Ramblings
Today I embark upon an Advent Calendar juxtaposing new and old Christmas decorations beginning with the communal green at Milford on Sea and some shop windows.
Elizabeth joined us for the afternoon, accompanied me on the photoshoot, and stayed by invitation for dinner.
Here is my gallery from the trip;
and here is Elizabeth’s.
Our dinner consisted of wholesome cottage pie; cauliflower, carrots, and Brussels sprouts with which I finished the pinotage and Elizabeth drank FreDamm beer
Whilst I enjoyed a Chiropractic session this morning another day’s relentless lashing rain set in.
Before splashing off to Sears Barbers in Milford on Sea, watching windscreen wipers swishing back and forth, I kept well ahead of my targeted daily tally of Kristin Lavransdatter pages.
Raindrops slid down the window obscuring Ellie’s Hey Duggee! bubble machine. I really couldn’t be bothered to photograph any more rain. Jackie, on the other hand, whilst waiting for me outside the
barbers’, noticed the irony of this sign in the window of the gift shop opposite, and bothered to
depict the wet streets and
a pair of sopping crows seeking shelter beneath a dripping bench.
This evening we all dined on Jackie’s curry meals with all the extras that we enjoyed last night, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Côtes du Rhône.
With the overnight returned gale force winds and driving rain persisting Jackie and I splashed and sprayed our way to the Salinger’s home at Walkford where we joined Shelly and Ron, Helen and Bill for a lunch date having been several times postponed because of illness of one or other, or two of the sisters. The now familiar pools across the roads had been supplemented by new arrivals.
We enjoyed a relaxed buffet lunch based on Helen’s rather good giant quiche. Various white wines were quaffed. Much catching up was carried out, followed by our feeble attempts at completing John Eales’s Annual quiz, with coffee, mints, and Shelly’s moist Christmas cake.
As we returned home a break in the weather had occurred giving louring indigo clouds colourful pink and golden tinges. This created excitement about a potential sunset down at Milford on Sea so I nipped indoors at home for a loo break and to collect my camera. Within five minutes the rain had returned and the sky once more turned slate grey. Ever the optimists we drove to Milford anyway.
Here is the sunset.
Back at home I published
This evening we all dined on pork spare ribs; prawn toasts; and Jackie’s colourful savoury rice. No further wine was imbibed.
While we sat round the patio table before dinner yesterday Flo took
these photographs of Jackie and Ellie which she e-mailed to me.
This morning my lady attended a coven meeting with her two sisters,
and dropped me at Milford-on-Sea on her way there, collecting me three and a half hours later after I had taken a rather more than a few photographs and caught a touch of the sun.
Most of the time I sat on the same bench seat although I did walk up and down a bit for changes in perspective.
This first gallery contains a woman sporting shorts seemingly plugged into soothing music; another dressed in a striped tent; another carrying co-ordinated bundles; another, green-clad, clasping car keys; and a gentleman opening his boot.
Car drivers were in and out of the parking spots throughout the morning; cycling was another popular form of transport. The individual gentleman in this group was just setting off having uncoupled his steed from the rack in the first image which later accommodated two others locked together. Interestingly it was only the child in the family group who wore a crash helmet.
Other children, such as this one passing the Charity shop, enjoyed other forms of transport, like the buggy contrasting poignantly with the approaching elderly gentleman’s walking trolley.
The Bridge on the Hill is quite a focal point – notice the wall-mounted defibrillator. The woman crouching down outside went on to visit the outlet, the proceeds of which support the village Community Centre.
Anyone using this crossing, as did this infant crocodile, could not miss the shop.
People also gather outside The Village News, described as a traditional newsagent. This group conversed long enough to test the patience of the dog which was quite happy to sit and watch the world go by.
Dogs are in abundance wherever one goes in this area. The one in the van didn’t have to wait long for its owner to return from the Co-op.
Other shop windows speak for themselves. Note the hat held by the bollard outside Timeless Fabrics which had not opened when I first arrived. I wonder whether the cap will be retrieved.
I spent an enjoyably engaging hour talking with friendly David Heath and his equally amenable wife Janet from Colorado. Janet joined us between periods of visiting the local shops.
The couple walked on past the telephone box book exchange.
A number of men were occupied making deliveries; one in this set used a sack barrow; the postman pushed a cart and entered the shops with armfuls.
The most impressive handling of delivery transport was by Ben who I may not have spoken with had it not been for a near miss we both witnessed. One driver came down the hill alongside which we were sitting, drove across the the double lines evident in the picture above, and suddenly turned right without seeming to see a car approaching from Sea Road opposite. Had the driver of that vehicle not made a screeching emergency stop there would have been a collision.
Ben said that this was a very dangerous corner and such situations occurred all the time. He then revealed that he drove the Co-op van. He had started at 4.30 a.m. carrying out a string of deliveries. Although the vehicle was loaded when he collected it, he unloaded alone at each store he visited.
The manoeuvre that he needed, so skilfully, to employ had to be seen to be believed. He turned left past the Co-op; reversed down Sea Road; came forward into the high street and swung round up the hill; with the aplomb to wave as he passed me on his way.
