Isle of Wight – Page 11 – derrickjknight

‘Painting With Light’

With extensive cloud cover and intermittent rain this morning was considerably warmer than yesterday, but far less inviting for my Hordle Cliff top walk. Nevertheless a rainbow did attempt to put in an appearance, as did a watery sun over The Solent, which sent ochre coloured waves crashing against the blending shingle on the beach.
Whoever broke into the garages of the empty Royal Oak pub was bound to have been disappointed, for there was nothing they wanted inside. The deciduous trees on Downton Lane have mostly lost their foliage, but the evergreen pines have retained theirs.
In an attempt to cheer up the day an inflated memento from a Macdonald’s Happy Meal bobbed in the stream, and a festive reindeer has arrived in Shorefield Country Park.
The skies had brightened considerably by midday when Aaron Parris of A.P. Maintenance came with a colleague and cleaned out our guttering. I engaged him to complete my work on the back drive, and to level the former kitchen garden.
By 2 p.m. the winter sun was strongly in evidence and the temperature several degrees colder. I took a short stroll down the lane with the object of reprising some of the morning’s shots. These are the results:
By 3 p.m. it wasn’t far off sunset.
Chris Weston, on his training course, described photography as ‘painting with light’. Perhaps these images, all unenhanced, and taken at different times on the same typically English day, illustrate what he meant.
The chauffeur was feeling a little under the weather, so unfortunately we were unable to attend Margery and Paul’s annual Christmas singing party, but trust the usual good time was enjoyed by all.
Since the chef was also feeling a little frail, we dined out at the Rivaaz, where I enjoyed lamb nagin and special fried rice, with a few titbits donated by Jackie from her choice of the buffet meal. We both drank Kingfisher.

Shades Of A Late Autumn

Over both the still fields and the calm sea, pastel shades dominated the skies on a crisp morning as I took my Hordle Cliff top walk in reverse. Although the sun was largely clouded over, shooting directly towards it across The Solent produced a lighter image.
These muted colours were repeated in the fallen leaves blending with the planks of the footbridge over the Shorefield stream, but, there being no sunshine, I allowed myself to use the vivid colours setting for the autumn leaves on the drive to Oldrode House on Downton Lane.
No-one was at home in

the rookery.

A gentleman greeted me as I approached the steps leading to the footpath to the sea. For obvious reasons, I held back until he reached the top, and repeated this self-interested politeness when a friendly couple joined me on the cliff path to Barton, along which I walked a little way before turning back to the coast road.

Judging by the evidence of their frenzied activity on the grassed terrain at the cliff top, the moles are becoming frantic in their urge to reproduce.

The weather is becoming colder now, but remains most clement for the time of year. Cattle have been let back into the field alongside Hordle Closed Cemetery, and marigolds still bloom in Bridge Cottage Garden.

The wind picked up again this afternoon with, I am convinced, the sole purpose of harassing me in my efforts at continuing to clear our fallen foliage. I did, however persevere, consoled by the thought that I did not have to tackle Oldrode’s drive.

The sun also emerged late in the day and emblazoned an oak tree on the opposite side of Christchurch Road.

Happy Times is the name of the Pennington Chinese takeaway. We ate more of their excellent food this evening. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank a reserve Languedoc red wine from 2012.

