I began the day with a wander round the garden in the morning light. Jackie has been steadily working away at the creation of her open air gardener’s shed. This is what it looks like at the moment:
As she walked under the weeping birch she came alongside the growing log pile that I will eventually saw up for the wood burning stove.
We have now reached the stage where we have clear views all across the garden.
I amused myself by taking a photograph from each of our five seating areas. What you can see depends on the direction your chair is facing, but I satisfied myself with just one in each case. Perhaps I will make a set in the evening light quite soon.
Before driving me to New Milton for the London train, Jackie took us to Ferndene Farm Shop where we bought three large bags of Violet Farm Compost, and deposited them at home.
On the station a couple were waiting for the arrival of our train, ten minutes late, because they had left their bags on it and were hoping to find them. Presumably they had been travelling from London and trusted that their belongings would be transported back after having reached its destination. Another unfortunate young man boarded the train at Winchester, dashed back to the door as the closing beeps were sounding, jumped off, and didn’t make it back. His friends said he had left one of his bags on the platform.
The buddleia has been described as the railway plant.
This is because our lines are riddled with it, as seen through the window on the approach to Basingstoke.
The train had lost another ten minutes by the time we reached Waterloo, just allowing me 
to take my usual walk to Carol’s, along the side of the Thames where the sun glinted on the wavelets, and, in the shade of the embankment wall, the produce of ice cream vendors was being avidly devoured.
After the usual pleasantly stimulating conversation with my friend, I took the customary transport back to New Milton, where my carriage awaited. Jackie drove me home and fed me on a luscious liver casserole, with crisp vegetables and boiled potatoes. She tells me that different stages of the cooking were interspersed with gardening activities, but there was in my meal no trace of privet or any other plant except for the bay leaf which was there by design.
Tag: paths
Sets
An unseen bird in a neighbouring garden has, for some time now kept up an incessant, repetitive, day-long warning cry. This is no doubt related to the fact that a possibly predatory crow patiently waits perched on the branch of a high tree. Perhaps awaiting a chance to plunder eggs, or to pounce on newly hatched chicks? Yesterday evening Jackie clapped her hands and shooed off the vigilant avian. As soon as it flew off the other bird became silent.
Two days ago a magpie was spotted in our garden, suspiciously close to the blackbird’s nest.
This morning the nest was empty, only its cleanliness and two downy feathers attached to a twig, indicating any occupation. There were no broken shells. Sadly, on little more than circumstantial evidence we suspect either crow or magpie of theft of the eggs.
Today I finished weeding yesterday’s bed. In the process, I found a honeysuckle and several more passion flower plants entwined among the other plants.
Trying not to replicate the McDonalds logo, I erected my own golden arches out of bamboo to give the climbers something else to scale.
Perhaps the honeysuckle was seeded from this wonderfully scented specimen, bordering the kitchen garden.
Jackie has continued her creative work. The water boy is now well established in his little corner, complete with more shells and planting.
She is now focussing on further improving the edging of the paths. In many instances, the earlier brick edges have been covered by stones and granite sets.
These have tended to be obscured by covering plants, and have not stemmed the flow of soil into the gravel. Sieving the earth from the gravel, and placing the bricks on their sides lifts the edges.
The sets will be used elsewhere, where they attractiveness is more apparent. We began with the border between the patch of grass and the long path. I was the labourer to Jackie’s artisan. This meant I searched out more sets, loaded them onto a wheelbarrow, brought them to the mistress craftsperson, placed them roughly where she would need them, and ambled off for some more. Some, in the furthest regions, were covering ants’ nests.
We didn’t quite finish the job before preparing for a visit to Danni and Andy’s new flat. Jackie drove us over to Shirley, where it is; we were joined there by Elizabeth, and all dined at a very good Indian restaurant nearby, the name of which I did not register. We all enjoyed the food; Andy drank Magners, and the rest of us, Kingfisher.
Isle Of Wight Tomatoes
Early this morning the crow, having adopted the back of the bench as its new taking off strip, flew directly onto the top of the bird feeder, but didn’t stay. It can only scavenge from a tray in the construction, not the closed containers. Jackie is wise to that, so isn’t filling it at the moment. The blackbird, with her partner perching guard on the snake bark tree, continues to sit on her eggs.
It is now possible to see through the entrance to the kitchen garden from some distance away. Pictured here are two sides of a path surrounding an oval flower bed at the far end of the garden, as they appeared at the beginning of the day. They are in there somewhere. It was my task to begin restoring them to their former glory, whilst Jackie continued transforming the central gravelled walkway. Here, the brambles were rampant and well established. A certain amount of eradication of them from the beds was required.
