mud – Page 2 – derrickjknight

A Screwdriver Comes In Handy

Just as I was about to set off for this morning’s walk, an alarming drip, drip, dripping sound disturbed the living room peace. The light grey carpet then began to develop a spreading dark patch. Peering up at the ceiling we were able to discern globules of water. It was fairly obvious that this would be emanating from the flat above. But which was the flat above? I really didn’t know. I described the rabbit warren of buildings between Gerard Street and Horse and Dolphin Yard in my post of 17th October last year. That is fairly straightforward compared with Castle Malwood Lodge which has far more corridors and landings. Our bathroom, for example, is beneath the main staircase.

I found my way to number 9, which looked a likely prospect. Not even that was a certainty. Some time after I had rung the bell, the sound of a slight stirring came just in time to prevent me from turning away wondering what to do next. A muffled voice addressed me from within and we established that this was the correct flat. A small space then appeared between the door jamb and the knuckles of fingers holding the door. Above the fingers, roughly in the right place, was a bare shoulder; and above this a cheek containing an eye and topped by a section of turbaned towel. This was Chris. She undertook to go back and research the problem, which clearly must have been connected with her ablutions. I waited outside for at least five minutes, then rang again. Chris, now fully clad, had the confidence fully to emerge, and explained that there was an airlock in her system which, for the first time, had caused water to flood onto the floor. She would ring the agent. When I returned to our flat the problem had ceased. There was no harm done.

It is not generally known that, ever since Louisa’s bedroom floor in Newark was sanded, when she was in her teens, I have been something of an expert in dealing with leaking ceilings.

John Parlett, a plasterer who lived nearby, dramatically came to the rescue when water began to pour into our living room. I was in London at the time, but Jessica sought John’s help. What had happened was that the man who had sanded the floor had managed to slice into the radiator. This remained unnoticed long enough for it to damage the ceiling below. John grabbed a screwdriver, climbed a stepladder, and punctured a hole in the plaster. This enabled the water to pour straight into the bucket underneath rather than fill the cavity above. Had he not done this the ceiling would have come down.

It was fortunate for the staff and owners of Crocker’s Folly that I remembered this technique when they had their leak. Crocker’s Folly was a pub in Aberdeen Place, off Edgware Road in the Paddington area of London. It was a very grand building in decline. The ceiling was far more ornate than ours. Water was pouring into buckets that were constantly being replaced. I got a few Brownie points for the tip I gave them.

Thus was this disaster averted. Not so the very first one this rather doomed building witnessed. Crocker was a businessman who built the place as a luxury hotel intended to serve Marylebone Station which was about to be constructed. He had been unreliably informed that the station would be in that vicinity. When it was actually erected very near Baker Street instead, the poor man was ruined, and threw himself out of a top floor window. Someone else must have named it. In my most recent years in the area this establishment regularly changed hands. No-one made a go of it, and as far as I know, it remains boarded up.

Update 5.11.24: Maroush, the Lebanese Restaurant chain now has this as “the jewel in their tiara”.

After a salad lunch I walked the outline of a Sellotape dispenser: down to the pub, up to the church, down the footpath to the ford, and back via the phone box. Noticing two couples, not exactly dressed for mudlarking, walking through the gate to the footpath, I warned them of the conditions and guided them through to the ford. One of the gentleman asked me if I would care to lie across the mud for them to walk over.

Audrey was tying a yellow ribbon around what I took to be a fruit tree of some sort in her garden. She said she hadn’t got an old oak one so was using this instead. I thought it politic not to ask why.

Jackie has rigged up a birdfeeder and a wren box given to us by Michael; and created a protective, hopefully deer-proof cage for plants. I proudly brought Gladys round to see the work. She was genuinely thrilled. She told me that a wee dog was buried near Jackie’s bird station, so she might find some bones.

We are now off to Leatherhead to see Pat O’Connel’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Gondoliers’. Perhaps a fitting sequel to this morning’s drama. If there is any further excitement today, I will report on it tomorrow.

Bedraggled

www.weather. That is what 50 m.p.h. winds have turned our wet and warm days into. (Mr WordPress took my joke one stage further. I didn’t type http:// and he won’t let me erase it)
We went out for a drive this morning; first down to the clifftop over Hordle beach at Milford on Sea; then through the forest via Burley, Fritham, Lyndhurst, and Brockenhurst.
In the early part of the afternoon I watched the second televised Rugby League match between England and New Zealand. This reminded me why I had given up on it years ago.
Afterwards, I worked on the morning’s photos. Normally, I do very little in the processing, but today I wanted the results to reflect the mood of the day, so I converted most into black and white, and toned down the colour a little in the three that were not made into monochrome. This subduing was because the camera had produced slightly brighter colour than was available to the eye.

Jackie parked the car at Paddy’s Gap, so we could watch the mountainous seas pounding beneath us. I had a very difficult job prising the car door open against the gale, and when I emerged, the driving rain blurred my vision and, as can be seen, left its mark on the camera lens.

