petunia – Page 2 – derrickjknight

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.

Anticipating The Shot

A rather splendid, slightly ageing, Petunia has finally thrust itself through the massed flora concealing the pots in which Jackie planted them. I had to stand on a chair to photograph it.

Today we took a trip to one of our favourite areas, around Sway. We were to combine a visit to Ferndene Farm Shop in Bashley with a recce of two houses, one in Pennington, the other in Hordle. Both had attracted us on the internet.

It was a spectacularly sunny day, the roads all bespeckled with light and shade wherever the sun’s rays penetrated the forest foliage. Once we left the A35 the route consisted almost entirely of winding lanes. Ponies were much in evidence, but the only actual hold-ups were caused by young women leading their mounts.

The Pennington house is the one that grabbed our interest. Wondering why such a large house with such extensive gardens would be within our price range, we thought an external viewing may provide the answer. Indeed it did. It consists of two originally adjoining cottages, their front doors onto the street, on a very busy crossroads. None of this deters us, so it has gone onto our favourites list. Mind you, this is probably due extensive autumn pruning. Having photographed the front view, with the front doors no longer in use, I wanted to take a picture showing the situation at the crossroads. Crossing over to the Wheel Inn opposite, I aimed the camera at a moment when there was no traffic in shot. Then, the eyes I had wheeling in my head spotted, along the side of the building, an approaching farm vehicle; to my left a car towing a container for New Forest Classic Cars, which my fleeting glance took to be a caravan; and to my right, a woman leading a horse, with a man in tow. This was an exciting opportunity to portray the flavour of a country crossroads. But these differently paced subjects were all required to arrive at a suitable moment. I always used to skip those IQ questions that have trains or suchlike leaving stations at different times and different speeds and asking you to estimate how long it would be before they crashed, on the grounds that they would take too much time. I leave an assessment of the result, based on the eye and immense good fortune, to your judgement.

I didn’t photograph the Hordle abode.

On our way home, on Wootton Heath, passing the trough discovered on 27th February, we noticed ponies drinking from it. Naturally Jackie had to park up and I had to wander across to photograph the animals. Unfortunately, as I approached, they peeled off, one by one, whinnying. The only decent picture I got was of a white pony lifting its head and preparing to disappear. ‘Ah, well’, I thought, ‘never mind’. As Jackie drove towards The Rising Sun in order to turn round, I noticed several more equine creatures crossing the road in the direction of the trough. We drove on ahead; I got out and ambled across the heath; and my subjects, too thirsty to worry about me, got stuck in.

The ponies were all waving their fly whisks. I felt sympathetic to these patient creatures who have nothing with which to flap the flies from their eyes, mouths, and noses.

Jessica, moving into year 2 at school in Mapperley, guided her younger sister Imogen to her reception class. The verdict this afternoon was ‘I looooove school’.

I amused myself making a small print from Louisa’s Facebook post, and fitting it into a circular 3″ diameter silver frame made in 1919, that Jackie had given me for my birthday. The picture was perfect for the frame which had been just waiting for it.

While we sat in the garden before our delicious dinner of Jackie’s roast lamb with all the trimmings, including roast potatoes, we had a pleasant conversation, as always, with David, staying with his mother Jean. He was out walking Nevis, their Coton de Tulear, who is considerably calmer now. Indeed, I had forgotten that he always barked at us before.

I finished the La Piedra Leon with my meal.

Morrison’s Petunia

This morning the Castle Malwood Card Making factory, despite Jackie’s illness, was very busy. Fifty three cards were added to the forty seven produced two days ago. Our division of labour remained the same. My assistant is indispensable. She does, however, continue to wonder what we will do with them all should they not sell.

Helen, having read yesterday’s post, kindly offered to help with the cards and bring a meal over. She did, however, correctly judge that routine activity helps to take the mind off Shingles.

An intensive course of treatment to arrest the spread of the virus has been prescribed, but no-one thought about obtaining pain relief on prescription. We therefore had to shop for Ibuprofen. This meant a trip to a town. We chose Romsey so that we could also check out a house over that way. The reason it has been on the market so long that the price has been reduced, is possibly that it has been hemmed in by in-fill building, some possibly in what were once its own grounds. We won’t save that one to favourites.

Parking in Romsey was impossible, so we gave up and headed for Totton, where we bought the medication and went home to lunch. The previous tenants of our flat have clearly not told a number of their friends that they have moved. We are quite accustomed to receiving and forwarding their junk mail, but just recently there has been a spate of what are obviously greetings cards. Dave has given us the Pikes’ new address, and we readdress their correspondence. Another card came today, so we took it out with us to post. It travelled to Romsey and to Totton, and finally back home, where I took it out of my jacket pocket and reinstated it on the hall table. Perhaps I’ll remember it next time. I doubt these cards are particularly urgent. After all, the intended recipients moved at least a year ago.

As we sat in the sunshine this afternoon, through the Chequerboard fuchsia standing on a little occasional table, I could see some of the vast array of profusely filled pots, including one placed temporarily on the dry grass. (It wasn’t me standing on the table.)

This hanging basket doesn’t belong on the ground. It has been positioned there to catch the afternoon sun, because it normally lives on the side of the building that doesn’t benefit from that. This is all part of the committed nurturing that Jackie brings to her gardening. What she particularly likes to do is to rescue supermarket plants that are often in such poor, neglected, condition that they are virtually given away.

The petunia in question had neither buds nor flowers, and its leaves were yellowed, when she bought it in Morrisons about a month ago. Frequent doses of Baby Bio, sufficient water, and adequate sunshine regularly applied produced the thriving specimen we see today. Many of the other plants in the garden have similar provenances.

Taking it slowly, our caterer-in-chief insisted on producing our dinner. This consisted of slow roasted lamb chops and vegetables, including a courgette donated by Elizabeth’s neighbour, Jackie; sauteed potatoes; cabbage and carrots. All very tasty, with a smattering of garlic. New Forest ice cream was to follow. I drank Roc des Chevaliers 2010 Bordeaux superieur.