ponies – derrickjknight

Damp And Hazy

After stocking up on sausages and salad ingredients at Ferndene Farm Shop we ventured into a soggy forest where steady rain fell in an ever increasing crescendo keeping windscreen wipers in work.

The weather was nevertheless sultry enough for the few ponies we

encountered, despite being decidedly damp,

to continue to be plagued by flies.

Headlights gleamed in the haze of Pound Lane, as heather on the verges did its best to brighten the dreary views.

Later, I published:

The Prose Edda

This evening we dined on pork spare ribs in BBQ sauce from Tesco and chipotle from Lidl, with Jackie’s mushroom and onion rice and tender green and runner beans, with which I drank Castellore The Reprobates Italian red wine.

Why Budge? The Road Belongs To The Hoof

Soon after lunch we took a forest drive in hot temperatures between overcast clouds beginning to leak intermittent drizzle which called upon little stirring of the windscreen wipers until gradually requiring more regular rhythm, especially when large blobs gathered on branches splashed down beneath trees.

Heather is now colouring the moorland as seen on a slope at Crow Hill and the verges of Holmsley Passage

hugged by walkers as we passed.

A pony and foal grazed beyond the house at the bottom of the hill. Note the brand on the mare’s shoulder.

The pony planted on the road at Mockbeggar disdained to move from the time we approached; when Jackie negotiated us around her; while I disembarked to photograph others; to the time we departed. She may be there still.

Perhaps she considered there were too many equines and bovines on the green already.

One unfortunate animal blended freckles and flies.

Other carloads of people also disembarked to wander with the ponies;

a young heifer joined in the fun.

Cattle dotted the landscape alongside Abbotswell Road where an intriguing path led into the inviting woodland.

A very new donkey foal on Blissford Hill, its mother apparently unconcerned further up the slope, seemed unaware that anyone might be expecting it to budge.

Did you remember to note the earlier brand? Neither of the foals with branded mothers have yet received one. Their turn will come at the next annual roundup, known as the drift, when all ponies have a health check. https://derrickjknight.com/2016/08/30/the-drift/

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy pasta arrabbiata with tender broccoli in bowls in front of the TV whilst watching highlights of the second and third days of the second Test match between England and West Indies.

Oar Point Memorial

The weather has changed again. Today was hot and sunny. This morning Jackie drove me to Sears Barbers in Milford on Sea where I had my hair cut; after lunch we took a trip out to the forest.

Ponies in traffic along Sowley Lane gave me the opportunity to focus

on the verge’s prolific ragwort swarming with bees.

Convolvulus now covers all the hedgerows, like this along St Leonard’s Road,

where bees also plunder the bramble blossom which has simultaneously produced early fruit.

Oar Point Memorial faces the Solent beyond which lies the Isle of Wight, seen through haze this afternoon.

Forest Fields by Michael Renyard

was today adorned with red carnations nodding to red poppies on the little wooden crosses.

Looking down towards Bucklers Hard we noticed a new sign to the museum featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2013/01/12/the-olden-days/

With the heat comes desperate ponies trying their best to protect themselves and each other from flies. These at East End also disrupted the traffic.

One driver vainly clapped in an effort to shift them, until a cyclist dismounted and persuaded them with more success.

A yacht weather vane in Rowes Lane is possibly pea green.

The stand of kniphofia at the front of the Walhampton Arms is extended more each year.

This evening we dined on cheese-centred fishcakes; boiled new potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender spinach and green beans, with which I finished the Appassimento

St Swithin’s Day

This morning Jackie visited Helen and Bill, delivering our brother-in-law’s birthday present.

Driving via Holmsley Passage she returned with photographs of very wet ponies and a windscreen dripping with raindrops. The rain continued throughout the unseasonably cold day.

“A standing joke worldwide is the English preoccupation with the weather. So how did it come to pass that the English summer should be determined by a long dead Anglo-Saxon Bishop?

“St Swithun’s Day (or ‘Swithin’ as he is also known) is the feast day of a ninth century Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester who died in 862 AD. Swithun was born in the Kingdom of Wessex (an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in the South-West and the precursor to the unified Kingdom of England) and educated in Winchester, the Kingdom’s capital.

“Little is definitively known about Swithun’s life although he is said to have been the spiritual adviser of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, who donated much of his royal land to Swithun to build and restore numerous churches. Swithun has also been suggested as the tutor of Æthelwulf’s son Alfred, which would fit chronologically at least, since Alfred was born in 849 AD. Alfred (right) then went on to become the mighty ruler of Wessex and the only English monarch to date to be bestowed with the title ‘the Great’, so a good job well done by Swithun you could say!