A pair of lone joggers performed the involuntary dance of falling leaves, as they battled along the path. I swear the lighter one was lifted aloft.
Interestingly, the more we drove into the forest, the less the wind blew, but the rain was just as heavy and pools were beginning to develop on the grass and heathers. All cars had their headlights in operation, even at 11 a.m.
Perhaps we should not have been surprised than there was scarcely a pony in sight. Areas where we would expect to see many of them cropping the grass or molesting tourists in the car parks, bore no sign of life except the wind sending reluctant leaves, not yet ready for hibernation, spinning on the more slender twigs before spiralling downwards.
Most equines had no doubt repaired to the middle of the forest in search of shelter.

The outskirts of Fritham are normally well populated by shetland ponies.

Today, just one, bedraggled, muddied, munched alone.

For dinner this evening, The Cook produced a tasty lasagna with a melange of fried Mediterranean vegetables, followed by Tesco’s chocolate eclairs. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Madiran.

I Didn’t Get Lost

It was very murky in the New Forest today when I took the Fritham walk from the AA book. Rain drizzled all day. Jackie drove me there and went off to do her own thing whilst I did mine. She had been indicating in good time that she wanted to leave the A31 via a slip-road on her left, when another car came zooming up on her inside making it impossible for her to leave the major road at that point. She was forced to go on to the next opportunity.

Soon after leaving Fritham, ‘a hidden hamlet’, I ventured into Eyeworth Wood, which presented the townie with another woodcraft lesson. The half-mile long path was even more difficult than those I had taken last week. There were no dry sections at all. The mud had even stronger suction, and several fallen branches had to be negotiated. At least the direction was clear, although I was forced into the bracken at times in search of surer footing. Each of my shoes, at different times, was sucked into the muddy maw of the quagmire. It was here I met a couple sporting green wellies. They told me that was what I needed. I’m clearly going to have to get a pair. Before I do this again.

I came to ‘a tree-studded heath, with far-reaching views’. On a different day this was probably an accurate description. Today, visibility was about 500 yards. Thereafter I was required to ‘walk through a shallow valley to a car park at Telegraph Hill’. The bottom of the valley was a pool deep enough to wash some of the mud off my shoes. The only animals I saw were a few cattle near the car park. Ponies and deer were keeping well out of the way. A long, wide, path through heathland leading south past a tumulus to Ashley Cross was virtually all large pools, some of which harboured pond weed. I gave up trying to avoid them, contenting myself with the knowledge that my feet were dry and my shoes getting washed. It is amazing that my feet felt dry, for I had got my socks very soggy and muddy when I lost my shoes. I bought the socks with the walking shoes. They bear the legend ‘Smart Wool’. They certainly are pretty clever. As soon as I returned to The Firs I took off my shoes and socks and proceeded to wring out my muddy socks which still had pieces of holly adhering to them, before inserting them into the washing machine. When she was told the story of the shoes Elizabeth called me a stick in the mud.

In the last section through the forest trees were being felled, the logs being piled up around Gorley Bushes. As I watched the men in the trees working with their power tools I thought of those ancestors of theirs, in the early centuries after Henry VIII had the forest planted, who, with only manual equipment felled and dressed this timber for the building of ships for the defence of the realm. Trees then were even trained to grow in the right shapes for specific parts of the ships. It took a long time to build a ship in early times.

Rather like the Bolton Marathon (posted 11th. August), the last stretch of this walk is uphill. Having ascended the slope I arrived back at the Royal Oak pub forty minutes ahead of the allocated time for the walk. The fact that, for the first time, I didn’t extend both distance and time in an AA walk, is because I didn’t get lost. I tracked Jackie down in the pub and we returned to The Firs for a left-overs lunch. As we drove out of Fritham four bedraggled donkeys filed miserably past the car.

For the last few days we have been puzzled by telltale heaps of pigeon feathers on the lawn. We had attributed these to raiding foxes. We were wrong. Jackie witnessed the demise of one this afternoon. The poor unsuspecting bird was, as usual, foraging for pickings under the bird feeders; for seeds dropped by lighter, more agile avians who could perch above. Suddenly, ‘thwack’, in the flash of an eye a predator struck. As Jackie moved to see what was happening, the sparrowhawk made off with its prey. It reminded me of a crow in Morden Park a couple of days ago which had fled its comrades with a large white object in its beak. Later, as we set off for Sainsburys to return the party glasses, we saw a squirrel scaling a telegraph pole at the end of Beacon Road with a biscuit held in its jaws.

From Sainsburys we proceeded to Jessops where it had been my intention to get the staff to show me how to read how many photographs I had left on my memory card, and, if necessary, to buy another. The camera seized up in the shop and has to be returned to Canon for investigation and repair. I was most upset. Fortunately Elizabeth has an earlier model and has lent it to me for the two to three weeks it will take for mine to be returned to me.

