High Street Features

This morning Jackie left the Modus alongside a protected tree in the Beaulieu car park.

From there we walked along the path to the High Street, Jackie to seek a gift in one of

the several tasteful shops, and me to gather pictures of them and other features.

A parked car reflected the awning of one of the outlets.

Vehicles were parked along both sides of the narrow street. A truck belonged to scaffolders, one of whom seemed to be sporting an impressively long mohican.

A split in a roof rack wrapper revealed snow crystals.

Decorative brickwork and pointed arches embellished early facades;

while modern aerials were installed on chimney stacks, such as those

glimpsed through bare branches. Another tree with a gnarled and severed trunk is engaged in healthy regeneration.

The Beaulieu Bakehouse restaurant, which was once the village bakery offers enticing indoor lamplight from its windows.

One wall bears a letter box bearing the initials GR, thus following the tradition since the reign of Queen Victoria, of allocating the stamp of the royal incumbent of the time. When this feature was fitted this would have been our current king’s grandfather. For the following seventy years they all bore ER, our longest ever reigning monarch. We await the first CR, for her son, Charles.

From the High Street can be seen the bus stop shelter alongside the lake of the Beaulieu River.

Hopefully not for the same original purpose as staddle stones, the job of which is to allow storage buildings to be lifted clear of the ground, the refuge stands on low brick pillar supports. The barns once stored produce such as grain or hay, keeping the contents free of ground level water, and preventing rats or other vermin from reaching them. The wooden building rests on the smooth round tops of the mushroom shapes.

Later, I gave the following posts the upgrade to Block Editing:

because of the stable stones link;

because it continues the story of the arrival in Old Post House and has now been categorised as Garden. (The garden mentioned in Bats, above, is Elizabeth’s in which we worked before moving down here)

because it explains the stray header.

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s tangy lemon chicken and colourful savoury rice with which she finished the Orvieto and I drank Puglia Nero di Troia 2020.

Sun And Wind

Jackie provided her usual chauffeur service to and from New Milton for my London trip.

Knees in train

The four coach train was as packed as usual. One gentleman kindly removed his luggage from one of the few available seats so that I could sit down. The gentleman opposite me was fast asleep. His baggage lay between his feet which stretched under the window seat. Settling one buttock on that and another on the centre one I fitted my legs around the somnolent passenger as demonstrated in the photograph. He woke with a start at Brockenhurst and asked where he was. When told, he relaxed, but didn’t change his position. This group disembarked at Southampton Airport. They were replaced by others, but the newcomers had to fit round me, which was preferable.

It was a dull, blustery, noon as I approached the Archduke to meet Norman for lunch. Somehow or other, my great friend Wolf had managed to reach the railway bridge between the arches from with the restaurant presumably derived its name to provide the appropriate embellishment.

Graffiti and Archduke

Maybe he used the crane.

lampsMy choice for lunch was the sea trout. Norman chose belly of pork, and we both opted for the pecan pie for dessert. We shared a bottle of Sicilian shiraz.

By the time I emerged from the restaurant to be blown along South Bank and across Westminster Bridge to visit Carol, the temperature had dropped to finger-tingling levels, but the sun had now come out, silhouetting the Houses of Parliament, peeking through crevices in the decorative architecture; outlining the faces of photographers’  subjects; providing side lighting for Gothic greatcoats and the supports of the bridge; setting young girls’ hair alight; and lending a translucence to the glass cases of ornamental lamps.

Houses of Parliament in silhouetteSun through Houses of ParliamentGothic greatcoatsYoung lady photographingSunlit hair

Jackie and I have recently begun the watch the Father Brown series on television. This is based on G.K.Chesterton’s classic stories of a sleuthing Roman Catholic priest, and has led me to begin reading them. I got through a few on the train today.