Tag: Pond Bed

More Buried Rocks

Once again I needed to stay indoors waiting for an emergency heating engineer, so I concentrated on continuing culling.

I saved just the obvious picture in my iPhoto collection from

and similarly from

On the other hand, I retained all from

Meanwhile Jackie literally hit another problem with more buried rocks when attempting planting in the Pond Bed. Having given up prising them out

she redistributed surrounding soil,

and settled in smaller flowers than originally planned. These are all her pictures.

Later, Steve, from Norman’s Heating visited and fixed another boiler leak.

Having grappled with the first three chapters of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez I have realised that it is quite beyond me to review it. I first read the book almost 30 years ago, and enjoyed it at the level of a rather mysterious story of many generations of a family starting with the beginning of the world, and now learn that it is regarded as a classic of magic realism which I don’t understand. I don’t normally read other reviews before writing my own, but I have just done so to aid my focus. Why set myself such a difficult task when I have so much more to read? I’m putting it back in my library.

This evening we dined on more baked gammon and mustard sauce; boiled new potatoes; carrots; cauliflower, its leaves chopped with leeks; and broccoli, with which I drank Kimbao Cabernet Sauvignon Carménére 2022 produced by Constanza Schwarderer – if you gave me this for Christmas please take a bow.

Heating, Culling, Drinks On Patio

I have grown rather tired of focussing on our heating problems, but now I will say that throughout our cold spell two of our radiators on the ground floor have not worked at all; all we have had beside my chair is one plug in electric radiator.

This morning Dan from Norman’s Heating visited to check over the whole system. He is 80% certain that the problem had been caused by “mistakes” in installation. Floorboards need to be lifted upstairs to investigate this. If he is right that can be fixed on the day of inspection. I won’t go into further details until this has been carried out, but remembering what happened on the day these radiators were put in suggests to me that he is correct.

Afterwards I read more of ‘The Cunning Man’, then culled all but two of the photographs in

One is shown above; The other is today’s header.

Although it was cool this was the first day we had been able to enjoy fishing fruit flies from our drinks, listening to delightful birdsong, admiring the spring flowers, on the patio.

This evening we dined on pork casserole, carrots, new potatoes, and runner beans, with which I drank Valle de Eco Malbec 2024.

Recycling Rocks

What we now term the Pond Bed runs along the Kitchen Path to the

Patio Bed. During the last few days, Jackie has been planting such as these primulas in this stretch of ground.

These images show part of the rim of the rocky water feature that lay buried beneath this area when we bought the house 11 years ago. What we hadn’t realised, and Jackie had now discovered, was that many of the rocks had joined rather thin soil in filling the large sculptured pond. This is clearly why nothing of any depth has satisfactorily grown there. The Head Gardener had managed to prise out a few of these rough-hewn slabs of stone, but had to leave most of them for Martin to tackle today.

Our friend has recycled the stone to strengthen the walls around the beds and to create a footpath through the pond one.

He cleared up the refuse and tipped some of the sifted soil into the bed which he

then levelled off with more redistributed earth and compost.

Before lunch I took another poles practicing walk down Downton Lane.

I spent the afternoon reading enough of ‘Devices and Desires’ for the end to be in sight.

This evening we dined on second helpings of yesterday’s spicy merguez casserole boosted by the addition of Ferndene Farm Shop pork and garlic sausages and fresh vegetables, with which Jackie drank Diet Coke and I finished the Shiraz.

Rampant Alliums

For some days now a pair of robins have approached the stable door at the back of the house, settled in the wisteria, and drunk from Waterboy’s shell.

Another flits around the front garden, unwittingly taunting me through the window as I begin this draft.

The couple are becoming interested in Jackie’s continuing clearance of the Pond Bed and tolerate her talking to them but are not yet ready to pose for photographs. My sightings are far too fleeting for my trigger finger.

The Gazebo Path meets the Oval Path at the entrance to the Rose Garden. That is the point I had reached when a welcome shower drove us both in this afternoon.

When we first arrived in Downton we thought the little white onion flowers that came up after the snowdrops were quite charming. Little did we then know how invasive they are. One bulb can produce 300 babies. The first of the pictures shows a plastic bucket with part of Jackie’s collection; the second some with a cluster of pendant offspring all of which I attempted to prize out with a fork – I have no doubt I didn’t unearth them all.

Laid out on a shove halfpenny board with a 1p piece and a normal sized matchstick for scale Jackie has photographed in ascending sizes the allium vineal (wild garlic) and allium triquetrum bulbs with which we are dealing.

A brief period of sunshine followed the rain, giving me the opportunity to photograph raindrops, like these on tulips

or the feather lying among the weeds on the Oval Path, which will probably be my next targets.

Clematis Montana Mayleen is beginning its climb up the Cypress stump, beside which a freshly blooming rhododendron is poised to replace a fading camellia.

The Palm Bed photograph displays a spreading spirea, the rusting Ace Reclaim bench which has to be replaced, and the alliums triquetrum requiring eradication,

which also nestle annoyingly beneath another burgeoning rhododendron, a yellow Japanese maple, and the tulips Lilac Wonder.

Longer term readers will be familiar with Jackie’s pet robin who didn’t make it back this spring. He had, however, nurtured three broods before wintering in the forest. This was Nugget, at least three of whose progeny have returned in his stead. Let us call them collectively Nugget Junior.

While we prepared for dinner in the kitchen a sunshine-shower sparkled in the garden, refreshing Nugget Junior who is perched on the stone urn roughly in the centre of this image which can be enlarged with a couple of clicks.

Readers will also remember the game of Where’s Nugget? Much nearer to the house I am happy to present Where’s Nugget Junior? (1). If enlargement doesn’t reveal the robin, try looking through the second window pane in the second row.

Dinner consisted of spicy pizza with plenty of fresh salad. Jackie likes extra cheese on her pizza. I don’t, so she gave me a side dish of crispy bacon and mushrooms. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.