Ramblings
The sun emerged quite late today. After I had opened the gate for Aaron.
These are a few shots I took on the way there and back. As usual accessing these two galleries with clicks will access titles.
Much of the rest of the day was spent listening to the Ashes Test Match.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice chicken jalfrezi; marvellous mushroom rice topped with a perfect omelette; and a tasty paratha with which she drank Blue Moon and I drank more of the Saint-Chinian
Jackie’s labels for her Paths and Beds occasionally need refurbishing.
Yesterday she renewed this one, demonstrating that the bed is named for the tree.
The storms of the last couple of days left the paths covered in debris. Today the Head Gardener swept and cleared them.
This kept swivel-headed Nugget well supplied with fleeing insects, quick as an arrow, to dart at.
This afternoon we visited Annie and Derek at Barton on Sea, where we enjoyed the, cakes, and wide ranging stimulating conversation.
After this we took a brief drive into the forest to make use of the early evening light.
Having noticed a pair of ponies lurking in the shadows thrown across
the virtually dry bed of the old quarry lake in Pilley
I gingerly made my way down there to join them.
A grey up on the road clattered over the tarmac and
thudded down the bank in my direction.
I took evasive action as it joined its grazing cousins.
A pair of spectral equines appeared atop the opposite bank.
This evening, from trays on our laps, we dined on pepperoni pizza, marinaded chicken and plentiful fresh salad accompanied by Blue Moon in Jackie’s case and the last of the Bergerac in mine; while we watched the highlights of the first day of the first Ashes Test match between England and Australia.
I woke later than usual this morning. As I passed our upstairs windows soon after 7 a.m. I spied Jackie standing with a camera at the far end of the garden.
She was taking advantage of the early morning light, which was just as well for the first three images in particular.
Titles, as usual, can be gleaned after accessing each of the galleries with a click. Otherwise I will let her results speak for themselves.
This afternoon she drove me to
Rhinefield Ornamental Drive, where I walked for thirty minutes along this reasonably even path.
So crowded were the car parks that we only just managed to find a space. Surrounding the car park, golden St John’s Wort glowed in the sunshine that pierced gaps between the
majestic giant redwoods
surrounded by bracken.
Now the tourist season has begun, and children have been let out of school, I do not walk alone.
Two little boys ran on ahead of their parents, pausing while a woman approached engrossed in her mobile phone. Having put it aside, she greeted me warmly.
Two gentleman I took to be the fathers of the boys called them to stop, caught up with them and turned to communicate with the likely mothers with whom I had been conversing.
The woman carrying a younger child, I think did not speak English. Nevertheless when, realising that they were pacing me and my knees, I urged them not to wait for me she held up her little boy to wave and say “bye”. Her companion had good enough English to tell me about her aunt’s hip replacement.
On my return to the car I paused to photograph a trio playing catch. Anyone who has been accustomed to catching a hard cricket ball will appreciate that it is much easier to pouch than is this yellow tennis ball.
When we set off for home string of cyclists wheeled along Rhinefield Road.
Just outside Brockenhurst a leisurely pony and foal were instructing a patient motorcyclist in the rules of the New Forest roads.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious beef, mushrooms and peppers in red wine; Yorkshire pudding; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans with which I finished the Grenacha Syrah. Mrs Knight had downed her Hoegaarden while seated on the patio in conversation with Nugget.
I was grateful today for the overnight thunderstorm and for Jackie’s watering the parts it couldn’t reach early this morning before she and Shelly drove to Helen’s to offer sisterly assistance.
This meant I could concentrate on the dead-heading necessitated by the storm’s stripping of many petals. After more than an hour I retreated indoors with wobbly legs and wringing wet shirt to sit at the computer and apply myself to retouching two more of the images from my mother’s old album.
First I tackled my grandfather from c1926 at Conwy. Judging by the position of his hand I suspect he was holding a cigarette.
This photograph was probably taken in about 1919, before the marriage of my maternal grandparents, Annie and George Henry Hunter, who are the couple on the right.
These two images suggest that my grandfather was, like me, happier behind the camera.
After completing this work I returned to the garden,
where bees were very busy, being particularly partial to swarming over purple alliums and pink hebes.
Red geraniums, white marguerites, and pink hydrangeas produce an attractive bank on the front drive. Jackie is constantly thinning out the daisies so she has sufficient vision to her right when driving out.