This revealed more hidden plants, like the day lilies, the colour of one of which seems to have confused a bloodsucking insect into thinking it was clamped on to my forearm. With some painstaking sifting of
earth and gravel Jackie completed the central path today. I, on the other hand, although making a good impact on the left hand side and far end of the ovoid ring, came to an abrupt halt when I encountered the bamboo. A number of strong stems had penetrated the path and defied my fork.
That was a battle I was prepared to fight another day. It had taken three months completely to eradicate a clump of the insidious roots of this grass at The Firs, so I wanted to be fresh for the job. Mañana.
On a sunny day such as this, the light streaming through the kitchen windows at lunchtime is stunning.
Placed at random at the end of the table when preparing it for the food were a vase of tulips Shelly had given Jackie, an accident pot containing alliums and a petunia, and a bowl of tomatoes. These tomatoes were a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. And they were delicious. Jackie had purchased them at Setley Ridge Farm Shop, to which a couple from the Isle of Wight travel weekly to supply them. Apparently supermarkets cannot sell them because they are not uniform in size, redness, and rotundity.
We received a very warm welcome from the family at The Family House Chinese restaurant in Totton where we dined this evening on the usual good food and Tsing Tao beer.
The streaks in the sky on our way home were of the equally warmest hues.
A Halt To Proceedings
Today I worked on the far end of the invasive vegetation. Turning left from the new arch and working in the opposite direction from the house was the most difficult stretch yet. It looks as if my predecessor gave up the task of keeping next door’s produce at bay. There remain root clusters and stumps of holly, elder, and, of course, lonicera, to dig out from our side.
All these plants were giving thick brambles a lift over to our side. I was having to toss the bits I cut off higher and higher into the air to send them back home. Jackie tells me that snail throwers have to eject the creatures sixteen feet over their fences to stop them returning. I don’t think my tangled masses travelled that far, so maybe they’ll be back. But I’ll be ready for them.
A blackbird’s nest containing two eggs occasioned a halt to proceedings, just as I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, although it doesn’t look like it from the photograph of the path. There are many derelict avian properties in this choking mass, but this one was high enough to provide light and oxygen. Even though they were on enemy territory I thought I should not frighten their mother into abandoning her babies. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway. I don’t know how long it takes for the eggs to hatch, nor the length of time chicks must be fed before leaving home, but most of the clearance is done, and it is not as if there is nothing else to do in the garden.
I satisfied myself with more tree pruning.
Jackie has continued to make excellent progress on her pathway, making creative use of various iron artefacts along the way.
We are particularly pleased with the wheels.
As usual for each of us, she took a diversion or two. The kitchen garden is very overgrown at the moment, so much so that it was difficult to walk under its entrance arch. In clearing this ingress she
discovered a beautiful ballerina rose. We made another trip to Walkford this afternoon to collect more plants from Shelly and Ron’s.
After this we pottered about, pruning here, weeding and digging up brambles there. In the process Jackie brought another beautiful rose into the light.
This one, despite its colouring, bears an accurately illustrated label from Home Base naming it Pink Abundance. The previous owners’ habit of leaving the labels on plants has proved useful when they haven’t disintegrated.
Ashleigh fish and chips provided our takeaway dinner. Jackie went to fetch them and I laid the table. We ate them, with pickled onions, from the perfectly serviceable cardboard containers supplied. I drank a glass of the Languedoc.
The Bay Tree
On my way to continue attacking the lonicera and its companions, I made a pleasant discovery. I mentioned yesterday that the clearing of the area around the collapsed arch had revealed a red rose. This is because a pointed red bud provides a finial for the new gothic version. What I noticed today is a tiny white rose bloom with quite a number of buds.
We have two roses on the arch.
Four hours later I had almost cleared the lonicera from our side of the now virtually non-existent boundary. I followed the familiar process of lopping, uprooting, and tossing into the jungle anything that emanated from the other side. I thinned out our shrubs and tied up a rambling rose. The myrtle required special treatment. The leaves are meant to be variegated but sports have taken over. Taking them all out hasn’t left much vegetation, but the ochre coloured bark is very attractive. A sport is an abnormal result of spontaneous mutation. In this case the leaves were no longer two-toned. After lunch I dealt what I hope is the killer blow to the lonicera. It has, of course, rooted all over the place, but I think I found the original thick bunch of stems, sawed through them and smashed out what I could without going to the trouble of digging out the tangled clump.
