The air this morning when we set about further post-storm garden recovery work hung humid and eerily still.
Concentrating on the patio area and the sweet peas corner of the kitchen wall, Jackie trimmed the Lathyrus odoratus and extricated the strangled tomato plant. From less than polite expressions of intense disappointment yesterday when discovering broken geranium stems, her exclamations have been the more optimistic “ah, another cutting”. The greenhouse is going to be pretty full this winter.
Naturally Nugget kept her company.
Where’s Nugget? An easier puzzle today.
Elsewhere pelargoniums, petunias, rudbeckias, and hoverflies sharing a poppy enjoyed the early sunshine.
My task was dead-heading roses in the Rose Garden where
heavy bees clambered over the tiny blooms of the verbena bonarensis;
Lady Emma Hamilton laid her head on the block;
Jacqueline du Pré played on;
a hoverfly flew to the Blue Moon;
Crown Princess Margareta bustled voluminously;
Summer Wine was drunk with joy;
and Absolutely Fabulous certainly was.
Eventually leaden skies and heavy rain brought us inside. When Jackie heard that Nugget, whom she had missed, had come to join me, she uttered “turncoat”.
By mid-afternoon the skies had cleared and the weather brightened. We drove to Ringwood for Jackie to buy some new garments from M & Co. and returned home via the forest.
At first we progressed north along Avon Way and turned right into sun-dappled Sky Lane.
A severed string of ponies spanning the road at Ibsley left space for one passing vehicle or a young neophyte equestrian to thread a way through.
Several donkey families were stationed outside Hyde School. One couple seemed to be waiting to register their foal in advance of its reaching the age of admission;
another little one enjoyed a scratch on the road junction. An alarming driver turning the corner blasted his horn at the unperturbed animal which took no notice. I might have heard it borrowing Catherine Tate’s line: “Do I look bothered?” as, peeking over its flanks, it nonchalantly nibbled its hide.
The loud blast of a foghorn behind me alerted me to an agitated mother ushering her infant across the road at quite a rate.
As we returned through Ibsley the ponies, now on the move, tails twitching, like sensible walkers faced the oncoming traffic.
This evening Elizabeth visited because her phones weren’t working and she needed to phone Mum, which she did from my mobile which was coincidentally being charged up. Naturally, beginning with drinks on the patio, she stayed for dinner which consisted of Jackie’s tasty tender beef and mushroom pie; crunchy cauliflower, carrots, and cabbage; and new potatoes. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while my sister and I drank Casillero del Diablo reserva Shiraz 2017.