Japanese anemones – Page 6

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.

Grass Cuttings And Wild Woodbines

This morning Aaron twice drove himself and me to Mole Country Stores to buy some decking with which he repaired our somewhat decayed structure. The reason for the second outing was that the new lengths were narrower than those being replaced, so we were originally two short.

Sitting in the cab of a working van took me back to my teens and early twenties. As I said to Aaron, it is often the scents of such an enclosed space that stay in the memory. The dominant one in our friend’s vehicle was that of grass cuttings. Dad’s removal van during the 50s and 60s bore the strong aroma of Wild Woodbines, his chosen brand of cigarettes. I worked alongside my father in the school holidays, and later, on Saturday mornings.

Today’s TV rugby fare included matches between Samoa and USA, Wales and Uruguay, and New Zealand and Argentina. In order not to spoil things I will say nothing about them, except that that was a lot of TV.

In the intervals between contests I took the air in the garden, where plants and wildlife continue to benefit from the Indian summer.

Hibiscus thrives;

the first colchicum or Autumn crocus has emerged from the soil;

Bees, like this one on a bidens, still coat their limbs with pollen;

and a spider wrapped up its prey with which to stock up its larder.

The sunlight enhanced the garden views such as

those from the Shady Path across the Grass Patch,

and from the Brick Path towards the Heligan one and beyond. Japanese anemones are prominent in each one.

Jackie produced her delicious chicken jalfrezi with egg fried rice for our dinner tonight. Tesco’s meat samosas made good starters. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I finished the malbec.

The Stave

It all began with the lack of a shower screen in the guest bathroom.

Regular readers may remember that the shower above the bath hung flaccidly off the wall when we arrived at the house. The Lady Plumber fixed it proudly in place, but there was nothing to keep the water from ricocheting off bodies and splashing into the room. Last week we ordered a screen from City Plumbing Supplies and went to collect it today. This was after we had first paid a visit to Gallo Ceramics to order replacement tiles. Mike, who was to fit the screen, advised retiling to ensure adequate waterproofing. He had also suggested a panel to replace the dodgy DIY wooden strips that were currently in place.

David, at City Plumbing, helpfully carried the screen to our Modus. It rapidly became apparent that with both Elizabeth and me in the car there was no way the screen was going in too. This meant Jackie had to take us home first, then return to collect the package. David carried the screen back inside.

We had chosen the side and end panels that we required. Then I had a thought. Suppose we bought a new bath to go with the panels? How much more would that cost? I left the ladies in the car and returned to discuss this with David. Eventually it seemed worth opting for a new bath with its own panels. But we weren’t sure that the standard fittings would fit into our available space.

Back at home I double-checked our measurements, and gave Jackie my card, so that, if the bath would fit, she could pay for it.

Off she went back to City Plumbers. It was still difficult to fit the shower screen into the car, but David did manage it.

Soon afterwards I received a call from Jackie. They didn’t have a bath that would fit. Except for one known as a Pee bath (named I assume for its shape, rather than its potential use) This was especially designed to carry a shower, and came with its own, shaped, screen. It was more expensive, but I would receive a full refund on the screen I had already bought. ‘Go for it’, I advised, and thought that would be that.

Jackie came home for lunch and informed me that I was going back with her this afternoon. This was because we would also require new taps and she wasn’t going to choose them on her own. I certainly wouldn’t have minded if she had. However, back we all travelled. We could all fit into the car because we were not needing to make room for the shower screen. We eventually placed the order for materials which will be delivered nest Tuesday.

After this we paid a visit to Molly’s Den where Jackie bought a metal owl for the garden and a hand-knitted jacket for Poppy. I was ready to leave before the others were, so took myself off to the car to wait for them. As I reached our vehicle I heard, high above, a melodious chorus.

Looking up, I spotted a stave stretching across the sky. Crotchets and quavers were clustered upon it. Being unable to read music, I can only assume that the hidden voices were trilling the correct tune.

The garden has received a considerable amount of rain in recent weeks. This has had the benefit of promoting growth, but also giving it a battering and sending some buds mouldy.

Nevertheless

the Japanese anemones are lending their usual autumnal radiance to the beds.

Roses are flourishing. Of those newly flowering are:

Shropshire Lad, presumably named after A.E. Houseman’s classic autobiographical poem,

and Crown Princess Margareta.

Crown Princess Margareta of Sweden, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was an accomplished landscape gardener who, together with the Crown Prince (later, King Gustavus VI Adolfus of Sweden), created the famous Swedish Summer Palace of Sofiero in Helsingborg.

During World War I in neutral Sweden, Margareta organized supply drives and acted as a go-between for her relatives whose Allied and Axis countries were divided by the war.

An infection following surgery whilst she was pregnant with her sixth child, who did not survive, sadly ended her life at the age of 38.

Perceptive readers will understand why Jackie termed her new dish this evening toddler tandoori. This was served with savoury rice, onion bahjis, parathas, and salad.

Preparation of toddler tandoori is as follows:

Take tender chicken breasts, which you marinade in the fridge overnight in low fat yoghurt and a mix of tandoori spices found in Lidl, at least. Skin and score the chicken; mix the yoghurt and spices together and plaster them over the chicken. Thighs work equally well.

Bake them in the oven with a little oil, gas mark 2 or 150 electric, for about an hour.

That’s it.

With this Jackie drank Pays d’Oc sauvignon blanc 2014, and Elizabeth and I consumed ValdeVista merlot 2012.

Walls

At 10 a.m. this morning we began work on clearing Bev and John’s wall that abuts our back drive. Knowing that I would not have the energy to tackle it after all the other shrubs and trees that threatened our neighbours’ foundations, I began with the fairly mature beech tree which was the worst offender. I need both an axe and a saw to cut it down to a stump that will be left for Jackie’s lethal application. Flora and fauna alike, except for the unfortunate prey of the spider

becoming more engorged as I watched it at its feast, basked in the morning sunshine.