Leaf Compost

The cranking clatter of marauding magpies heard as I walked down Downton Lane on my Hordle Cliff top walk this murky morning, was to give way to that of a mechanical digger in Shorefield on my return. The latter, which was breaking up the concrete bases of the demolished chalets, could be heard from the beach.
Perched atop his ladder in the lane was an Openreach engineer whose van advertised Superfast Fibre. Perhaps others who have been sold this particular broadband are more fortunate than we are. This has been the fifth working day since BT informed us that it would take that long for us to be returned to our old copper broadband. We have heard no more.
Blackberry leaves at the cliff top and the seed cases of an unidentified shrub on the way up to Shorefield glowed brightly. It looks as if the seeds are relished by the birds. Does anyone recognise them?
The stream photographed late yesterday afternoon runs beneath Downton Lane and emerges near Bridge Cottage.
Perhaps because they were neither shrouded in mist, nor burnt out or silhouetted by strong sunshine, the South West side of the Isle of Wight and The Needles were as clear as I have ever seen them. As I prepared to take this shot, the woman in the red coat disappeared from view, so I awaited her return. I then had a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation with the couple, while a cold wind blustered.
It has been my aim to build a row of compost bins similar to those I made at The Firs two years ago. I haven’t yet managed that, but leaves need to be treated rather differently than general plant matter, for they produce a more beneficial soil conditioner and therefore should be kept separately. In order to aid their decomposition they should have air circulating. A plastic mesh frame found in the former kitchen garden provided the perfect receptacle, which, in fading light, I set up at the garden end of the back drive this afternoon, then made a rather desultory start to filling it from piles Jackie has been sweeping up over past weeks. The whirling wind gave me an acceptable excuse for deferring sweeping up any more today. I rather think we will need more of these containers.
Like most of their products, Lidl’s Bordeaux Superieur 2011 that I drank with my dinner this evening is surprisingly good. There is a twist to this particular bottle because Mo and John brought it back from Lidl in France, whereas we have bought similar in New Milton. Jackie drank another glass of the Cimarosa and we both enjoyed her succulent roast chicken, crisp roast potatoes and parsnips, and perfect peas, carrots and cauliflower. She says she is getting geared up for Christmas.

Black And White Challenge

This morning I received a photographic challenge from Kanan Buta. This requires the posting on Facebook of a black and white floral picture each day for five days, on each of which a challenge is to be issued to another friend. I have plenty of pictures of summer flowers that could easily be converted to monochrome, but it seemed to me that a challenge accepted in November should be photographed currently and that these colourful subjects should be chosen for their form. In discussing this with Jackie, she came up with the perfect suggestion for this, the anniversary year of the commencement of The Great War. This was a skeletal poppy head, stripped of all flesh yet still standing in the garden. Here is my first day’s entry:
On this the first bright, finger-tingling day, taking my Hordle Cliff top walk, I happily obtained a more than ample haul for my five days. I will include one in each of my subsequent WordPress posts.
As I walked down Downton Lane, a cloud of dust billowing from Shorefield Road alerted me to road repairs that were being undertaken. A cutting blade was being applied to the edge of the tarmac.
The rooks are nesting again and soon Shorefield Road will be reverberating with their cries.
Frost was coating the fields and hedgerows, and condensation, reminiscent of that described in my ‘Armistice Day’ post, lined the bus shelter in the corner of which a daddy longlegs had met its end.
The sea was calm; The Needles, sharp and clear, pierced the pastel skyline; and a woman with a pair of dogs crunched along the shingle.
We had a little less disruption in our internet access today, which is why I had the confidence to wait until tonight to post my offering. Given that the fourth engineer is booked in tomorrow, I do hope there will be difficulties in the morning, otherwise it will be like a visit to a doctor, when you suddenly feel better whilst sitting in the GP’s patient chair.
This evening Jackie produced a splendid pork casserole for our dinner. This was accompanied by crisp carrots, brussels sprouts, and broccoli; roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Dessert was steamed syrup sponge and custard. Jackie drank Peroni and I drank Via di Cavallo chianti 2012.

