On the way down the garden for my circular walk to Hordle Cliff and back I passed 
several naked ladies bearing no hint of goose pimples. These nerines are so called because they appear before their leaves.
Not having Jessica’s confident fungal knowledge I could not identify the mushrooms now growing on the verge of the coast road. I stick to what you can buy in the shops. It’s safer that way.
Visible from the cliff top, a layer of lit cloud contrasted with the streak of blue sky on the horizon. There Bob, having cycled to the spot, was preparing his psyche for running up and down the steps. This tough gentleman, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and having had an operation for a fused back, took this exercise, which I would no longer attempt, because ‘you have to keep going’. Had I been wearing a hat, I would have taken it off to him.
Our sister in law, Frances, had sent me some photographs from her mobile phone, asking me if I could do anything with them. She needn’t have worried. They were excellent shots of a male muntjac deer. And I don’t even know how to use the camera on my Samsung Galaxy. I just lightened them up a bit and also produced some crops. Here are a couple:
The mushroom season is also the time for lunches of Jackie’s soups. Today’s was spinach. Her method is as follows:
For two pints of soup:
Make a roux using 1 1/2 ounces each of butter and flour. Add 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg.
Keep adding milk until you have a rich creamy sauce. Put to one side.
In another ounce of butter fry a finely chopped onion. Then add a 200g bag of spinach (unless you grow your own) and fry until it reduces down.
Add a pint of chicken stock.
When cooked thoroughly ‘stick it through a blender’. Reheat the roux, gradually add the puree to it and cook a little while longer.
Try it. It is delicious.
This afternoon we continued our work on the back drive. I removed and piled up more cuttings on the November bonfire pile, and Jackie spent time clearing soil from the gravel.
This evening we dined on smoked haddock fish cakes, chips, cauliflower cheese (recipe), carrots and runner beans. I drank Marston’s Premium, exceptional premium Pale Ale, and Jackie finished the chenin blanc.
Tag: Isle of Wight
Sunshine And Showers
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.
Knowing that we were to expect heavy rain all weekend, and that the first hour or two this morning would offer sunshine and showers, we drove out to Mudeford seeking what light there was.
This proved to be interesting. The sun came and went, offering dramatic cloudscapes over the sea;
over the beach huts;
over the harbour;
and over the small town.
Recent downpours had left pools for cars to drive though.
Moored boats bobbed on the choppy wavelets in the sheltered waters,
over which sped a powered vessel.
A number of little rowing boats had filled with water
or capsized.
One, overturned, provided a resting place for juvenile gulls.
We felt sympathy for holidaymakers wrapped in waterproofs, and even more for the intrepid stallholders setting up for the weekend’s Art and Craft Fair.
Almost oblivious of the industry going on around them, a jogger,
a pair of dog walkers,
and a loving couple, continued about their business.
A heap of bright red paddle boards awaited rental customers.
The usual fishing paraphernalia lined the quayside. This couple examined
crab pots;
ropes and lines;
fluttering flags;
and buoys reflecting sunlight
or themselves mirrored in pools,
as were visitors following the first young lady forming a queue for the ferry.
Around the side of the quay the couple I had just passed gazed out to sea.
The most dramatic light of the visit fell on a group beside the car park.
As we left Mudeford for a late breakfast at Friar’s Cliff’s Beach Hut Café, three sail boats set out to sea.
They had made it safely to Friar’s Cliff by the time we reached there.
On the cliff top at Steamer Point lie three very large circular concrete bases.
Their story is now explained on an engraved metal plate fixed to a rock.
This evening we dined on chicken tikka and boiled egg salad. Well, we had had a large, late, fried breakfast. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I drank more of the malbec.
The Golden Touch
On the way through the garden this morning, to continue working on the back drive, I paused to admire Jackie’s two new planters, originally candle-holders from Redcliffe Nursery. They display her usual flair. Turning into the drive, I encountered the trail made by a mole. As this stopped at the site of the bonfire, perhaps last night’s embers were still warm enough to deter it from popping its head out.