We have stunning clumps of Japanese anemones of various colours, and the recently planted winter pansies, some in the chimney pots, perk up cheeky faces.

Gladioli, one of which provided the canvas for a portrait of a fly that would have done justice to Whistler in his white period,

looked almost translucent against the light.

Bees seem to enjoy the orange dahlias.

A woodlouse, climbing up our neighbours’ wall in an effort to escape my attentions, was soon overhauled by a baby spider.

Hidden beneath a hebe, which we have reduced in size and will retain, was a hart’s tongue fern that seems to be the only one we have. Jackie rapidly transplanted it.

‘Where there’s smoke there’s hope’, was a mantra we, as children in Raynes Park, invoked when trying to breathe life into illicit bonfires we enjoyed on the then much wider patch of railway land at the back of 29a Stanton Road where we grew up. I thought of this as I watched weak wisps of smoke struggling through the fire this morning. It was almost three hours before the first welcome crackle of flame was heard, but, by 1.30 our neighbours had

a wall that Banksy would no doubt find enticing.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, Banksy is a pseudonymous U.K. based graffiti artist who stencils his work on vacant walls. Whatever you think of the idea of defacing other people’s property, you would have to agree that this man is an artist who, overnight, can enhance its value. Collectors like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will spend thousands of dollars or pounds on a piece. In October 2007 they acquired a number of works at auction for a total outlay of £1,000,000.

An earlier project of mine, which, so far has not seen any kind of publication, was called ‘Streets of London’, consisted of (more than 1,000) photographs of London streets with the constraint that the name should appear in the frame. In May 2008, because it in itself seemed an interesting scene, I photographed a corner of Acklam Road, W10, just off Portobello Road.

Three days later, I passed the same corner, to find a white wall embellished by a Banksy. Interestingly, this artwork already bore a protective perspex covering. Now, at least one of my street pictures has been published.

We dined this evening on slow roasted, tangy smoked gammon, cauliflower cheese in a mustard sauce, new potatoes and carrots, followed by egg custard dessert. I finished the rioja and Jackie drank the last of the weissbier.

The Fender

The garden looked glorious in the morning light. In fact the morning glories lived up to their name. It was difficult to remember that the newly created bed through which runs the head gardener’s path was a jungle of bramble and overgrown shrubs completely obscuring the fence behind, on which were trained unseen clematises and camellias.

A clerodendrum Trichotomum is coming into flower. These delicate blooms have various transformations to go through before they are done with delighting us.

A very leggy hardy fuchsia, rescued from the jungle at the far end of the garden now clings to the netting fixed to a tall dead tree stump.

Most of our Japanese anemones are white, but there are some strategically placed pink versions, like this one growing through the red leaved maple.

The lace cap hydrangea attracts insects like the hoverfly in this picture.

I have mentioned before that the small white butterflies flit about barely settling for a second. They are partial to the plants in the iron urn. If you have managed to find the hoverfly above, you may care to try your luck with this well-camouflaged butterfly on the lobelia.

This afternoon I read Hisham Matar’s introduction to Ivan Turgenev’s ‘On The Eve’, then started on the novel itself. I also did a little watering of plants, and staked up a gladiolus.

Early this evening, Becky, Ian, Flo, and Scooby, came to stay for a few days. With them, they brought birthday presents for Jackie and me jointly from them and Mat and Tess. The major shared present was a beautiful copper Art Nouveau fender which fits quite well in front of our wood burning stove. On each side of the stove itself tands one of a pair of bookends that Becky had given me about five years ago.

We all dined this evening on a splendidly authentic Jackie curry meal, consisting of lamb jalfrezi (recipe), chicken and egg korma, vegetable samosas, and pilau rice (recipe). Hoegaarden and fruit juice was consumed by the others whilst I drank Castillo de Alcoy 2010.

After this Ian and I walked with Scooby around the maize field.

Supporting Big Ben

Jackie and I began the day with a trip to Ferndene Farm shop for more gravel, for the patio corner and the path completed a couple of days ago that I am freshening up. We didn’t quite have enough for both, but I think you will get the picture.

A few more flowers were planted in the area cleared yesterday, including some Japanese anemones moved from the gravelled platform.
After this my chauffeuse drove me to New Milton for my trip to London.
From Waterloo I took the Westminster Bridge route to Carol’s in Rochester Row.

Despite the dull day, the South Bank was so crowded as to be almost impassable. The lovelocks, which have become a menace in so many major cities, have been removed from the handrails beside the steps up to the bridge.
Everywhere, as usual, cameras and mobile phones were brandished in the direction of the targeted sights.

The piper had his customary entourage of visitors recording his image. One beautifully smiling young woman took direction from her male photographer crouching low on the ground guiding her positioning of her hand for a shot in which she was to be seen supporting Big Ben.
On leaving Carol’s, I travelled by the Circle Line from St James’s Park to Edgware Road tube station from where I walked to the Akash restaurant for an enjoyable time and meal with my friend Jessie. This gave me an opportunity to exchange greetings with other friends from my favourite Bangladeshi establishment.
On the train I finished reading Desmond Seward’s history of ‘The Wars of the Roses’. From the very first paragraph of the author’s introduction we are dramatically drawn into this description of the fickle family feuds over the throne of England that occupied the country during the last decades of the fifteenth century. The maps, chronology, who’s who, and dynastic family trees that supplement the well researched and lively text make a good job of unravelling the story. I only wish I could hope to remember it all.
I moved on to Victoria’s Park, a novel by B. J. Haynes.
Jackie met me at New Milton station and drove me home.