petunias – Page 15 – derrickjknight

Embellishments

This morning was wasted trying to access e-mails. Just two days after BT changed their system, possibly indicating a parting from Yahoo, I could log on to BT but not to my e-mails. After wrestling with the problem for far too long, I eventually gave up and phoned their help line. This was clearly inundated with similar issues. Having forged my way through the machine response, I had to wait half an hour to reach a real live, and very helpful, individual, who took over my screen and grappled with it for another half hour before acknowledging that BT had suffered an ‘outage’ which they were working on. I should be able to access my e-mails within 24 hours. When the system was changed I had to provide a new password. Today I had to produce another. Don’t they realise old fogeys have memory problems?
In the last few days, whilst I have been gallivanting, Jackie has, among numerous other tasks in the garden, virtually cleared the skip pile and completely eradicated the extraneous foliage from the back fence;

embellished the area with hanging baskets; chopped up most of the branches into suitably sized pieces for the pyre; and transferred them to the site for burning. After I had posted yesterday’s entry, I completed this latter task.

I look forward to the new embellishments developing into the maturity of those Jackie planted earlier.

The Kiwi sculpture Michael and Heidi gave me for my birthday now perches alongside the patio.
This evening we dined at our neighbours The Royal Oak. I enjoyed my ham, eggs, chips and peas, as did Jackie her chicken wrapped in bacon and cheese. Her sweet was chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. My choice was apple crumble and custard. She drank Becks, while I drank Doom Bar.

The Crab Pot

Many attractive trees and shrubs, like this beautiful green-barked maple, are simply in the wrong place and require sadly severe treatment. This one was denying access to the potting shed and encroaching upon the path, forcing other plants to do the same. We trust it will recover from this morning’s extensive amputations.

Elizabeth drove Mum over from West End for lunch and to view our new home, with which she was very taken. Before lunch, we had a tour of the garden. Our mother, in her ninety second year was determined and delighted to see everything. Concentrating hard on her two sticks, she walked with me every step of the sometimes uneven paths, whilst Jackie and Elizabeth wandered rather more quickly at will.

The chimney pot planting is now well established, with such as scented petunias looking splendid. A Lysimachia, Jackie has also introduced, is in full bloom.

Heucheras are grown for the beauty and variety of their leaves. Described by our resident horticulturist as ‘the gardener’s dream’, they are hardy plants which can tolerate shade and grow in any type of soil. Needless to say we now have a great many adding colour to most beds. Their clusters of small flowers, blending with their foliage, cling to long slender stems.

The snake bark maple is now beginning to wear its autumn colours which stand out well against the weeping birch leaves. We hope that this early display is not a sign of something sinister, and simply perhaps that it is a native of North America.

Another delicately hued yellow lily is attractive not only to us but also to hoverflies;

a deep magenta penstemon is rewarding us for freeing it from choking brambles;

and honeysuckle has now taken over decorative duties from the roses around the entrance to the front garden.

It is three years since our mother, who lives in a bungalow, has tackled any stairs at all, let alone our rather steep ones. She did, however, with me climbing ahead, and Elizabeth behind, manage to ascend to our first floor and suitably admire the rest of the abode. This was after we had enjoyed another of Jackie’s lavish salad lunches.

Back in the late 1980s, when she was much fitter, Mum regularly drove up to Newark for an annual two week holiday. One year she admired some artefacts in an architectural salvage establishment in the town, saying she would quite like to buy one. I had no recollection of this until she reminded me today, but I had bought it for her and taken it down to Horndean where she was living at the time.

She has developed a practice of, when appropriate, returning presents long since forgotten by the giver. Today, she and Elizabeth both brought me gifts for my birthday tomorrow. Mum’s came with a card which apologised for returning ‘this’ in a tatty state, but perhaps I might like to make a project of it. It was that very same iron and rope crab pot I had given her about 25 years ago. Apparently it has lost its rope handle. But who cares?

After our visitors had departed it was a while before we felt like eating, when fish fingers provided a more than adequate snack.

Painted Into A Corner

While we have been working on the main garden, the back drive has taken advantage of our negligence, and become rather out of hand. Jackie has decided that, far preferable to getting down on her hands and knees to weed it, she will apply a weedkiller. Since this area is the size of a large town back garden, the task will require goodness knows how many trips from the house to the undergrowth with a small can of diluted poison.

In the photograph she is seen making her way to the far end. At least a start was made.
The front garden has also rather burgeoned. After transporting a few more sets to finish yesterday’s border, I made a start on that.
After leaving off the poisoning, Jackie set those last few blocks of granite, and continued planting and watering.When she called me for lunch,

I had not even finished clearing the brambles breaking through the trellis by the entrance, and clambering over any plants in their path. As the second picture shows, it became apparent that I had painted myself into a corner. I found another way out.
This afternoon I managed to clear the trellis area, and heavily to prune a sloe tree that was encroaching onto the footpath outside our property, and putting unnecessary pressure on the latticework of the trellis. I had to sacrifice nascent fruit of both the brambles and the tree, but I can live with that.
Before I could put my feet up at the end of the day I needed to clear the severed branches and uprooted blackberry bushes from the garden and the street outside. It was then my turn to make long treks down the garden path. The vast pile of cuttings that all the clearances are accumulating, lies at the far end of the main path, near the gate in today’s first photograph. Backwards and forwards, knackered, I tramped. Adding material to the heap is rather like tossing the caber.
Afterwards, I had a wander around with my camera.

A new variety of poppy has revealed itself in the bed I weeded yesterday, and a pink climbing rose has taken off since we gave it more space and light.

We have a number of varieties of verbena which are seemingly happy with life. The tall stemmed bonariensis blends beautifully with the clematises on the new arch, and the surrounding geraniums. Its shorter, scented, cousin, aptly named strawberries and cream, makes a welcome companion for diascia and pelargoniums, especially the nutmeg flavoured one. That is why Jackie has placed their pot alongside the bench.

Petunias, such as these in a hanging basket, come in a variety of colours, as does the mimulus, nestling on the margin of the tiny pond.
For dinner, Jackie produced gammon baked in a nest of whole mushrooms; swede, carrot and potato mash; cauliflower; and a positively piquant melange of onions and tomatoes for a sauce to provide juiciness. I didn’t drink any of her Hoegaarden, or anything else for that matter.
For the onion and tomato sauce:
Take four medium onions, finely chopped. Fry them with one clove of garlic in butter with a little oil to stop the butter burning.
When they are well done, add a can of chopped Italian tomatoes and gently fry until blended in well.
Try it. It’s delicious.

Owling With Attitude

The blackbird still sits on her nest. Peering through shrubs at a safe distance, sometimes her bright little eyes are visible to the viewer, sometimes her upturned tail.

Today’s task for me was to clear one bed of brambles and other unwelcome growth. Simple enough for a day’s work. I thought. In fact the wild blackberry bushes were the least of my problems.
As I began to feel my way into the undergrowth I came across a number of previously unseen plants. One was a heavily-budded passion flower which had become entwined in a hebe, and, of course brambles. The necessary disentanglement was a most delicate operation. Having carried out the surgery I gave it a leg-up by means of netting attached to a metal post set in concrete that Jackie had found elsewhere in the garden. Another such climber had clung to the weeping branches of the birch tree, but had many stems trailing in and out of the bed grasping at anything in its path. Further similar treatment was required. This time the netting was strung between two wooden stakes.
Two types of tree that are abundantly self-seeded in this garden are hawthorn and bay. There was one of each in this bed, their roots, as always, taking shelter among those of other plants; in this case the weeping birch and some lilies that have not yet flowered.

I had no chance of reaching them unless I removed the wooden bed head nailed to the tree. No doubt this once had a decorative purpose of sorts. I couldn’t prise it off. Once the rust had been scoured off the nailhead it turned out to be a screw, so dilapidated as to be bereft of a slot. I tried to make one with the trusty hacksaw. I couldn’t get it deep enough.
Then along came Superwoman, who saw that if we removed the rickety slats and the other end, we could leave the post where it was. D’oh!
That is what we did. I dug out the offending trees and replaced the rest of the bed head. Two of the joints had by now disintegrated, so nails will have to be used, when I have bought some of sufficient length. In order that it does have a decorative function, I optimistically fed a passion flower stem through the secure bit.
Jackie speaks of the June gap, which is that unproductive time between the finishing of the spring flowers and before the arrival of those of the summer. The planting here has been so well planned that there is no such hiatus.

I took a break after lunch and photographed water lily, philadelphus, roses, petunias, diasca, pelargonium, begonia, poppies, verbascum, rodgersia, and clematises which are just a few of those we currently have flowering.

Our blackbird is still awaiting the emergence of her chicks. Not so the owl in my friend Hari’s tree. Her two are about three weeks old, and able to reach the ground, but do need to be returned to their Mum. If I am able to photograph our fledglings I am confident that my pictures would not be as striking as the one Hari e-mailed me today. She believes the creature was displaying a mind of its own when it stared back at its rescuer. I rather like her term for a baby owl, especially one with attitude, which has provided today’s title.
This evening’s meal was Jackie’s beef and mushroom pie with mashed carrots, swede, and potatoes; and crisp cauliflower and broccoli. Tiramisu ice cream was to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the tempranillo.
If you have a shop that can sell you ready prepared pastry and have saved enough beef casserole (recipe) you, too could make the pie. Simply drain off the sauce from the casserole and use it as gravy; roll out the pastry, insert the filling into it, and bake it in the oven for about half an hour on 200. The chef, when pressed for her timing, said: ‘Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t time it, I just stood and looked at it until it was the right brownness’. I don’t expect she did this for the whole time, but I think that gives you the idea.

Aviemore Revisited

Jackie was thrilled this morning to see that the third of her sunflowers donated by the birds has bloomed. She tried very hard to coach one bee simultaneously into each of her trio. Two out of three can’t be bad.

For as long as I can remember Louisa has been disgusted at me for ‘wasting paper’ when I use A4 paper to print smaller photographs. She has always said it is very easy either to use smaller paper or place two or more alongside each other, and I have always been reluctant to attempt to get my head round it. When Elizabeth suggested I produced a series of greetings cards for sale at the Open Studio I knew the time had come to grasp the nettle. By sending me a link on ‘how to print multiple images on a single page’ Chris ensured that I didn’t cop out of it. I had a little trouble working out how to print the resultant document so that I could have it in front of me when I tackled my phobia. I was doing this on my small Epson printer which chose that moment to require head cleaning.

Eventually I was as ready as I was ever going to be to try multiple prints. I couldn’t produce more than one picture, although I thought I was following the directions reasonably well. That meant I needed to ring my brother Chris for further elucidation. He realised that I couldn’t do it because I had only highlighted one picture on the screen. I explained that I wanted multiple copies of one picture; not one copy each of multiple pictures.

Ah. That was different. By this time I couldn’t be doing with exploring this any further. As I needed more than one copy of each picture I thought I’d settle for placing two different images side by side. I did, of course, have to be instructed in the art of holding down the command key in order to keep more than one picture highlighted for the purpose. Well, it worked.

I suspect the final paragraph in the aforementioned article does explain how to do exactly what I want, but I think I’ll just rest on my laurels for the moment. I’m a fairly old dog after all, and one new trick is enough for one day.

This afternoon Jackie drove me to Hobbycraft in Hedge End where we bought enough blank cards with envelopes and Pritt stick to produce a decent stock for the studio.

The main event of the day was the eagerly awaited second open day of Aviemore in Bartley. Today I will let the photographs utter their thousand words, for I wrote at some length about this marvellous village garden when we first visited on 2nd. June.

Sandy and Alex Robinson welcomed us most warmly, demonstrating their appreciation of my post of that day.

Indeed, a printout of the relevant pages was on display on the tables in the tea room, as well as an article from a gardening magazine. I was very pleased, as they had been with my piece.

Jackie thought that Mata Hari, reported lurking in the bushes last time, was probably being played by Theda Bara.

The garden attracted a range of butterflies, including Meadow Brown and Cabbage White, bees busying themselves replenishing the hives, and other smaller insects such as flies, to which the eyes of my camera were more alert than those in my head.

The ‘meaty, stewy, veggy thing’ that Jackie served up this evening was deliciously tasty. Among those ingredients that were identifiable were slices of pigs’ hearts, pork sausages, various vegetables and herbs. Various different well-reduced stocks formed the base. I am told that it is like ‘the lost chord’ and therefore cannot be repeated, which is a shame. I drank Roc des Chevaliers Bordeaux superieur with mine.

A Severed Thread

I learned something new this morning. Some of Jackie’s marigolds are covered in blackfly. Underneath the next pot is an ants’ nest. She tells me the ants plant the flies onto the flowers. The farmed slaves then produce a sugary substance for the industrious insects’ sustenance.

Beautiful scented lilies are now in bloom, blending their aroma with others such as nicotiana and petunias. I always wondered why we had the phrase ‘smelling like a petunia’ until I was educated by my lady. Most petunias we see have had the scent bred out of them. Older varieties have not, and well deserve the description.

The nicotiana, being particularly fragrant at night, are greatly appreciated by our neighbour Vanessa as she walks her dog around our corner before retiring to bed.

Three sunflowers are forcing their way to the top of the pots. They were not planted by us, so we assume we have the birds to thank.

I have previously mentioned on-line Scrabble, during the playing of which I have found a number of good corresponding friends in all parts of the globe. One of the most delightful of these is Heather. The added bonus of this relationship is that she lives near enough for us to meet. Today Jackie and I joined her and her husband Brian for lunch in The Plough Inn at Tiptoe, where we spent all afternoon without noticing the time. We all had plentiful Sunday roast meals after excellent starters. The ladies and I followed this with cremes brûlées. Various beers and pear cider were drunk.

I have been worrying at something for several weeks now. It was during my roast lamb dinner that I was at last relieved of my burden. On 19th June I wrote of my loose wisdom tooth ‘hanging by a thread’. Today, almost painlessly, it cast off its moorings. It was easy enough to extract this from my masticated mouthful.

About thirty years ago in my Social Services Area Office in Westminster, I was completely unaware of another extraneous object in a mouthful of food. In those days I wore hard contact lenses. Sometimes if I’d got a bit of grit under one I would take it out and put it somewhere safe until I could get to the solution I needed to apply when reinserting it. The safest place, it seemed to me, was between my bottom lip and the gum of one of my front teeth. It was a perfect fit. Like Queen Elizabeth I, I was wont to go on a progress around the building, so that the staff could bask in my presence. On one of these occasions, I believe it was Tom who gave me a cheese roll.

There was once an old joke that went the rounds. Maybe it still does. It went like this: ‘What’s worse than finding a maggot in an apple you are eating?’ The answer was: ‘Finding half a maggot’. My own personal version could appropriately begin with the question: ‘What’s worse than finding a contact lens in a cheese roll you are eating?’. I believe my readers will be able to provide the punchline. I never did find the other half.

After leaving our friends we chose to drive home through Burley. Passing Clough Lane Jackie remembered she had seen a house there for sale on the internet. We had a peek through the roses climbing over the front gate and looked it up when we returned to the Lodge. Unfortunately it is too small for us.

The Ladybird

It was all go at Castle Malwood Lodge this morning. Virtually simultaneously we were descended upon by Autoglass to replace the windscreen; by someone else to fix the intercom system, including ours and Steve’s at number eight who had left his keys with us; and by a surveyor to inspect what I think is imperceptible damage to the ceiling as a result of the leak from upstairs.

Ever chivalrous, I left Jackie to it and went for a walk. I had decided to investigate a footpath I had noticed behind the cottages at the foot of the hill into Minstead. It now seemed dry enough to see where it led. I thought London Minstead likely. As I reached the turn-off I met Gladys and Dave who confirmed my speculation and said they were going that way to Hazel Hill Farm to buy eggs. They led the way.

Dave told me that if I walked on further there was a path that led through the forest and came out near our gate. At the far end of London Minstead a right angled bend takes you to the Cadnam/Lyndhurst road. To the left of this is a gravel path marked ‘No access. Suter’s Cottage only’. This was the road to take. I took it. It stops at Suter’s Cottage, beyond which is a field containing a mare with her foal. There are many such little families around at the moment.

I walked straight past the idyllic home in its sylvan setting and into the forest. There was no more footpath. However, I am now quite good at clambering over fallen trees into the unknown, and avoiding twisting my ankles on the hardened lips of pitted clay cups stamped out by ponies’ hooves.

Having a pretty good idea of the direction in which I wanted to go, I nevertheless zigzagged all over the place, surmounting the above-mentioned obstacles and living branches, especially of hollies. My ears told me that somewhere ahead lay the A31, and that there was at least one horse or pony over to my left. I decided to go as straight as possible. Then I saw the flash of pink through the trees on the left. That might be a guide of some sort. So I diverted left. The colour came from a plastic bucket in a field. Two parallel fences and a few trees separated me from the field and the rows of houses beyond that.

I should probably have ignored the bucket. Instead, I kept as close to the fences as I could. A considerable amount of zigzagging was required. Eventually I espied the back of a cottage that I thought might be Hungerford, and decided to make my way round to that. It was the very same, and I soon found myself on the shaded tarmac of Running Hill. Had I not been diverted by the bucket, and had I held my nerve, I would no doubt have left the forest just where Dave had said I would.

It is now so hot that Jackie’s garden pots need to be watered twice a day. I was to feel great relief that I had taken an early walk as we set off in the car to Totton in the afternoon for a shop at Lidl and Asda. The chillers in Asda were most welcome.

Some days ago Jackie told me the story of the ladybird. When Flo was about three years old, Becky had taken her to a garden centre to buy her grannie a present. She bought one, wrapped it, and full of expectation, handed it over. ‘Oh, that’s beautiful’, exclaimed Jackie as she opened it. With her arms thrust behind her, as was her wont, little Flo asked: ‘Is it very, very beautiful?’. Of course it was. The present was a stick to plant among the garden flowers with a plastic ladybird attached to the top. Jackie told me the story with regret, for the gift was now rather disintegrated, and had been lost in her move.

Yesterday, my birthday, was not long after Jackie’s. She was given her presents before I had mine. Flo presented a small parcel. ‘Is it very, very beautiful?’, asked Jackie. This delighted our granddaughter, because Jackie then unwrapped a small ladybird on a little stick.

The new creature now has a special place in the garden.

This evening we took Elizabeth to The Plough Inn at Tiptoe. I ate a wonderful fish pie; Jackie’s choice was cajun chicken; and Elizabeth chose liver and bacon. All lived up to expectations, as did the crumble and creme brûlée to follow. Doom Bar and Becks were the draft beers we drank.

The Fly Whisk

We are now basking in hot, sunny, weather. To celebrate I walked the Mill Lane/Emery Down loop in sandals.

Near the farm holiday cottages at the top of the lane, in addition to the usual crop of ponies, two young donkeys grazed in a field. Even from a distance I could tell they were asses because their ears were clearly elongated.

The millpond’s streams are now less full and the lake, for that is what it is, now bears irises and waterlilies.

Many of the roads and lanes around Minstead have barely enough room for one vehicle. Passing tends to be a pretty dodgy affair. Whether driving or walking you have to take care not to be persuaded into a ditch. The road leading to Emery Down on today’s route is particularly narrow. Despite signs indicating that there are passing places, some cars are forced to back up quite a long way. All the roads were very busy today. At one point a car meeting two others and a motorbike head on took the better part of valour and went into reverse. As there was no way a pedestrian could thread himself through there, I could only ‘stand and stare’. Well, I now have plenty of time for that.

There is far more concern for those on foot as one enters Emery Down. Especially as there is also a blind bend near the village hall, the sign warning drivers what they may encounter is really rather necessary.

Whisking and flicking at flies, mares’ tails were much in evidence today. (Anyone who cares to humour me may wish to read yesterday’s post to glean a full appreciation of that sentence. It will, after all, be my birthday very soon after this ramble is posted.)

Jackie hoped to retain her resolution to be rather mean with the birds today. Except for the two near the feeding station, her myriad of hanging baskets are now chock full of gorgeous flowers. The exceptions are suffering from a surfeit of guano. They have required mucking out, which means they have been shorn of clumps that had the misfortune to lie under the avian post-prandial evacuations. The miscreants were punished by being sent out into the forest to forage for a day.

Later this afternoon I began reading my friend Michael Kindred’s book ‘Once Upon a Game’.

For dinner Jackie served up Dandy and Beano style pork and leak sausage and mash with which she drank Roc Saint Vincent sauvignon blanc Bordeaux 2011. I finished the Maipo red and began a Cimarosa shiraz cabernet sauvignon of the same year.

Later Mat and Oddie turned up to eat the last of the sausages and a tin of Butcher’s.

Platinum Shine

I had a bit of a lazy day today. The morning was spent getting back into Henri Troyat’s ‘Grandeur Nature’, which translates as ‘life size’.

Jackie then drove us to Totton to buy a second garden chair. She hadn’t quite had enough money with her to buy two yesterday when she acquired the first.

As we emerged from the garden onto Upper Drive, we disturbed a mare and her foal. The adult pony was keen to shield her infant from our gaze, whilst the baby metaphorically clung to its mother’s skirts, anxiously tripping over itself to keep pace. The mare led the way into the bracken in an attempt to steer clear of me.

Then it was next stop Frys (no apostrophe) Lane in Everton for the first of two external observations of potential eventual purchases. Number 56 looked to me the better option, although the semi-detatched house in Hare Lane, New Milton that was the second, was also acceptable. The baying of a hound next door in Frys Lane was a little disconcerting.

Back at home we sat in the garden marvelling at how mature Jackie’s planting now looks. It is as if she has transported the hanging baskets and pots from The Firs to Castle Malwood Lodge.

As tenants we are allowed neither pets nor children in residence although either are welcome to visit. That suits us fine. However, many of the flats in the house are owned by their occupiers. A number have dogs. Some of these bark. Some a lot.

As we sit in our corner of the garden, we see the owners walking their pets, and they often come and have a chat with us. A frequent visitor is Jean who has until quite recently been subject to considerable embarrassment because her dog barked a great deal. It was impossible for her to have a comfortable discourse because Nevis, her Coton du Tulear, would bark all the way through. She has, however, been working very hard on this, and today we enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Nevis looking his usual happy, friendly self, and not barking once. Congratulations were in order, and we gave them.

On 31st May I wrote about Eleanor and Henry, our resourceful young neighbours. This evening they buzzed our entryphone to gain access to our side of the building in order to distribute leaflets for their ‘Platinum Shine Car Wash’. I happily granted them admission.

Soon afterwards Jackie, resisting the temptation to produce roast pork, served up her smoked haddock dish with cauliflower cheese (recipe) and sautéed potatoes. Delicious. The cheese produces a lovely tangy flavour, which meant the last glass of the Berberana was not an inappropriate accompaniment.