We now have a clearance all the way from the new arch to the patio, so I will wander along every now and again and see off any invaders before they become colonists. We also have a fence of sorts, constructed of various sections of wire netting found around the garden, that I attached to iron posts that once probably held a proper boundary. For artistic merit my handiwork would doubtless score a perfect 0, but it forms a marker for any stray vegetation wandering through.
I made the mistake of asking Jackie to bring me some of the netting. This led her to divert from her own allotted task. Most of the netting came from a tangled heap behind a makeshift wooden screen near the side entrance to the house. She thought she would rather like to clear that space and make herself a den. This gave me the job of heavily pruning a holly and a bay tree that had got rather out of hand.. As I did this and smelt the wonderful scent of that culinary aromatic, I though of other bay trees I have known. The garden of the Phyllis Holman Richards Adoption Society in West Hill, Putney, possessed a beautiful bay tree, the elegance of which I always admired. In Newark, we had an enormous such tree, as high as the house and surrounded by pretty mature suckers, giving it the appearance of a very large bush. One day in the early 1990s I told Sylvia, the agency’s administrator, about this and asked why theirs was different. She explained that they had cut out all the surrounding growth to give it shape. I went home and did the same.
Jackie got her space, cleared it, and furnished it with further items from the skip pile. The shelves had once been in the garage, but I didn’t think they were quite up to scratch for the library. The rubbish heap has once more been somewhat depleted.
My lady’s main task today was to continue the renovation of the main central path through the garden. She did a good job on this, and added a tile with a concrete base she had found behind the screen to a path I had cleared some days ago.
For dinner we enjoyed chicken jalfrezi (recipe) and mushroom rice. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I had some more of the Languedoc.
‘Last One To The Chimney Pot’s A Sissy’
Jackie has, on and off all week, been working at clearing the longest radial brick path. We determined today to finish it together. I began at the far end and Jackie continued working away from the house.
The radial paths, we think, were laid down in the 1980s. This one joins a much older one, contemporary with The Heligan Path, and probably dating from the 1930s. It is made of brick and was revealed to be beautifully undulating with a pattern somewhat like herringbone.
My totally uncompetitive lady jocularly cried, as we began: ‘Last one to the chimney pot’s a sissy’. The marker in question can be seen at the far end of the paths in the first two pictures. It will be apparent that, by lunchtime, when the shots were taken, there wasn’t much likelihood that I would be able, at the completion, to have any pretensions to machismo.
Finally, in the true spirit of Chris Brasher’s 1981 London Marathon, there was no single winner.
When American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen crossed the finish line, they did so together, holding hands, in an inspirational gesture which fired many previous non-runners, including me, to enter the event the following year.
Jackie and I each arrived at the chimney pot at the same time. These photographs of the completed task are taken from the marker itself.
The green hosepipe seen snaking along beside the older path is part of an irrigation system rigged up by the previous owner. We have yet to test its operation and efficacy.
Along with aquilegias and many other attractive plants, dianthuses of various colours crop up all over the garden, as here alongside Jackie’s path. There is even a white one.
A number of different evergreen trees that we cannot identify are sprouting new needles. Here is one of them:
Jackie had, yesterday, made off with enough food from the Hordle Chinese Take Away to suffice for today as well. So that was our dinner taken care of. With it, I finished the Bordeaux.
Afterwards we drove down to the beach at Milford and watched the gulls and the waves.
A Pair Of Frogs
Jackie and I spent the whole of this gloriously sunny day on path clearance in the garden.
She worked on the brick one at the back of the house, whilst I concentrated on a gravelled track further along our plot.
The plastic bucket on my path has no bottom. There are a number of such receptacles in the flower beds. Perhaps they had a protective role with seedlings.
Because this thoroughfare has a fabric lining and has been more recently trodden, my task was easier than when working on the last one. There was, however, much weeding and defining of borders to carry out, with the usual final raking smooth.
A cotoneaster that had obviously been cut back a few times was quite an obstacle to progress. This is because I decided to remove it, first removing the branches, then extracting the tough old stump, following the same process as with the hollies.
Here are a couple of photographs of the finished job:
We are fortunate that the glorious red poppies are still such a focal point, because they took quite a battering in the recent storms, but are now finding the strength to stand proud again.
