaks in between. If you over-order and cannot eat it all you pay normal prices for the uneaten portions. It seems to work rather well. Once again we remarked on the friendliness of the atmosphere, with the staff seeming to be on very good terms with all the customers. I always eat the decorative chillis and cucumber. When taking our first set of empty plates away, the waiter, seeing that I hadn’t eaten the lemon slice, from which I had at least squeezed the juice, suggested he should put it on my bill (as an uneaten portion). With our meal Jackie and I both drank T’sing Tao beer.

To Honour Their Dead

Mo and John departed this morning for their rented house in Bourlens which we visited yesterday. It has been a most convivial stay and I shall miss them. However, Judith has warned me against squatters rights in France, so they had to go.

This being All Souls Day, and therefore a holiday, there was a brief flurry of activity until Carrefour closed at midday. After this, all was tranquil as I found a new walk this afternoon. Birds sang; there was a short-lived distant whirring of a solitary scooter; otherwise it was just me, one cow, and a few horses.

At the bottom of the steep slope of rue St Jacques I turned left at a no through road sign pointing to Le Gironnet. Trusting that there may be a footpath at the end, I was not disappointed. This took me to the lower level of a sharply inclined road leading, on the left, to Chateau Cluzeau, whose vines lined the slopes. Alongside this building there was a round towered modern one styled Le Petit Cluzeau. As I had hoped, the road led me to Le Cluzeau College at the very summit of the other steep climb of rue St Jacques. From there I could look down on the Chateau which was itself in an elevated position.

In a field there were horses wearing eye-masks which I presumed must be protection against the irritating flies. One rolled on the grass, seemingly attempting to dislodge other pests. Rather like me scratching my back in the middle of the night against the corner of the bathroom wall.

The day, which had been rather dull at the outset, had brightened by the time I returned to No 6. Passing the war memorial, I noticed fresh pots of flowers.

For the last couple of days a marquee outside the florists had been doing a roaring trade in potted crysanthemums. These are placed before the graves in the cemetery which is a truly glorious sight. The French do honour their dead.

Walking around the splendid display, I noticed just one broken stem which I picked up and placed in a convenient bowl of water.

Mo has left me with enough food to see me through to Monday. I began today with her spicy pumpkin soup followed by her delicious chicken dish and a creme caramel.

As drops spattered on the canopy above my head outside Le Code Bar, which was, like everywhere else today, closed, a passing small child watching me at my blog, informed me that it was raining. I thanked her graciously.

Earlier, a man had asked me where, in Sigoules, he could find a shop where kouskous was made on the premises. Not understanding his question I told him the bar would be open at 7.30. We had to start again, and I didn’t know anyway, so I wasn’t really much help. He didn’t fancy waiting until the morning for Carrefour’s produce, nor did he wish to avail himself of my offer of some from my fridge. Maybe because I said it had come from Carrefour.