A variety of day lilies continue to proliferate.
The last three day lily images are from the Kitchen Bed, also home to lysimachia Firecracker.
Pale pastel blue and white campanula spills over the Shady Path
from where we have views towards the house, and across the Palm Bed, among others.
This clematis Polish Spirit is nearby in the Dragon Bed.
From the stable door we look down the Gazebo path, and back from the agapanthuses coming into bloom in the Palm Bed.
Further garden views are afforded by the Rose Garden and the Phantom Path,
leading to the West Bed with its honesty and lilies.
Some time after Jackie returned home she drove out again for a Hordle Chinese Take Away meal which we enjoyed with Hoegaarden in her case, and more of the Fleurie in mine.
I wasn’t able to dead head all the roses today, although I carried out quite a long session with secateurs before my knees suggested that a rest might be in order. After taking one, it seemed likely that spent buds would not spoil any photographs, so I wandered around with the camera.
Here are four Rose Garden views with individual shots of Aloha, Absolutely Fabulous framed by a foxglove crescent, Gloriana, For Your Eyes Only, Rosa Gallica; and Ballerina dancing attendance.
Roses elsewhere include Wedding Day just coming into bloom on the Gothic arch; the peach rose in the Oval Bed; and Compassion beside the Dead End Path.
Bees continue to swarm around the yellow bottle brush plant and the valerian.
Purple lamium and blue petunias share one of Jackie’s pots; cosmoses feature in others. Our day lilies are proliferating; fuchsias Delta’s Sarah has proved to be hardy enough to survive our winter.
The kitchen wall display has benefited from all the recent rain.
The Palm Bed is named for the cordeline Australis which can be seen beyond its compatriot eucalyptus.
These three views are of the Phantom Path; the Shady Path; and the junction between the Brick and Gazebo Paths, the latter of which is shown from both directions.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s classic cottage pie, firm carrots, and tender runner beans with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Navarra Garnacha Roble 2017.
This is an addendum to yesterday’s post which focussed on the effect of the day’s changing light on our garden.
Soon after dusk, Jackie took a trip round the garden photographing her fairy lights.
Today the sun rose before 8 a.m., took an early lunch, and re-emerged in the evening.
The brighter light picked out the scenes and the plants before my dead-heading of the roses which occupied most of the morning. Clicking on any image to access its gallery will reveal titles and locations.
These post prandial photographs were produced during Phoebus’s siesta.
Apollo’s chariot crossed the sky in time for our pre dinner drinks taken on
the decking.
This gave us a pleasant glow.
This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s excellent Hordle Chinese Take Away Fare with which I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2016. You will have noticed Jackie’s Hoegaarden earlier. She finished it on the decking.
Yesterday evening we met Becky and Ian at the Darbar restaurant in Emsworth. This was an excellent venue for our dinner. Inspired by the food of the Moguls the meals were quite unusual with aromatic spice blends; the service was friendly, tactful, and efficient. Jackie’s choice of main course was paneer shashlik; mine was goat and potato curry. We both enjoyed them very much. I also tried some of Ian’s creamy mild chicken curry. I’m not sure what Becky chose. We shared onion bahjis, plain parathas, and spinach and pilau rices. Becky drank Diet Coke, Jackie Kingfisher, and Ian and I Cobra. The enjoyable visit was completed when we drove on to our daughter and son-in-law’s flat in Southbourne to admire Becky’s artistic arrangements and refurbishments.
It is amazing that, in mid-May, we need to water the garden. The skies remained overcast but we received no rain.
My task today was to run the hose down the Back Drive and spray Aaron’s planting of yesterday. Allowing the hose to carry out its work in stages gave me the opportunity to wander round with the camera.
This foxglove is visible in the first of the drive pictures.
Clematises that have not featured before include the one on an obelisk just outside the Rose Garden; another Doctor Ruppel beside the Weeping Birch; and one sharing the Ace Reclaim arch in the Rose Garden with Zéphirini Drouin and
Crown Princess Margareta, beneath whom
sits Jacqueline du Pré.
Madame Alfred Carriere welcomes visitors to her domain.
The peach rose in the Oval Bed has really taken off this year.
It romps to the right of this view from the concrete patio; with Its partner to the left it came came with the house. The oriental poppies in the foreground are situated in the Weeping Birch Bed
which also houses this Sweet William.