The flower beds and shrubberies also need extensive weeding, but we have chosen to focus on the paths first because that gives a generally tended appearance if you don’t look too closely at the rampant brambles and suchlike elsewhere. Inevitably some of these other areas do receive some attention, if only to prevent further invasion of the paths. The result is that it is not only the footpaths that are seen in a new light, but new vistas across the garden are opened up.
The beautiful rhododendron in these photographs was largely obscured from across the garden just a few days ago.
I took some time out to watch a considerable corvine conflict on our chimney pots. There is usually one crow or another perched up there shouting the odds or playing sentinel. This afternoon there were often three of four flapping, croaking, and pecking at each other. They didn’t stay around to be photographed, so I had to settle for one lookout and one guardian portrait.
Jackie made a beautiful job of her path, and went on to tidy up the surrounding areas. There are a number of small home made ponds in the garden stocked with aquatic plants. One of these was in the bed behind the patio. It needed clearing out and freshly watering for the sake of the atmosphere as much as for the plants. She did this, and in the process, not content with her recent amphibian discovery, found a pair of frogs hibernating in the undergrowth. She returned them, a bit mossy, to their rightful position on the edge of the pond. The whole area around this water feature needed tidying up, which she did, and went on to carry out some heavy pruning of various shrubs, thus
liberating a mature peach climbing rose. I rather colourful iris was also exposed for the first time.
We dined on Jackie’s sausage and liver casserole, mashed potato, carrots and green beans. And very good it was too. I finished the Languedoc whilst she drank her customary Hoegaarden.
We finished our drinks on the garden bench.
One of the many trees that we don’t recognise, has a rather colourful green and yellow sinuously striped bark. We noticed that a snail was hoping to use it as a camouflage; and what the branches carry.
Can anyone identify the tree?
P.S. Jackie’s research has revealed that the tree is a member of the snake bark maple group, probably Hers’s maple, native to China.
Camouflaged Beauty
Knowing we were in for rain today we optimistically shopped at Ferndene Farm Shop for six bags of compost and four of gravel. Jackie had made an early start on weeding more of the brick paths, but as soon as I put in an appearance the precipitation that was to develop into a lengthy thunderstorm began to descend.
On our return from the trip to the shop, I busied myself changing the occasional pictures I first focussed on on 27th April. As before, these A3+ prints have been photographed in situ so that the rooms make their own reflective contributions to the images.
Michael in the kitchen sink has been replaced by an October 1967 shot of him chasing his Uncle Joseph down an autumn leaf-strewn slope in Cannizaro Park.
Helen and Michael have made way for a honeymoon portrait of Jacke taken at The Kings Arms in Ockley in March 1968. The considerable enlargement of what is a very small part of a colour slide has given the picture, taken in natural light, a smooth grainy quality which I rather like.
Although the deluge desisted this afternoon, rain still dripped off the trees, and formed puddles on the ground, enforcing on us a probably much-needed rest.
The accumulated water droplets formed translucent bubbles that clung to the cases of the, as yet inchoate, poppies, or perched on the spread leaves of the sparkling spurge.
We were able to return to the gardening tasks later this afternoon.
Jackie added to her tally of toads when she found this superbly camouflaged beauty which steadfastly refused to be disturbed.
She cleared more of the radial brickwork leading to the house.
I finished exposing and raked yesterday’s unfinished path. From its construction I would date this feature much earlier than the other footpaths so far tackled. The gravel is laid on road stone and sand, without a weed suppressant lining, much like those I created in Newark, under Matthew’s guidance, in the 1980s. I think this was then a long established method. It probably also explains why the area was so overgrown with plants, both attractive and unattractive. A fresh layer of gravel is needed, and I will need to dig out the raised level of the soil against the left hand boundary of brick so that the new pebbles do not overflow onto the flower bed. I have to thank the eagle-eyed head gardener for suggesting this additional task.
In order fully to display the sinuous curves created by the first designer of the garden,I have taken two additional photographs to supplement the same view as yesterday, one at the far end from beside the weeping birch, and the other from the centre of the track. The key is the spray of white flowers no-one has yet been able to identify.
We began this evening’s dinner with a delicious pork and vegetable soup. Chilli con carne (recipe) and vegetable rice (recipe) was to follow, with apple strudel as our sweet. Sparkling water was the drink we each chose.
Where Are The Secateurs?
Soon after dawn’s light created its criss-cross effect on Christchurch Road, two delightful gentlemen from Cleansing Cleaning Services
arrived and pumped out our septic tank with a long tube snaking down the side of the house. Ian Norton explained the process and the system to us, booked us in for annual instead of six-monthly removal of effluence, and showed us where to look for blockages.