Jackie soon joined me and she made good progress pruning the conifers along the side of the fence between us and 5 Downton Lane.
Hampered by wire netting through which grew thick brambles and anumber of trees, I, however, taking the whole morning, covered about two yards. Three hours and a couple of feet separate these two photographs. After that we stopped for lunch.
A little further down, some fine hardy fuchsias form a splendid hedge. They blend well with the blackberries, which we are picking as we go along. Butterflies are enjoying our long summer.
A Red Admiral seemed particularly partial to the blackberries, while the broad shiny leaves of trees we cannot identify bore a Comma and a Speckled Wood.
For variety, I took the longer Downton Lane/coast road route to the shingle beneath Hordle cliff, and returned via Shorefield.
A jelly babies wrapper, linaria vulgaris, lichen, and dandelions, one of which attracted a small cricket, lent golden touches to the hedgerows.
Variations on this hue were provided by rust stains running down from the iron hinge of a beach hut, and by
the tennis ball being held up by a gentleman encouraging four spaniels to pose for their photograph.
It was a day for spaniels, one of whom frolicked with a group of four young women.
This evening we dined at Daniel’s in Highcliffe. We each enjoyed haddock and chips, mushy peas, and onion rings. I drank tea, and Jackie drank coffee.
Tony and Anne, Trevor and Jan
Clearance of the future rose garden continues apace. Yesterday Jackie uprooted several unproductive fruit bushes, and this morning I removed the last of the box hedges and a photinia that had been well rooted for a few years. This latter plant required the use of a grubber axe. It had to come out because it has the potential to grow into a huge tree. There is one in the jungle garden next door which is so high that we get the benefit of it.
After this, I took my now customary route on foot to Milford on Sea, taking a diversion through a nature reserve on the way back. Having passed through Shorefield, I met Mike, the postman, who confirmed that he was indeed more comfortable in the front garden next door, photographed yesterday. He was also very helpful about the problem I have been having with misdirected mail being delivered to The Old House, Lymington Road. This is yet another difficulty with MyBarclays, who hold my French bank account. They will only accept proof of address from my New Forest Council Tax bill. This gives our address as Lymington Road, rather than Christchurch Road. I am engaged in a frustrating exchange of e-mails with the bank. Until this is resolved, Mike suggested I might explain the problem to the residents of The Old House, which is not on his round, so they may readdress my statements.
The Solent is now calm enough for leisure yachting. 
People were walking babies in buggies, and sometimes frisky dogs on foot. From the cliff top Tony pointed out the Isle of Wight to his wife Anne. We conversed about my photograph and the general state of the cliffs.
I have mentioned before, the superb view The Beach House has of the island and its lighthouse. Today I shot it through their mature conifers.
On the way back out of Milford on Sea there is a footpath on the right. I have speculated about where it might lead, but had not had the confidence to try it before. 
Today, however, 
I noticed Trevor enjoying a cigarette as he basked on a bench in the sunshine. Crossing a footbridge over a stream, I asked him where the path led. He directed me along it, telling me how I could pick up the coast road. As I walked back over the bridge, an attractive woman came into view. This was Jan, who looks after the administration of the Community Centre cafe. She is a blues fan and particularly likes The Blues Band, especially Paul Jones and Tom McGuiness. This discovery enlivened our conversation somewhat.
Crossing a road along the footpath I entered the Nature Reserve through which it ran, leaving it on a slope up to Woodland Way on the left. This led to Delaware Road, and thence the cliff top. 
The path, beside which cyclamen blooms among dandelions, does extend further, and one day I may explore it more.
Tonight we dined at our old haunt, The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton. We ate our favourite set meal, and both drank T’Sing Tao beer.
Like many Asian restaurants they juggle, very successfully, with serving diners and taking down takeaway orders.
Laundrette Or Launderette?