Yesterday’s Bread

This morning I took my usual walk to Milford on Sea and back. Above The Solent, a weak sun peeked through gaps in the clouds, while on the cliff top the ever-present hooded crows trotted about.
In the nature reserve squirrels avoided the muddy footpaths by leaping across them from tree to tree. Bracket fungus on a tree by the stream supplied a convenient stepladder for wild life, while orange mushrooms brightened the leafy carpet beneath.
As, at lunchtime, I tucked into lovely fresh bread, crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside, I marvelled at Jackie’s technique for keeping it in the condition in which it came off the supermarket shelf several days ago. She freezes it after each meal and defrosts it in readiness for the next. This is a method she learned as a carer of elderly women living alone in the 1970s. Most of her clients did have fridges and freezers, but they preferred their bread bins. The contents of these were invariably green with mould which was transferred to any new loaves that were added. Gradually, she managed to persuade some to use their modern technology.
Yesterday I wrote of the 1940s without washing machines. Life was hard for everyone in those post war days. Please do not imagine you can hear violins playing, that’s just how it was. Other white goods unavailable to the ordinary family at that time were fridges and freezers. My mother, however, had no need to preserve loaves that, with her growing family, stood no chance of surviving a day. In fact, she would send us to the baker’s to buy yesterday’s bread which was cheaper and, being less scrumptious, lasted longer. I seem to remember a figure of 4d. that we handed over for each purchase. That is four old pence, roughly equivalent, if my arithmetic is correct, to 2p. today.
The hot summer of 1947 was particularly problematic in keeping milk and butter from going off. Bottles of milk were kept in cold water in the kitchen sink. Butter simply became runny. I couldn’t bear that, so I would only eat Echo margarine, the single oily spread that was at all impervious to the heat. This, of course, is really only fit for cooking, and no way would I consider it today.
This evening Jackie drove us to The Red Lion at Milford on Sea where we dined with Giles and Jean. My meal was steak and ale pie followed by plum tart and custard. Jackie chose hunter’s chicken followed by treacle sponge and custard. She drank Peroni and I drank Spitfire. The food was good and the company easy and enjoyable.
It is still hit and miss whether or not we have internet access. Fortunately WordPress backs up and saves my work when the connection drops, otherwise I would be tearing my hair out when trying to produce and send my posts.

Poo Scoopers

This morning’s Hordle Cliff top walk was a wet one. The pools on Downton Lane were reminiscent of our eighteen months in Minstead. A collapsed drain cover had been marked for attention.
By the time I reached the cliff top, there was a temporary lull in our rainfall, but The invisible Needles were catching it.
Each time I watch a dog walker, like the woman in this picture, struggling to scoop up poo I reflect on my Raynes Park childhood in the ’40s and ’50s. When I complimented one young woman on her action she was amazed to learn that in those days no-one did what she was doing, and we had to be very careful where we put our feet in order to avoid treading it into the house. She said she hated people not cleaning up after their pets. ‘It’s disgusting. I always pick it up and bin it. Always’. I am not sure when the law requiring this came in, but it was certainly after 1976 when I had the conversation with the newsagent recorded in my ‘Geoff Austin’s Shoes’ post.
Early this evening we watched, on catch up TV, the two episodes of ‘Lewis: Beyond good and evil’. This was a gripping production in what is one of the best series on the box. It follows the marvellous ‘Morse’, based on the Colin Dexter novels. After John Thaw’s Morse was killed off, his sergeant, Lewis, played by Kevin Whately, took over both his job and the title of the Oxford based tales. His sergeant, James Hathaway was acted by Laurence Fox. In a novel twist, the current series has Lewis brought back from retirement to work under Hathaway. This gives the opportunity for added complexities to the all-important relationship between the two men. The composer Barrington Pheloung rightly gained awards for his music for ‘Morse’. He has provided an equally haunting score for ‘Lewis’.
For dinner this evening Jackie produced succulent roast pork with perfect crackling, which is of course difficult to achieve; roast potatoes; carrots, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and broccoli. The gravy was superb. After this I couldn’t eat a sweet, so will refrain from reporting what the others had. J2O, Peroni, and Marques de Carano gran reserva 2008 were imbibed. Regular readers by now will know who drank what.