The scents of early summer were somewhat altered for a while.
Before continuing with the garden project, Jackie drove us to Milford Supplies to buy a couple of strong wheelbarrows, since neither of those left behind by our predecessors has stayed the course of the last week. This entailed two trips because we could only fit one at a time in the car.
My chosen path today, really was invisible, so overgrown was both it and the surrounding beds, with the normal weeds and the more recently ubiquitous ragged robin and buttercups.
Whilst largely sticking to the path, once I had defined it, I did enter the shrubberies to stop the spread of bramble and gallium aperine.
The latest rhododendron to flower was in danger of being swamped by the latter’s clutching velcro-clad tendrils. This weed clambers over everything in its path and, if unimpeded, would have climbed the full height of its lovely host.
I have to say I was unable completely to clear and dress this path today, so here is a photograph of the intermediate stage of the task:
Jackie, on the other hand, was able to complete her intricate eradication of weeds.
We think there was perhaps a well placed near the back of the house. Whatever was in that location has been concreted over, but radii extend from that central point to provide the essential system of paths through the garden. Byways, such as the one I discovered today, give the whole the structure of a spider’s web. All patterns we can create already exist in nature.
Although she also tidied up the front drive, Jackie’s main task today was the removal of grass and weeds from between the bricks forming the central hub. This involved the use of a hand tool and a kneeler.
When I stopped to photograph my lady at her work, I put down the secateurs. Afterwards I couldn’t find them. Is any reader able to help me out?
This evening we dined on fish, chips, mushy peas, and pickled onions. Jackie drank Hoegaarden whilst I finished the Dino shiraz.
Hearts
This morning I stepped straight across Lower Drive into the forest, half clambered, half slid down the steep wooded flanks of Running Hill, and eventually came to the gate through which I had passed to reach the wide gravelled track discovered on 10th of this month. No longer did I have to seek out a path through the undergrowth set with bracken, grasses, and other wild plants.
Often, especially along country roads, when there is building development work being undertaken, you will see a notice warning of ‘heavy plant crossing’. 
Some of this had cut a swathe through the forest floor as wide as the gravelled roadway it led to. The boggier parts had been made even more treacherous by the deeply pitted lengths of wheel tracks.
Before reaching the gravel there is a crosspaths on this track. (I am ignoring the remonstrations of my computer’s dictionary at this point. If you can have a crossroads I don’t see why you can’t have a crosspaths – would you believe it, the computer has just attempted to control me by splitting up the word?).
I turned right, trusting that I would emerge somewhere near Shave Wood or, better still. Suters Cottage. I soon came to a pedestrian gate which looked promising. I went through it and continued. After a short time the terrain became unfamiliar enough to cause some trepidation. You know, clambering up one leaf and log strewn rocky slope after another, whilst being feasted on by small fat winged beasts, can become a bit dispiriting. Just as I was beginning to feel this I saw the fish beckoning. 
This creature protruded from half way up a tree trunk. I’m pretty sure it was indicating the correct route with its flipper.
Especially as I came upon an unpleasantly boggy stretch I began to wonder about the wisdom of my finny faith. You can usually tell when a road is about to come into view because there will be a prolonged gap in the trees, where a bit more sunlight is in evidence. So when I did espy what I thought must be the Shave Wood end of Seamans Lane, I was somewhat relieved.
You will be as surprised as I was to learn that I had emerged more than halfway up Running Hill and had only a few more yards to travel. I am quite used to getting to the wrong place by going the wrong way. To get to the right place by going the wrong way is so unusual it is worth printing out this post and framing it.
Our old friend Tony joined us for a salad lunch and evening meal of Jackie’s smoked haddock and cauliflower cheese (recipe). The latter was accompanied by an excellent Prosecco Tony had brought. Although I have always retained a friendship with this man I first met on our Social Work training course in 1969, Jacke had not met him for about forty years. As she prepared to receive him she quipped that if the meal she planned was not ready for consumption she could always use the pigs’ hearts she had in the freezer. I didn’t register the point of the joke until she reminded me that she had given him hearts in shredded form to supplement the minced meat she had cooked for the first dinner she ever gave him 43 years ago. When Tony sat down to his lunch he spoke of that meal. The poor chap had been enjoying his shepherds pie until informed it contained that particular ingredient which he could not tolerate. They each had the event which I had forgotten burned in their memories. The tale of my own never to be forgotten culinary memory involving stuffed hearts was told in my post of 3rd August last year.