4.9.14
Clematis Hagley’s hybrid has bloomed at home in my absence. It has been chewed a bit.
Bournemouth is not a city you would wish to negotiate by car unless you had to, even if you could follow the utterly confusing signage failing to lead you to it. With further research it may be found to rival Southampton, but I don’t fancy carrying out the investigation.
My capacity for emulating Dan’s Grandfather was so extremely limited that I needed a trip to the seaside town to visit the O2 guru for him to take me through the basics of the Samsung Galaxy. On the phone Paul, the wise man, gave me the address and said it was ‘just down from Marks and Spencer’s’. With a print-out of the Google map, it should have been easy to find. It wasn’t. After driving round and round in circles for a while, we decided to abandon the car in a multi-story park. Jackie walked to the sea front whilst I ambled up the steep hill to find 5 Commercial Road, which wasn’t where the Google arrow indicated. A helpful woman directed me to the site in a pedestrian precinct around the corner. We’d never have found it by car.
Paul acquainted me with the simplest of operations offered by the device, then, figuratively, of course, held my hand while I phoned Jackie to tell her we were all done and I was on my way to meet her.
From O2, I walked through the Pleasure Gardens to the sea front for our rendezvous. Jackie then drove us home. That public amenity is most impressive. 
Sightseers sat on benches, walked around, played mini golf, ate ice creams; and, with camera lenses, their own eyes, or fingers, admired the splendid flower beds. Beautiful cosmos lined the railed footpaths.
Later this afternoon, taking the Shorefield/cliff top/Park Lane route, I walked to Milford on Sea and back. My link between the cliff path and Park Lane was The Beach House. 
This recently refurbished hotel/restaurant has a clear view of the Isle of Wight and The Needles. 
A dangerous footpath remains closed.
People sat on or walked along the beach, and a group of youngsters dragged rubber boats to the water.
I have often been confused about the correct spelling of the name of that establishment offering coin-operated washing machines and dryers for the use of members of the public who do not have the use of such facilities at home. The producers of the 1985 comedy-drama film ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ favoured one spelling.
Peg, in Milford, seemed to be slightly misquoting the film title in the name of her launderette. However, whoever painted the signs on the windows favoured film director Stephen Frears’s version. What does it matter anyway? Many people say ‘laundryette’ (my computer didn’t like that).
Our evening meal consisted of lamb curry, cauliflower baji, and boiled rice, with which we drank Cobra beer. I have never eaten a cauliflower baji as both crisp and succulent as this one of Jackie’s.
Schnittlinie
Yesterday’s steady rain changed to showery weather today. One rainfall soaked us as we ran from the car to Molly’s Den; another kept us in the car when, after the Den shopping trip Jackie and I drove down to Barton on Sea.
The return visit to Molly’s was in search of some Victorian glasses for Shelly’s birthday. We found them and also the bonus of present for someone else which cannot yet be mentioned.
Having read the post of our previous visit to this emporium, Barrie Haynes regretted that I had not photographed the play bus. I had not done so because it was swarming with unaccompanied children and I was therefore afraid to do so. This time parents were there supervising their offspring. When I explained that our friend, who has an interest in such things, would like me to photograph the vehicle, they were only too pleased to assist by ushering their infants out of the way to give me a clear view of Bessie’s Play Bus. I ruefully reflected that it would have been much nicer had the ‘ess’ in the title read ‘arr’. So, here you are Barrie:
The ‘Bronco’ toilet paper of the 1940s was made of a single layer of tissue paper, rough on one side, and shiny on the other. It wasn’t very comfortable, and if you used the wrong side you could get yourself into trouble. Mum’s dress patterns, being rather flimsy, were not much better, but in post-war Britain you used what you could get hold of. Again on our last trip to the cubicles (in Molly’s Den), I had found some framed pattern covers, roughly contemporary with those Mum cut up for us to use when closeted. Today’s find was even better. 