After photographing one of the ubiquitous feral pigeons pecking up scraps
I noticed a relaxed conversation opposite which was completed with a farewell hug.
This evening we dined on chicken marinaded in Nando’s medium piri-piri sauce and Jackie’s flavoursome vegetable rice, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Borodino.
Danni, Ella, and Jack joined us for one of Jackie’s splendid salad and cold meats lunches; once Ellie woke she and her parents accompanied us, as Elizabeth did later.
We were able to give Ella her birthday present, which, having unwrapped it with suitable glee, she propped, unopened, on the arm of the sofa and carried on putting together the body parts puzzle which she had extracted from the toy hamper as soon as she arrived.
The next game involved a telephone conversation between her mother, Danni, who was in her own home, viz my chair, and Ella, in her own home – or rather the sofa at the far end of our sitting room.
When arranging a sleepover at Danni’s house, she pointed out that she had a lot of children and was that all right? She needed also to seek permission from G’ma, Elizabeth. This meant a call to her,
having checked her phone number with Danni.
Permission granted,
she enjoyed her sleepover.
Ella had looked forward to meeting Ellie once more ever since she arrived here. She was delightfully tender with her cousin.
Leaving Jackie at home to recuperate and prepare this evening’s dinner, the rest of us took a trip to the mild-weathered Milford on Sea, beginning at the children’s playground next to the Needle’s Eye Café,
where the slide was enjoyed by Jack,
and by Ellie, each aided by parents.
Ellie
Jack,
and Ella, keen to display her ability to propel herself to a great height, all enjoyed the swings, although Ellie wasn’t quite sure what was happening.
While I sat on a wall above, the others wandered along the shoreline;
Ella gathering handfuls of pebbles and throwing them into the water.
Two other children splashing, caught my eye.
We returned home shortly before sunset.
Later, Danni sent me photographs of the rest of us on the beach wall,
and also from behind. Note Ella’s collection of missiles.
Danni took her children home soon afterwards and Elizabeth stayed for dinner which included tender roast lamb, crisp Yorkshire pudding, boiled new potatoes, crunchy carrots, firm Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower, with tasty gravy accompanied by Hoegaarden for Jackie and Swartland Shiraz 2020 for Elizabeth and me.
This morning I scanned
the next six pages of Charles Keeping’s version of ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes.
By mid-afternoon Jackie finished the first stage of her planting of the new raised bed – by replacing the bulbs and primroses which had to be dug up to make space for it.
Afterwards she drove me to the Ear Clinic at Milford on Sea where a build up of wax was successfully removed. We travelled back
along the coast. The temperature was much colder than of late, the bright sunshine sparkled on the sea; gulls zoomed low; sailboarders skimmed against the backcloth of the Bournemouth skyline; dog walkers silhouetted; and a little boy scooted.
We travelled on to Barton on Sea. A cyclist rested on a bench while I walked down to water level and wished I could have a rest on the way back up. The bench half way down the steep slope was already occupied.
Before going home we diverted to Ferndene Farm Shop for various items.
Elizabeth came to dinner this evening, when we enjoyed second helpings of Jackie’ s casserole from yesterday with fresh vegetables. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while my sister and I finished the Douro. We spent the rest of the evening sorting out English politics.
On a very damp and dull afternoon we drove to Fagan’s in New Milton for Jackie to buy me a Christmas present.
Later, when twilight was approaching we visited Milford on Sea to see the decorated village green.
The blustery weather was already wreaking a certain amount of havoc on the displays. I needed to tie back the laces holding the snow onto the first of the litter bins and couldn’t straighten the fallen figure on the second.
As Pam Wright is attributed for the work portrayed in the second gallery, each of the individual Christmas trees carries a similar notice telling us whose project it is.
All the dedicated benches bear decorations. One notice made me smile.
The Nativity scene is very artistic. A Father Christmas figure has fallen into Jesus’s crib.
Others adorn a row of posts lining the car park.
Elizabeth came to dinner which consisted of Jackie’s well-filled beef and mushroom pie; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; firm Brussels sprouts, and meaty gravy. This was followed by Sicilian lemon tart. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while my sister and I drank more of the Malbec poured from another bottle.
Sue W’s post https://nansfarm.net/2020/09/09/plant-life/ reminded me of a story from before my WP days, which I thought should be told.
Sometime in the late 1970s I travelled to King’s Lynn on the Norfolk coast in order to deliver a speech about Social Work to the nuns of a convent about ten miles away. From London this involved a lengthy train journey and cab rides. The town was etched in my memory because it had suffered from the North Sea flooding of 1953. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2013/jan/31/devastation-east-anglia-1953-flood-in-pictures
The last passenger train was, as far as I remember, about 6.30 p.m. This was confirmed by the sole station staff member. I arrived in such good time that I went for a walk, returning to see a train departing.
I became further perturbed when I saw the single employee pedalling away. I caught up with him and asked if that had been my train. With a look of terror he informed me that there was only the night train to come and cycled off in haste.