The Waterside Poppy Makers

Fortunately for us, the efficient and responsive Downton Service Station lies only a couple of hundred yards from our house. Earning the recommendation given by Giles and Jean, they had the shredded tyre replaced and the wheel changed before I returned from my morning walk to Hordle Cliff top and back.
The Isle of Wight appeared to be enjoying brighter light than we did as I was beset by needle sharp showers.
This afternoon Jackie drove Flo and me to Hythe, alongside Southampton Water to see the poppies adorning the black railings of Prospect Place. The Waterside Poppy Makers, in planning their tribute to the UK casualties of the First World War, aimed to knit or crochet 250 poppies for a memorial display. The poppies snowballed and almost 4,000 were made. They cover the railings themselves, shrubs, and trees. This is the story of the group:

Numerous dedications, on this the first day after Remembrance Sunday, were already tagged to individual poppies.
A commemorative plaque to Second World War Royal Navy Commandos is a permanent feature of the small waterside park. These men embarked from Hythe on 6th June 1944 to take part in the D-Day liberation of Europe. In the forefront of the stack of wreaths resting against the granite stone, lay one created by the poppy making group.

A pair of swans, perhaps hoping for food from Flo, paddled up to the bank. One sported its own poppy colours.

Hordle Chinese Take Away had the honour of supplying Jackie with our meal this evening. She brought some back for all three of us. I always get a result with the beef in black bean sauce. This is because Jackie likes it in principal, but this particular one contains very hot chillies which she finds too strong, so most of it ends up in my bowl, She drank Hoegaarden, Flo preferred J2O, and I enjoyed Parra Alta Malbec 2014.

20 Is Plenty

At 30 mph today’s wind was six miles per hour faster than yesterday’s. Colin, the former marathon runner I had met yesterday, had taken the different route in order to avoid being blown off the cliff top. Fighting my way down Bob‘s steps to the deserted shingle on my Hordle Cliff walk this morning, I rather saw his point.
The owner of Bridge Cottage had told me how impossible the salt wind to which the corner of Downton Lane is exposed has made growing a hedge. It was also clear why so many trees grow bent away from the sea.
Even in the lane the roar of wind and waves that were pounding the shingle was thunderous.
The older chalets in Shorefield Country Park are being demolished to make way for more modern structures. The woman who explained the pile of flammable material fenced in by a high barrier regretted their passing because they were a ‘cheap and cheerful’ way of taking a summer holiday.
A mahonia on the approach to the footbridge over the stream leading to the rookery was a gleaming beacon.
Apart from the Bridge Cottage photograph, those taken after the sea spray coated my camera lens bear traces of the film this produced.
To put today’s blasts in perspective, 30 miles per hour is the traffic speed limit in UK’s built-up areas. Not so long ago a series of television adverts alerted us to the fact that a child on impact with a vehicle travelling at that rate would almost certainly be killed. At 20 mph there was more of a chance of survival. For this reason, many zones, particularly in the vicinity of schools, like the one in West End, signed with the slogan ’20 is plenty’, have reduced the limit to 20.
For our dinner this evening we repaired to The Red Lion at MIlford on Sea. With my rib eye steak I drank a large glass of valpolicella; Jackie drank peroni with her piri-piri chicken; and we both chose caramel apple pie and custard. This was all as enjoyable as last time.
Once again our Royal Oak neighbour has closed down. It does seem to be difficult to make this hostelry, which relies on holiday trade and has no real local clientele, pay.