There were two actual patterns from the 1940s in their covers. I eagerly opened one of them so I could once again feast my eyes on our loo reading material from that decade. These examples were American and only printed in English so I was denied the pleasure of once more seeing the word that had creased us up when we were early learners. When I had shown Elizabeth the pattern covers, and mentioned them on the phone to Mum, each of them had the same initial response to make: ‘Schnittlinie’. Probably aided by the symbol of a pair of scissors at the edge of the line, I was quite proud, all of seven or eight years old, to be able to translate ‘cutting line’. Elizabeth, incidentally, twelve years younger than me, never had the joys of reading the word, but it was already firmly embedded in family culture. Hence her immediate association with it. As a matter of interest, on account, no doubt, of the number of visitors we had recently, Jackie first of all had shopped at Lidl for a replacement stock of toilet rolls, on which we had experienced a run.
I have now taken so many photographs of the Isle of Wight, that I amuse myself by varying 
the weather, the light, and the viewing angle. The heavy rain on the windscreen gave me a 
different option today. It is in the picture, just above the bar of the car park barrier.
The rain eased off enough this afternoon for us to begin to populate the flower bed cleared by Elizabeth over the last couple of days. I dug a space, which involved moving an acanthus further back, and Jackie planted half a dozen chrysanthemums she had bought in Lidl. They don’t look much at the moment, but next year they should be up to two feet tall.
Late this afternoon we drove over to Shelly’s birthday tea party. She had produced a splendid array of canapes, well-filled tasty sandwiches, pork pie, warm quiche, and homemade cakes accompanied by cups of tea and glasses of Cava. She was very pleased with our present. She had in fact told us about Molly’s Den, which added a pleasing touch to our purchase. Jackie and Malcolm were there, as was Pete, and daughter Katie who is about to open her own stall at a similar outlet in Wimborne, so the conversation naturally led to stories of antiques and auctions. It was particularly nice to meet Ron and Jackie’s parents, Ray and Daphne.
Lest We Forget
It is Alice’s birthday today, so I will begin by displaying my iMac wallpaper on which she walks across the shingle on a very blustery day in view of the Isle of Wight and The Needles.
This morning I walked to the bank at New Milton. I turned right up Lower Ashley Road and left along Ashley Road. This route is rather less picturesque and more protracted than the winding racetrack that is Christchurch/Lymington Road, but considerably safer. The man who insisted on giving me a lift soon after I had passed Angel Lane on my return thought so too.
Downton’s public Telephone box has probably seen better days.
A grasshopper camouflaged in the long grasses through which I trampled on the verge took me back to A Close Encounter I experienced in Sigoules on 9th August 2012.
A memorial flag flapping on the top floor balcony of a block of flats in Ashley Road encouraged us to remember the 36th Ulster Division’s contribution to the First World War, which we joined 100 years ago today. This was just one group of the generation of young men and boys on both sides sent to their slaughter in order to satisfy the whim of a power-crazed Kaiser and the hopeless ineptitude of our own war leaders. 
A century later we still fight our battles on foreign soil, to demonstrate that not much has been learned by mankind in the intervening century.
It is almost incredible to recollect that Kaiser Wilhelm was a grandson of Queen Victoria, and therefore that the major protagonists were a family at war.
My own paternal grandfather was one of those who came back, otherwise, since my father was born in 1917, when we think this photograph was taken, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this post. Neither would Alice, come to that.
When our lights are extinguished at 10 p.m. this evening, it will not be a power cut that brings this about. We will be joining the rest of the UK in an hour’s darkness of remembrance.
Back home this afternoon, while Jackie laboured with her watering cans, 
I wandered around the garden, at one point taking a rest on the dump bench and admiring one of its views. I did a little dead heading on my rounds. Petunias are very sticky.
The nocturnal relative of this morning’s grasshopper, probably sleeping, aboard one of our many blue clematises was a cricket. Close scrutiny of the photograph reveals the incredibly long antennae that distinguish this insect from the other.