“With his link to the town of Winchester, Swithun is unsurprisingly well remembered across the south of England and particularly in Hampshire. However, St Swithun is also honoured as far afield as Norway, where he is commemorated at Stavanger Cathedral. St Swithin’s Lane in London and St. Swithun’s quadrangle at Oxford University’s Magdalen College are also named in memory of the saint. His feast day is also familiar to fans of David Nicholl’s popular novel ‘One Day’, which has now been adapted for the big screen (with surely one of the most questionable Yorkshire accents of all time courtesy of Anne Hathaway!).

“However, whilst Swithun was a popular bishop, his only known miracle during his lifetime was the repair of a basket of broken eggs, dropped by a flustered lady of his parish on unexpectedly encountering the Bishop. His enduring legend is due to events after his death on 2 July 862.

“With his dying breath Swithun is said to have requested that his final resting place be outside, where his grave could easily be reached by both members of the parish and the rainfall from the heavens. Swithun’s wishes were met for over 100 years. However, in 971 when the monastic reform movement had been established and religion was once again at the forefront, Æthelwold of Winchester, the current Bishop of Winchester, and Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, decreed that Swithun was to be the patron saint of the restored Cathedral at Winchester where an impressive shrine was built for him.

“Swithun’s body was removed from its simple grave and interred in the new Cathedral on 15 July 971. A shrine to the Saint remains in the modern Winchester Cathedral to this day.

“According to legend, forty days of terrible weather followed, suggesting St Swithun was none too happy with the new arrangements! Ever since, it has been said that the weather on 15 July supposedly determines the weather for the next forty days, as noted in the popular Elizabethan verse:

“St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithin’s day if thou be fair
For forty days will rain na mair”

(As rain pelted down on my head, shoulders, and camera this soggy morning, I received a sense of what we are in for. One picture will perforce suffice).

“Less spectacularly, the superstition may have evolved from pagan beliefs around the changing weather of the Midsummer period. This can be explained today by the patterns of the wind currents bringing weather fronts across the British Isles, known as jet streams. When the jet stream falls to the north of Britain, high pressure systems (usually associated with clear skies and calm weather) are able to move in. In contrast, when the jet stream lies over or beneath the British Isles, arctic air and low pressure weather systems are more common and bring cloudy, rainy and windy weather. Indeed, across Europe there are Saints who are believed to exert a similar influence over the weather, such as St. Medard, St. Gervase and St. Protais in France on 8th and 19th June and St. Godelieve in Flanders on 6th July.” (https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/St-Swithuns-Day/)

This evening we dined on Jackie’s liver and bacon casserole; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm Brussels sprouts; and tender green beans, with which I drank Christian Patat Appassimento Rosso 2022 which I was given at yesterday’s party.

Exercising Her Priority

Soon after lunch today we set out on a forest drive.

A pair of ponies with their foals occupied corner of the bank of Beaulieu River. One rose to its feet and trotted off for a feed.

On our way into Brockenhurst several cattle stretched above a fence to crop garden shrubs; while a photographer examined her mobile phone to investigate the pictures she had produced of two ponies at the crossroads by the bank.

More ponies with their offspring wandered over the moorland at South Weirs. The last of my pictures in this set is of the prone foal lifting its head when startled by the sudden cough of a passing cyclist; Jackie’s are the last five images including the suckling foal and the last image of the pony exercising her right to priority over oncoming vehicles.

When driving home through Lyndhurst Jackie parked the car and photographed donkeys attracting attention on the opposite pavement.

A cow guided her calf across the road outside The Rising Sun, while

around the corner in Tiptoe Road, another mare and foal grazed on the verges.

This evening we dined on roast breast of lamb; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots; and tender green beans with which I finished the Cahors.

At Stockley Enclosure

For what it is worth we voted in the General Election at Milford on Sea Polling Station, although it rather seems as if our crosses won’t make any significant difference to the expected outcome. Nevertheless we decided to do our duty, after which we took a forest drive.

Attracted by a string of ponies on the moorland, we stopped off at

Stockley Enclosure near Brockenhurst, where a sawn trunk spoke to a nearby post alongside a barrier used by one pony as a scratching aid before stepping over to join the others. Behind the derelict trunk blackberry brambles soared aloft.

The verdant verges led to sunlit woodland along Brockenhurst Road.