A Melodious Voice

It is a while since I featured a ‘through the ages’ photograph. Here is number 52 which was taken by Jessica at the Soho Festival of Summer 1977, during the spaghetti eating contest. I reported on Michael’s attempt the previous year on 29th June 2013. At that event I also entered the cigar smoking competition. In ’77 my son was not inclined to repeat his effort, and as I struggled through a plateful of pretty dry pasta, I soon discovered why.
I posted this image as a little light relief from the morning’s boring admin tasks, one of which concerned a cheque from Southern Electric. This was a refund relating to our closing account at Castle Malwood Lodge. That contract was in our joint names, but we do not have a joint bank account. The cheque was made out in both our names, and, even if we both signed the back of it, the bank would not accept it. It had to be returned to the utility company with instructions as to who should be the recipient of the replacement. I did this.
I took my usual walk to Hordle Cliff top where, on my approach, rabbits scuttled into the bramble, and, as always, I was presented by a different view of The Isle of Wight and The Needles. As I had said to a woman photographing the scene a couple of days ago, the island looks different every time I walk this way.
On Downton Lane, where Bridge Cottage basked in the mid-day sun, a happy cyclist weaving all over the road sang at the top of his voice. He paused as he passed me and continued afterwards. Perhaps he was more embarrassed than was the very talented comedian I had encountered at Oxford Circus tube station quite a number of years ago. As I walked through one of the passageways between platforms, a most melodious singing echoed behind me. I slowed enough for the operatic voice, which did not pause, to drift by. Apparently oblivious of my presence, there before me walked Paul Whitehouse whose amazing voice has enlivened many of the skits on the Harry Enfield show. One of my favourite sketches from that series features Paul singing Figaro in ‘Harry Enfield – Who’s That Girl on Vimeo’. It’s worth a look.
A notice stapled to a tree in Shorefield Country Park asks residents to keep their dogs on a lead. By and large, pet owners comply with this request.
This afternoon we drove to New Milton for shopping and banking. The window of the Poundstretcher store announced significant reductions for large women:
As it was a sunny day we travelled on to Barton on Sea to sit and watch the ocean for a while. Yet another view of the Isle of Wight was to be enjoyed, and walkers threw long shadows..
On Milford Road a car driver used a hand signal to indicate turning left. Many people today would not recognise this, but when I learned to drive this method of alerting following drivers to your intention was normal practice. Now we all have electronic indicators. Some vehicles in those days still bore yellow flags that flipped up either to the right or to the left to indicate which way you wished to turn.
It is important to use hand signals if you have an electrical fault. It must have been more than twenty years ago when I last wound down my driver side window and indicated slowing down. A policeman stopped me for a chat. He was most amused. His opening remark was: ‘It must have been a long time ago when you passed your test’.
Dinner this evening consisted of belly of pork, chipolata sausages, roasted peppers and mushrooms, mashed potato, cauliflower and green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Cuvee St Jaine red table wine.

A Grey Day

Yesterday morning I abandoned all ideas of any other post than the one I wrote as a tribute to Chris. This is because news of his death reached me as we were on the way to New Milton to collect Alison from the station.
Before then we had been relieved of our unwanted bath by friends of A Lady Tiler, who works with The Lady Plumber. Sam, the plumber, will attend to the pipework next week. The final twist was the discovery that those feet that had been bolted on to the roll top slipper bath had been placed in the wrong order.
After a brief visit we returned Alison to the station and I walked back. I did not take my camera, nor did I reflect on my surroundings. I just thought about my brother, then went home and wrote the post.
Walking along Christchurch Road, the grass verges of which have been cut, I had a wake up call. I faced the oncoming traffic and walked on the grass. That, one would have thought, should be safe. Suddenly, however, from behind, and inches to my left, I felt the gust and heard the roar of a car, far exceeding the 60 mph speed limit, overtaking another from the other side of the road, and veering into the path of a vehicle coming towards it. The car being approached had to brake. The offending one was followed by an equally speedy motorbike. On such a day, this was a message I should heed. I will never walk along that road again.
In the evening we dined at The Crown at Everton.
This morning, showered by intermittent rain, I walked the Hordle Cliff route. Except for one hardy specimen, the cattle in Hordle Manor Farm sheltered in their byre. For many reasons it was a grey day.
Having been unable last night to download BBC iPlayer, later this morning we had another attempt, and successfully watched episode 3 of New Tricks. I am warming to the new team.
The weather, at least, brightened up a little this afternoon, and Jackie drove us down to Barton on Sea for a brief sojourn. It is a frighteningly long way down to the beach from the unstable cliff top, even if you are leaning on a protective fence. Gulls, sweeping against crumbling clouds, and crows hugging the cliff, frolicked on the thermals; and young people dabbled with the waves.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s classic chilli con carne (recipe) and wild rice. She drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the Isla Negra.