We think the purple clematis climbing the new arch on the opposite side of the garden is a Niobe.
Near this is a very prolific hibiscus.
Because we are likely to forget their names, Jackie is labelling all those plants, like the unusual crocosmia Solfoterre, that she can, sometimes after considerable research.
Just as extensive research was required for me to identify a black and white striped butterfly that flashes it bright orange underside when on the wing. After a thorough study of the thoroughly informative ‘The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland’ by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Lewington, I surfed the web, to no avail. Then I had one of my strokes of genius. Maybe, I thought,’ it is a moth?’. One had, after all, the other day, settled on Jackie’s woolly bosom. It is a Jersey Tiger Moth. She was, incidentally wearing a cardigan at the time.
For our dinner this evening, Jackie produced a professional egg fried rice to accompany our succulent pork chops and the remnants of our recent Chinese takeaway. I finished the Bordeaux and she sampled some Hoegaarden.
Privilege Customer
No matter how thorough you try to be in pulling up and eradicating brambles, there are always some that catch your eye as you wander around. For this reason I went on a bramble hunt today. Some, by now, are announcing their presence with blossom and budding fruit; others are so long and straggly they make you wonder how you missed them. So skilled in the art of camouflage are these thorny ramblers that I was constantly amazed at how much space was opened in the shrubberies simply by removing them. No doubt if I repeat the process in a day or two, I will be equally surprised.
Jackie continued weeding, watering and planting.
Among the recent discoveries more welcome than the unwanted growth have been echinops, agapanthus, and honeysuckle whose pink blends quite well with the blue arch around which it clambers.
Not knowing what colour to expect, we have been eagerly awaiting the blooming of the hibiscus in the front garden. We were not disappointed by its interesting pink hues.
For a late lunch today we visited the Needles Eye Cafe in Milford on Sea. Jackie enjoyed a cheese omelette, chips, salad, and diet coke; whilst I, once I had jogged the waiter’s memory, relished a maxed-up breakfast with tea. This large fry-up comes with toast and marmalade. For the second time, my toast was forgotten. I assured the staff member that I did not take it personally as I was not paranoid.
We had not been to this beach in hot holiday weather before, so it was something of a shock to walk to the path at the top of the shingle and be confronted by a picture postcard scene. ‘Oh, yes. We live here’, we said.
After our meal Jackie drove us on to Stewart’s Garden Centre at Christchurch and back. Just before my last trip to France, I had signed up for a Stewart’s Privilege Customer card. One of the benefits of this is that you may buy two samples of specific plants at half price. The choice changes monthly. The July selection is agapanthus. After dropping me off at the airport on 8th July, Jackie hot wheeled it off to Stewart’s to choose her agapanthuses. She found two marvellous full-budded specimens. Taking out the coupon from the monthly magazine, she proffered her pennies. She was asked for the Privilege card. Ah. It was in my wallet in Sigoules.
The card is now safely in Jackie’s purse, so off we had gone to choose some more of the perennial blue plants. 
Unfortunately there were only a few, decidedly past their best for this year, left. Never mind, we could still have two of them – and we found two that will do very nicely next year – and, in compensation for their condition, a clematis also at half price. we chose Inspiration ‘Zoin’.
This evening I wandered down to the postbox. A lily has escaped into the hedgerow in Downton Lane.
One For Barrie
Sometimes underground, sometimes stuck among the branches of shrubs, a hosepipe trail snakes across the garden.
It began coiled up behind a water butt outside the back door. Today Jackie tried attaching it to the outside tap, and followed its path. This was not an easy process, and would have been impossible without the amount of undergrowth clearance we have carried out.
Beside the butt, the yellow pipe disappears under paving stones. Between two of these we catch a glimpse of what appears to be white piping. Only a sixth sense prevented Jackie from hacking this out when she was weeding between the stones.