Roadworks at the crossroads on Southampton Road leading into Lymington held us up enough for me to focus on

a plentiful cascade of hypericum draping a garden fence.

This evening, in order to continue watching the men’s Wimbledon tennis match between Jack Draper and Cameron Norrie, we enjoyed, in bowls on our knees in front of the TV, second helpings of last night’s sausages in red wine meal, with which I drank another glass of the Malbec.

Where’s The Wagtail?

On this morning’s forest drive I was happy to disembark for photography, and, incidentally, to feel how much cooler the weather was than the average for the time of year.

Field horses, like this one along St Leonard’s Road, are now being equipped with fly protection masks for ears and eyes.

Beyond the flourishing hedgerows the grasses are now becoming parched because of the recent lack of rain.

The pair of frisky foals we have now watched developing since their first weeks have grown a good deal. They gambolled among their herd along Furzey Lane.

Another group had collected their usual avian acolyte. Can you spot the wagtail in either of these two images?

Late this afternoon Elizabeth visited and we had an enjoyable discussion. She did not stay for dinner when the rest of us all dined on the plentiful leftovers from last night’s King’s House takeaway meal, with which I finished the Fleurie.

I Didn’t Leave The Car

On a grey overcast morning, after Jackie shopped at Nisa Local in Stopples Lane, we took a forest drive on which I remained in the car while producing pictures of the journey. This was the first time I had left the house since my operation on 25th.

Nisa is fundamentally a refurbished subsidiary of the previous Coop shop. It is no longer a cooperative but happy to sell produce of the Coop. I’m sure there is some logical process to this.

Apart from having removed the useful hole in the wall cash machine, and changing the frontage, the outlet looks pretty similar to me, although as I said I remained in the vehicle while a gentleman leant on the railings while he enjoyed a phone conversation.

A determined cyclist made his way up the steeply undulating Holmsley Passage.

Further down we passed a large rambling wild rose and a damp moorland landscape bearing cotton grass.

From my passenger seat I enjoyed the sight of splendid magnolia blooms in someone’s garden; wild woodbine, rowan berries, and bramble blossom; and a five barred gate to an upland field.

Ponies, foals, and cattle had begun to gather sheltering along Forest Road, causing chaos by hindering the traffic.

The powerfully heady scent of privet rising above the hedgerow along Beckley Common Road permeated the air around and within our car.

This evening we all dined on King’s House Chinese takeaway fare, the portions providing second helpings for tomorrow.

Shove Off

This afternoon we visited Ober Water at Puttles Bridge.

I employed the walking stick that Elizabeth gave me a few years ago, otherwise I would now have found too many trip hazards from the

exposed tree roots from which the soil has been washed into the river over many years.

Along Rhinefield Road we encountered many ponies with foals.

The first picture in this gallery shows a parent on the right taking objection to foal canoodling with hers and buffeting it to encourage it to shove off, which it did, seeking the security of its mother who led her offspring to the safer side of the road.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s spicy chicken jalfrezi; mushroom rice; vegetable samosas and parathas.

Equine, Cervine, Bovine, Road Users

We spent the morning in Southampton General Hospital in order for me to have everything tested to see if I was fit for a general anaesthetic for the biopsy set for Tuesday 25th.

Bodily fluids were extracted; internal and external structures and organs were examined; chest hair was shaved to provide points for the application of electrodes; heart and lungs were listened to; surprise was once more expressed at my “perfect blood pressure” (the doctor was 26 and said it was the same as hers) and the paucity of any regular medication; DNA swabs were taken; height and weight measured; family history, including everyone relevant, and all operations under anaesthetic in my own life, beginning with tonsillectomy in 1947, was closely examined and documented. I can only assume I passed so I won’t feel anything on Tuesday.

After lunch we took a forest drive.

Anther photographer watched ponies and a foal on Holmsley Passage. Enlarging the first picture in this gallery will reveal tufts of cotton grass which speckles the boggy moorland sections at this time; the leaves under the rippling stream and the pool on the verge indicate that this terrain has the perfect conditions for its growth.

Further along the Passage a young stag crossed the road and disappeared into the bracken. Note the temporary repairs to the nibbled edges. of the tarmac.

Ponies are beginning to shelter under the trees along Forest Road in anticipation of a further influx of flies.

While I was photographing these ponies, bellowing and thudding calves began running up the road in search of their parents, some of whom accompanied them back down again.

This evening we dined on a meaty pork rib rack in barbecue sauce; wholesome mushroom rice; creamy mashed potato and swede; tender runner beans and spinach, with which I drank more of the Alentejano.