This evening we took Danni and her mother to see the building Danni had found for us and to dine in the Trusty Servant. Danni regrets giving us the flat, thinking she should have kept it for herself. We all enjoyed our meals. Jackie drank Budweiser and the rest of us shared two different red wines.

The Forest Of Bere

Tree surgeons visited The Firs today. The Laurel hedges have now been trimmed; acacias and firs tidied up; and a stubborn buddleia removed. There is much more light available now to the new beds.

Jackie drove me to Wickham where I left her to the village and her book whilst I undertook the AA Wickham walk. Beginning in what is termed the Station car park, although it hasn’t seen either a station or a railway train for about fifty years, I walked along the bridle path which was once the railway track, until directed to turn off it. I speculated that the journey along this stretch of railway must have been a very attractive one; running alongside the wooded banks of the river Meon; before Dr. Beeching applied his particular surgery to Britain’s railways.

After only a few hundred yards I reached the first of the barriers across my path. Two days ago I had learned my first countryside walks lesson concerning barriers, and today put it to good use. The metal barrier left space at the side for pedestrians, so I knew it was all right to go round it. The next obstacle, a few hundred yards further on, was a fallen tree. I’d like to say I took a leap and vaulted it. In reality I struggled to straddle it, and carefully slid across and over to the other side. Crossing the dismantled railway, as this path is still termed, I passed Northfields Farm and Chiphall Lake, eventually reaching the A32 which I was to walk along for 200 yards. Just a little scary, with no footpaths, this stretch reminded me of evading buses careering round bends in Barbados, speculating about diving into hedges, in 2004. The farm track passed a trout farm which had obviously had trouble with satnavs leading drivers to its door. A handmade sign bore witness to this.

The next, rather disconcerting, barrier was soon to present itself. A right turn into the forest of Bere was required. A wooden barrier had been described in the directions. No-one had mentioned it would be a locked Forestry Commission fixture. Full of dubious confidence, I slid in past the left side of it and entered the forest. I soon began to feel like Mr. Toad contemplating The Wild Wood. I wasn’t worried about weasels, but I was worried that the expected sign to West Walk and Woodend was not obviously visible. I continued merrily along. After all, it was a wide path, and seemed to be going in approximately the right direction. Some way along this path, which began to undulate, I began to see why the directions had stated that the bridleway and forest paths would be muddy after rain. As the ooze was doing its best to inhale my shoes, a gentleman with two dogs approached me. He seemed rather aghast when he saw the state of the path. He wasn’t wearing nice warm waterproof footwear which he had recently bought in Cotswolds in Hedge End.

When the quagmire did succeed in slurping up my right shoe , I was forced into a rather ungainly manoeuvre. Attempting to slip your foot back into a mud-locked shoe whilst standing on the other leg when a terrier is doing its best to decorate your, fortunately, gardening trousers with a paw-print pattern, is not an exercise to be recommended.

The dog-owner was able to confirm that I was heading for West Walk. I had thought I was already on it. Eventually I came to signs for West Walk and Woodend. All over the place. At every junction, sometimes multiple, there were signs to these places. The puzzling thing was that each of these signs bore usually four-figure numbers to each place followed by m. Having grown up with m meaning ‘miles’, I had to remind myself that this probably indicated ‘metres’, especially as it was only a small forest. What was more confusing was that some of these were only yards apart yet bore vastly different numbers. Before long I was thoroughly lost. I came to a junction offering a path that looked as if it could take motor vehicles. I thought that if I followed it I was bound to come to a road and perhaps get my bearings. Left or right was the choice. I decided left was the most likely, and set off. Eventually, passing a cottage, I did reach a road, the gate to which was locked. Again I slipped between two posts, being rather grateful I didn’t have a paunch, otherwise I’d never have managed it. Since the cottage was named Woodend Cottage I felt sure I was on a road which would take me to the A32. The road, named Heath Road, led onto that major thoroughfare and I now knew where I was. Passing an entrance to the forest named Woodend, I was tempted to try to pick up the trail on my map. Only tempted. No way was I going back in there. You can’t turn a septuagenarian townie into a country boy overnight.

I was able to leave the A32 fairly soon and get back onto the bridlepath which left me a couple of miles to do. This was a section further up than the one I had left earlier. It had a strong rivulet running down the middle of it. As it was now raining quite hard, I was grateful for the canopy of overhanging trees which turned the route into a different kind of railway tunnel. I was also quite grateful for Jackie waiting to drive me back to The Firs, where, for the second time in three days, my gardening trousers went into the washing machine. I’ll scrape the mud off my shoes when they are dry.

Later, Paul rang seeking help to unload a piece of furniture from his car. I popped round and helped him. He offered to lend me his satnav to help stop me getting lost.

Danni joined us for an evening meal of Jackie’s succulent boeuf bourgignon followed by the Co-op’ s scrummy sticky toffee pudding. Except for the cook, we drank Fairtrade Argentinian Malbec 2011. She, of course, enjoyed a small Hoegaarden blanche.