This was just as well, because, almost certainly, this is part of the first piece of plastic hose that emerges in a shrubbery some way across the garden. From the now exposed earth, continuing by attachment to a green hosepipe, it climbs into a now much reduced vibernum. Until I cleared that area, the lengthy irrigation system was entwined among weighty brambles whence it dropped down to weave between plants and shrubs flowing over the brick path that it now runs alongside. The compost heap lies beside a dead tree at the end of this path. The green hose was looped around a branch perhaps seven feet above the soil, and had been flattened before vanishing into the heap. Jackie unhooked the pipe and puffed it out. With the aid of a fork and gardening gloves we extricated it from the pile, the tap was turned on, and, hey presto:
the far end of the garden has a water supply.
Actually, I jest. I emptied the bath today. First I had rather a shock because I couldn’t move it. This was because a thick root of something or other had grown through the plug hole and was clinging on. When, on the 28th June, I had begun to clear out the soil, first Jackie, then Paul, on our visit to The First Gallery, quipped:
‘Just pull out the plug’. How right they turned out to be. Having done so, it was reasonably easy to lift the bath over the box hedge and carry it down the garden. Jackie and I then sorted out a temporary resting place for it on the ever diminishing skip pile. This involved beginning to transport the IKEA wardrobe sections across to the boundary between us and the empty property, so I can use them to make a more substantial cobbled up fence. That will probably be a winter job.
In the still hot and humid early evening, I ambled through Shorefield, passing the now silent rookery and Alice’s rabbits which have grown a bit, to Hordle Cliff top and back.
I stretched out on my back among the grasses and thrift to take some shots of the Isle of Wight and The Needles for Barrie who missed them during his and Vicki’s years in Lincolnshire. I know our friend will appreciate the effort required to get down for the angle of these images, and even more so to turn over and clamber back onto my feet.
Sparkling water was the perfect accompaniment for Jackie’s chilli con carne (recipe) with wild rice and peas that we enjoyed for our dinner.
Isle Of Wight Tomatoes
Early this morning the crow, having adopted the back of the bench as its new taking off strip, flew directly onto the top of the bird feeder, but didn’t stay. It can only scavenge from a tray in the construction, not the closed containers. Jackie is wise to that, so isn’t filling it at the moment. The blackbird, with her partner perching guard on the snake bark tree, continues to sit on her eggs.
It is now possible to see through the entrance to the kitchen garden from some distance away. Pictured here are two sides of a path surrounding an oval flower bed at the far end of the garden, as they appeared at the beginning of the day. They are in there somewhere. It was my task to begin restoring them to their former glory, whilst Jackie continued transforming the central gravelled walkway. Here, the brambles were rampant and well established. A certain amount of eradication of them from the beds was required.
This revealed more hidden plants, like the day lilies, the colour of one of which seems to have confused a bloodsucking insect into thinking it was clamped on to my forearm. With some painstaking sifting of
earth and gravel Jackie completed the central path today. I, on the other hand, although making a good impact on the left hand side and far end of the ovoid ring, came to an abrupt halt when I encountered the bamboo. A number of strong stems had penetrated the path and defied my fork.
That was a battle I was prepared to fight another day. It had taken three months completely to eradicate a clump of the insidious roots of this grass at The Firs, so I wanted to be fresh for the job. Mañana.
On a sunny day such as this, the light streaming through the kitchen windows at lunchtime is stunning.
Placed at random at the end of the table when preparing it for the food were a vase of tulips Shelly had given Jackie, an accident pot containing alliums and a petunia, and a bowl of tomatoes. These tomatoes were a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. And they were delicious. Jackie had purchased them at Setley Ridge Farm Shop, to which a couple from the Isle of Wight travel weekly to supply them. Apparently supermarkets cannot sell them because they are not uniform in size, redness, and rotundity.
We received a very warm welcome from the family at The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton where we dined this evening on the usual good food and Tsing Tao beer.
The streaks in the sky on our way home were of the equally warmest hues.