There was a long wait ahead of me. No dining establishments were open. There was a cinema – showing ‘Stand Up Virgin Soldiers’. I bought a large cup of popcorn and settled into my seat – one of three now occupied.
The film was meant to be funny, but I wasn’t in the mood.
The night train got me home in the small hours of the morning.
Fast forward to this morning, when Jackie and I visited Milford on Sea Pharmacy for repeat prescriptions, after which we did not linger on the coast,
the car parks of which were fast filling up with older visitors watching the sun glinting on the waves against a backdrop of Hurst Castle, and those
entertaining pre-school age children at the seaside.
Leaving Milford, cyclamen continue to decorate the roadside verges.
It was donkeys, some quite young, that dominated the roads like Jordan’s Lane at Pilley, where they indulged in suckling and scratching on any available surface.
We both spent some time watering pots and Hanging baskets.
This evening we dined on roast pork, parsnips, and potatoes; crunchy carrots; tender cabbage and green beans, with tasty, meaty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2019.
This morning I received an e-mail from our brother-in-law, Ron Salinger, attaching this photograph of a ship’s boiler exposed on Highcliffe beach last Thursday, 9th April, at the town’s lowest tide of the year. It is probably from Grampus, a tug wrecked in the 1920s.
Today the air was still hazy shortly before 9 a.m. when we drove to Milford on Sea hoping to find the fruit and vegetable shop open.
On the way there I photographed walkers and their dogs heading east along the cliff top.
Jackie photographed me against The Needles
from outside the empty car park. Note the closed sign on the money machine.
The view looking west towards Hurst Castle was layered in haze. The Isle of Wight image is another from Jackie.
Ever since we arrived here seven years ago I have chronicled crumbling clifftops. April is dubbed the month for showers. We have had none this year.
Consequently cracks clearly indicate the next rocky chunk to cascade down below.
Milford’s fruit and veg shop remains closed. We next tried Ferndene Farm shop where,
while I remained in the Modus, Jackie joined an orderly queue maintaining its two metre gaps as it turned a right angle at the corner of the main building. The occasional shopper exhibited some confusion and was given advice and explanation by vigilant staff including
a charming young man
who was on hand to dispense sanitiser for those not wearing gloves.
The system worked smoothly on a one out and one in basis. This gentleman concentrated hard on his boxes of eggs.
The plants outside were in excellent condition, although it was less easy for buyers to observe the requisite distance.
The Head Gardener was overjoyed as she returned to the car clutching crates of plants and robin food.
The ponies outside The Rising Sun at Bashley on our return home needed neither to queue for their sustenance
nor to keep social distancing.
A couple of weeks ago Jackie began tidying the patio.
On Sunday Aaron replaced the blue wooden furniture, and yesterday The Head Gardener photographed the area’s current condition.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious cottage pie; crunchy carrots and cauliflower, and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mezquiriz reserva Navarra 2013.
CLICK ON ANY IMAGE IN A GROUP TO ACCESS ITS GALLERY, INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF WHICH CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN AND CHECKING BOX AT BOTTOM RIGHT
According to Wikipedia: ‘The WI [Women’s Institute] movement began at Stoney Creek, Ontario in Canada in 1897 when Adelaide Hoodless addressed a meeting for the wives of members of the Farmers’ Institute.’
‘Born in 1915 out of the ashes of the First World War, the WI was initially sponsored by the government with a mission to help boost food supplies and energise rural areas. But the gatherings proved so popular, it soon took on a life of its own and its members set about righting wrongs, mounting surprising and enlightened campaigns, many of which were light years ahead of their time.’ This is an extract from Emma Barnett’s excellent 24th May 2015 article in the Daily Telegraph.
This year Milford on Sea is celebrating its own centenary in a witty exhibition of art and craft. We visited it this morning.
Most stationery objects around the village green have been adorned with the results of loving labour involving lanate thread and knitting needles. (See the contentedcrafter comment below – also crochet hooks)
Benches and bollards are bestrewn;
bunting bedecks trees and railings.
There are two lighthouses, one bearing a bird.
A gull, reflected in The Village Coffee Pot window, perches atop the pillar box.
Other birds, woodland creatures, insects, a lizard, flowers, vegetables, an octopus, starfish and seashells, cling in abundance to the bollards.
Noddy, Rupert Bear, an elf, a guardsman, a little boy, and an elderly couple occupy the benches.
Just when I thought I had covered everything, a woman asked me if I’d seen the spiders in the tree by the car park. I hadn’t, so I wandered down to put that right. There was also a blue tit in residence.
I engaged in conversation with a gentleman resting his backpack on a bench while he studied his Ordnance Survey map. He was from Leicester and, as part of his aim to walk around the coast of England, was undertaking the stretch from here to Mudeford today. The Duchess of Cornwall seemed quite happy to allow him to share her bench.
Paul and Margery came for a visit this afternoon. We enjoyed our conversation as usual.
This evening we dined on roast belly of pork, Yorkshire pudding, crinkly kale, crunchy carrots and new potatoes. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Médoc.