The New Bed lies on the corner of the Back Drive; at the other end of the garden the bed before the wisteria arbour has filled out nicely.
This powder blue iris stands fronting the grass patch;
our white flowers also include antirrhinums
and Hawkshead fuchsias.
Bees, like this one diving into a geranium, continue to plunder pollen.
Hot lips now splash lipstick impressions over the Cryptomeria Bed.
The bench at the far end of the Dead End Path is never sat on. This is because it is generally covered in pigeon poop. Jackie has therefore filled it with decorative container planting which should mature nicely in the coming weeks.
This afternoon Elizabeth visited with her friend Franz for beverages and convivial conversation.
This evening we dined on moist chicken Kiev; tasty ratatouille including butternut squash; crisp cauliflower; and creamy mashed potatoes with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Garnacha Syrah.
Today’s tour of the garden began with
clematis Marie Boisselot in the Kitchen Bed which also contains an as yet small wisteria, clusters of ferns, Japanese maples, the now ubiquitous erigeron, and self seeded bronze fennel which will have to go when it outgrows it’s welcome.
Other clematises include Niobe, now rivalling the fading wisteria and the burgeoning rose Paul’s Scarlet for space above the Wisteria Arbour; and Doctor Ruppel, one of which is beginning its ascent up the arch facing the Westbrook Arbour.
At the Brick Path corner of the Dragon Bed a deep red peony prepares to top off the happy planting of phlox and geraniums.
At the far side of this bed the magnolia Vulcan is beginning to relish the light now permitted into its corner.
The pink rhododendron in the Palm Bed sits opposite the deeper variety in Margery’s Bed.
There are a number of vantage points along the Brick Path.
The yellow diurnal poppies alongside the Gazebo Path
can be seen slightly above the centre of this view through the Cryptomeria Bed.
Before Aaron left this morning he had mown the grass patch which is beginning to warrant the epithet lawn.
Rose Madame Alfred Carriere soars above the entrance to the Rose Garden; Jacqueline du Pré adds harmony; Laura Ford a splash of yellow beside Roserie de la Haie; and Gloriana a touch of majesty to the side fence.
Aquilegias dance with ferns in the South Bed;
weigela festoons the fence above them.
Three hawthorn trees, swathes of libertia, and carpets of erigeron give a distinctly white hue to the Back Drive borders.
These are glimpses of the garden in not quite mid-May.
While we enjoyed pre-dinner drinks on the patio a pair of pigeons settled down for the evening in the copper beech.
For our dinner we travelled around the world in 60 minutes. We enjoyed Jackie’s special fried rice with Japanese tempura prawns, Chinese pork spare ribs, Indian tandoori chicken, Belgian Hoegaarden beer and more of the Chilean Carmenere wine.
This afternoon, with Elizabeth and her friend, Cathy, we visited Spinners Garden in Pilley, open in aid of the National Gardens Scheme. Jackie and I had visited four or five years ago when the steep slopes and terraces of this wonderful, well established, venue were of no consequence. Not so today.
The long downward path between splendid varieties of rhododendron and camellia was more than I could manage without continuous pauses.
As soon as possible I sat on the edge of a decking platform and photographed a tree peony, a very large magnolia that had suffered from the attention of the recent Storm Hannah, and the neighbouring landscape.
I watched others, including Elizabeth and Cathy who had made their way down the sloping lawn to a pool with a wooden bridge at the bottom.
I did my best to avoid the attentions of the owner’s dog, keen to have his ball thrown for him. This was something else I had forgotten from our earlier visit. There was unfortunately no discount for amusing him. Cathy had the right idea. Her throw was so powerful that the ball landed in the pool. The owner had a spare to hand.
Jackie photographed the other three of us after we had taken refreshments on the patio. She then went up to the street to collect the car and bring it down for me – this at the suggestion of a member of the team.
There is a very attractive woodland walk up to the highest level which I was unable to contemplate on this occasion. Before entering the Modus, while my Chauffeuse waited patiently, I photographed this terraced scene rising from a pool containing yellow irises;
and other visitors climbing the path to the top.
With a last look at the beds at the bottom of the entrance road, I entered my waiting carriage.
Elizabeth joined us for dinner this evening, for which, after an amuse bouche of tasty spinach soup, Jackie produced her choice chicken jalfrezi and savoury rice, followed by apricot crumble and custard. My sister and I drank more of the Pinot Noir while The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden.