plane – derrickjknight

Rockford End

This morning I made my final cut of the Everton Festival Photographic Competition with the subject of The New Forest.

I am grateful to all those of you who contributed to the debate about my submissions. The ‘Happy Thatchers’ was a clear favourite. Although they were very popular I have reluctantly excluded those of sunbeams through the trees. This is because, in reality, they could have been photographed anywhere. For the same reason, the deer with the crow on its nose had to go. People may be surprised at the rank outsider which made it to the finish. I had removed ‘A Vantage Point’, namely the photographers on the hill, on the same grounds, and ultimately persuaded myself to reinstate this image because, after all, they were photographers, and there was a lot of gorse in the foreground.

I have made A4 prints of ‘Happy Thatchers’; ‘Drinking In The Gorse’; and ‘The Watersplash’.

‘A Huddle’; ‘Hedge Trimming’; and ‘A Vantage Point’, required in digital form, have been despatched in an e-mail.

Later this afternoon Jackie drove me to Everton Post Office where I delivered the prints, and on into the forest.

I disembarked at Wilverley in order to photograph the landscape. Jackie made the first photograph, then focussed on me after I had crossed the road for a closer vantage point.

She even captured me aiming at the

Ryanair plane flying overhead.

From this very narrow, winding, unnamed lane at Rockford End, I could look down on

a horse in a field surrounded by his entourage of crows and geese;

and a bevy of doves pinpointing a thatched roof.

Back at home this evening we dined on fillet steak – mine perfectly medium/rare and Jackie’s well done; creamy mashed potato; succulent ratatouille; and crunchy carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden while I, sadly, finished the Garnacha Syrah.

Flying Off Into The Sunset

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN CLUSTERS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.

This afternoon we drove to Lymington and to Molly’s Den in Old Milton for some successful Christmas shopping.

During my early motoring days many cars were still fitted with trafficators like this one (photo from Wikipedia). There was one on either side of the car. These would click up to indicate in which direction the driver was intending to turn. If it didn’t work you had to use hand signals and hope the driver behind understood what you were doing.

This car we followed along the road used one of these to indicate turning left.

When we emerged from the antiques emporium the late, lowering sun burnished bracken and ponies alike. The last of the creatures in this set of pictures yanked away at brambles and gorse as a variation on the customary diet of grass.

Later still the warm rays drew mist from the dampened terrain;

and finally, a passenger plane seemingly leaving Southampton airport, flew off into the sunset.

Back at home we dined on roast duck, boiled and mashed potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and spinach, followed by steamed syrup pudding and Cornish ice cream. I finished the shiraz.

Stranded On Bramble Bank

Jackie has been collecting little mice from a gallery in Milford on Sea. Each morning these charming little creatures, noses in the air, have been found in different locations. One of Flo’s Christmas Dragonology books contained a model which could be removed, assembled, and hung somewhere. Put these two facts together and you might be able to work out where the mice had moved to in their nocturnal flit.

This morning Jackie and I drove to Hythe on Southampton Water, and took a trip along the pier:

This antique structure, served by an ancient train, stretches across the sea where a ferry takes over the transport of passengers to Southampton. We took the train on our outward journey, and walked back to the High Street, seen from the pier, and back to our car.

Renovation work on Hythe Pier is a continuing process. Much of the planking has been replaced, although some is still in need of replacement. The waiting room exterior could do with a lick of paint, although the interior has a charm of its own. Older, rusting pier supports are visible from the modern stainless steel railings. One method of raising funds lies in the planking engraving which contains many messages, such as memorials to dead people, marking of visits, and at least one proposal of marriage.

The train from a bygone era, with views across Southampton Water, still carries travellers the length of the structure on its rust-coloured rails, and, of course planes that were not invented when it began its service, cross the skies to and from the airport.

When I overhead a comment in a conversation between two gentlemen walking along the footway, I realised they must be talking about the car transporter ship, Hoegh Osaka, which had run aground on Bramble Bank at 21.30 yesterday evening. The snippet was ‘all the press photographers are on Calshot Spit’. Naturally, we sped off to Calshot where the ship still lay stranded. The vessel had been on its way to Germany, when the grounding occurred and twenty five crew members were rescued.

The small beach at Calshot was swarming with sightseers. Anyone who has followed my ramblings across Westminster Bridge will know that I tend to be more interested in what is going on with the viewing crowds than in the attractions themselves. When, indicating the watchers assembled on the shingle, I offered my observation that ‘there’s the picture’, to one of the photographers, he simply smiled and kept his lens firmly aimed at the stricken vessel and its attending tugboats. This little village was packed with cars lining the roadside and the grassy banks alongside the beach huts, one of which, after Dylan Thomas’s ‘Llareggub’ from ‘Under Milk Wood’, was named ‘LLamedos’. (Read them backwards).

On our return journey, Jackie dropped me at Milford on Sea and I walked home by way of the Nature Reserve, Sharvells Road, Blackbush Road and the back of Shorefield.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s exquisite penne bolognese followed by a choice of syrup or raspberry jam sponges with custard or cream. Jackie’s beverage was Hoegaarden, Ian’s Peroni, and mine the last of the Margaux.

Gurkha Pensions

Today was one for visiting Norman and Carol in their different parts of London. Jackie drove me to and from New Milton station for the purpose of this trip.
As is often the case, a young woman sat next to me on the train to Waterloo with her huge luggage container effectively blocking two seats opposite in the crowded carriage. She made no effort to accommodate an elderly couple who squeezed themselves into one and a half seats. A now familiar conversation ensued between me and the newcomers about the lack of adequate storage space on board. Addressing the other passenger, I said: ‘It must be embarrassing for you’. In a quite unconcerned tone she replied: ‘Not really’. With good humour, the gentleman opposite observed that ‘the young today are far more thick skinned than we were’. Smiles all round. ‘Well, you should be’, said I to the young woman. Here the conversation ended.
I took my usual routes to each of my friends’ homes. Much of the Metropolitan Line runs above ground. This means that, in common with the overground railways in the metropolis, its adjacent buildings are decorated with graffiti, like this example photographed from the platform at Preston Road. Some would find this, in its own way, equally as artistic as the work of Banksy, although it commands neither the admiration nor the high prices of his efforts.
As always, a plane thundering over the recreation ground on the way to Norman’s reminded me that this area is on a flight path from Heathrow.
Norman provided us with a lunch of what he called a salmon and prawn ‘concoction’ with savoury rice, followed by Christmas pudding and well-laced custard. We shared a bottle of Italian white Triade, 2012.
As I left Westminster underground station en route to Carol’s, traffic around Parliament Square was somewhat disrupted by a dignified and silent demonstration by retired Gurkhas and their families. A recent government report has disappointed them in their quest for adequate pensions.
There follows the text of a report by Yahoo! news:

‘About 300 former Gurkha soldiers and their relatives protested outside Britain’s parliament on Thursday to demand better pensions, after rejecting an official report they had hoped would address their grievances.

Many of the veterans — Nepalese soldiers who served with the British army — had invested high hopes in the parliamentary inquiry launched last year into decades of alleged discrimination at the hands of the British government.
But the report proved a bitter disappointment for the veterans and hundreds gathered outside the Houses of Parliament in protest, holding up placards saying: “Price of loyalty — injustice” and “Gurkha pension rights”.
“It has taken over 20 years of campaigning to get to this stage, and we thought this would be an opportunity to put an end to the Gurkha grievances once and for all,” said Deepak Maskey, a spokesman for the Gurkha Satyagraha campaign.
“But that has not happened.”
One veteran, Gyanraj Rai, said he might have to resume a two-week hunger strike he carried out last year, which only ended with the launch of the inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Gurkha rights.
“We want the value of our blood and tears. We want to be treated as our British counterparts,” the 56-year-old, who served 19 years with the British army, told AFP.
Afterwards many of the protesters, the men wearing suits and the women wrapped in brightly coloured scarves, took their message to Prime Minister David Cameron with a demonstration outside Downing Street.
The Gurkhas are renowned for their ferocity, loyalty, bravery and razor-sharp kukri fighting knives. They first served as part of the Indian army in British-run India in 1815 and around 2,700 are currently enlisted.
But it is only since 2007 that they have had the same pay and conditions as British soldiers, and campaigners have been demanding rights for veterans and their families, many of whom they say have been left in poverty.
One of the key issues was the income of almost 21,000 veterans on the Gurkha Pension Scheme, but the parliamentary report did not make any recommendations, citing ongoing legal action.
Instead, it focused on issues it said were more clear-cut, such as the policy to discharge any Gurkhas who married outside Nepalese society.
This was “racism pure and simple”, the lawmakers said, saying any Gurkha who wished to pursue legal action should be given British state funds to fight their case.
APPG chairwoman Jackie Doyle-Price, a lawmaker with Cameron’s Conservative party, acknowledged the Gurkhas’ disappointment at her report.
She stressed that her group only had the power to advise, not compel, the government, but said it was only a “staging post on the journey — it’s not the end of it”.’
Further on, down Victoria Street, a bus was mounted on the pavement. This, apparently, is the year of the bus. Scattered around the capital are sculptures of these vehicles which will eventually be sold in support of charities. Themes that have been used in the past have included cows, and elephants which Jackie and I took Flo to see about five years ago. This involved obtaining a list of the exhibits and tracking down as many as we could. Today, Amy, on her scooter was carrying out a similar tour with her father.

On The Plane

Before setting off by my usual transport methods to Sigoules this morning I left Flo a note granting her permission to use my chair, my computer, and my house keys for the rest of her stay. I trust she felt honoured. We are very pleased that she will keep her Grannie company whilst I am away.

A gentleman much larger than me sat beside me on the aisle seat in the plane. Actually that one had been allocated to me. I tactfully asked him to rise so I could sit in the more cramped window seat. Discretion seemed to be called for. In fact he was very friendly and, as soon as was permitted, moved up to the front where he could spread himself across two empty spaces. I quipped that one of us had to go and since he was bigger than me it had to be him. The airline are very relaxed about people changing seats but it has to be after we are on the move.

A Welsh family sat behind me and, gazing down on the patchwork quilt of fields and model houses rapidly diminishing as we rose into the clouds, a small boy asked his grandfather if that were the whole of Wales beneath him. ‘That’s England’, was the reply. ‘Is it the whole of England?’ asked the lad. It wasn’t. The interrogation ended there. Thinking of Malachi’s ‘why?’ game, I was rather relieved. It could have gone on a long time.

I was rather intrigued by a couple in front of me. A slender and beautiful young woman, when not reading Caitlin Moran or playing with her iPod, or whatever it was, fondly rested her head on the shoulder of her chunky grey-haired male companion. I did my my best to convince myself that this was a father and daughter. A wedding ring and certain tender aspects of behaviour soon suggested otherwise.

Suppressing thoughts about lucky dogs I persevered with ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’ by Audrey Niffenegger, which I had chosen as light relief after ploughing through Wordsworth’s biography. An explicit scen involving a ghost and her grieving lover didn’t help much.

It was 7 degrees and raining when we touched down in Bergerac twenty minutes late. Sandrine was waiting patiently to drive me to Sigoules. Trees in leaf and blossom provided evidence that it has recently been as warm as twenty degrees. In order that there should be no misunderstanding about the correct day of my return trip (see post of 5th February) I handed my driver a print-out of my flight details. All I have to do now is remember it.

After I’d settled in I had a stroll round the village where lichen thrives on the trees in the war memorial garden. A late lunch of boiled eggs, baguette, and an orange was to follow.

A warm welcome awaited me in Le Code Bar this evening. They are still not opening the restaurant in the evening so I settled for a complimentary bowl of olives to accompany my Stella.

Sadly, I have forgotten the battery charger for my camera so I will have to be very parsimonious with new photographs until the juice runs out, and supplement them with some I made earlier.