ponies – Page 73 – derrickjknight

Obstacles

The landscape after the deluge was pretty waterlogged today, but the light was bright and clear, giving us beautiful skies.

Apart from a diversion to Acres Down, my walk took the form of a roughly drawn ampersand. I turned right at Minstead Hall, left down to the ford, right at the ford, through Fleetwater to Acres Down, and back via the other fork, going straight into the village from there.

Five or six ponies approached me as I walked down Running Hill. They completely blocked the road. I can’t say I was scared, just marginally apprehensive, to be surrounded by these creatures we have been warned not to touch. Apparently they can bite. I used my usual method of negotiating them, which is to hold my line and walk on. Normally this works well. This time the horses had the same idea. One in particular, the light-brown white-maned creature in the centre of the picture, was into the head-to-head approach. Close enough for me to smell its not unpleasant mustiness and eye its not very pleasant teeth. As I rejected its desire for further intimacy, used the better part of valour and walked around this beast, I did momentarily think I would rather have been in one of the cars whose drivers were patiently waiting for the road to clear. On skirting my interested pony I said ‘I’m not supposed to touch you, mate’. I received no reply, and one of the most disconcerting aspects of these animals is that they are always absolutely silent.

Sheep in the field alongside what I call Furzey Gardens road were silhouetted against the sky.

When taking the right fork after the ford I exchanged greetings with two Highway Maintenance workmen seated in their stationary truck.

Reaching the main road between Emery Down and the A31, I noticed for the first time a chalked sign advertising the Acres Down Farm Shop, and decided to go down and check it out. There was also a ford on this road, with fast-flowing water streaming across it. Its footbridge looked rather inaccessible, but I thought I would give it a go. Not a good idea. There were three deterrents to taking this route: the thick, squelching mud; the piles of glistening horse shit; and the low branch requiring a limbo dancer’s technique to get under it. Feeling intrepid, I persevered and reached the bridge. One glance across to the other side made it clear that a better option would be to wade through the clean, fresh water. I stepped into it and did just that.

The farm shop wasn’t open. According to a notice it didn’t open for another ten minutes. I thought I would wait. A gentleman suggested I should ring the front door bell of the house next door. I did. A young woman told me it wasn’t open on Mondays. As she said this she looked at me quizzically and said there was a notice which contained this information. ‘Ah, yes, I read that.’ I said, ‘I’m retired you see. Ah, yes. Monday. Sometimes I don’t know what day it is’. This was the point at which I sensed her instincts were telling her to back away. She stuck with it, however, and explained that her sister ran the shop and its stock was largely meat and eggs from the farm; various chutneys and pickles; and seasonal gifts. I thanked her, saying that was just what I needed to know, and I could now report back on my find. As I left, the helpful gentleman was starting to drive off. Claiming to be a dodderer he said he’d forgotten the shop wasn’t open on Mondays. Since I had told the young woman that he had suggested I ring the bell, she must have thought we were a right pair.

Returning down the road to Minstead which takes me to the left prong of the fork, I discovered evidence that my prediction yesterday, that the rainwater would reach the cones by the vast pool, was correct. Water now trickled between the cones onto the private drive. Rounding the corner now blocked by this water, I met my Highway Maintenance acquaintances. This time they were leaning on their truck, one having a fag. He was their spokesperson. Perhaps because it was about three quarters of an hour since I had last passed them, he greeted me with: ‘We’re not skiving. We’re waiting for a machine to clear all that water round there’. Only when the water was cleared would they be able to determine what needed to be done to rectify the situation. I told them about the obstacles to using the Acres Down ford footbridge. They advised me to contact Hampshire County Council. I said I wasn’t bothered enough for that and thought not many people walked that way. They agreed.

As I walked up the road from the ford, the machine, not unlike the vast vacuum cleaner I described four days ago, passed me. I considered the smoker would have time to finish his cigarette.

This evening we are going to The Amberwood Christmas quiz, where we will be fed what are promised to be very good and plentiful snacks. Anything worthy of note will be recorded tomorrow because we will probably be late back.

Primrose And Champion

This morning I walked to Emery Down where Jackie picked me up and, after an abortive visit to a closed Highcliffe, drove us to Lyndhurst where we made a start on Christmas shopping.

Ponies were out in force today. At Seamans Corner one was scratching its nose on the wooden seat surrounding a tree. Another quietly allowed me to pass before ambling across the road.

As I passed Orchard Gate, a large house on the left on Running Hill, I greeted a young woman I had seen before, emerging with a bucket. An older version was struggling with her bicycle mudguard. Not being particularly handy I was rather relieved she hadn’t seen me walk by. When I reached the two horses in the waterlogged field I was pleased to see them tucking into fresh hay. The young woman came along with the bucket, smiled, climbed over the stile, sploshed into the waterholes, and walked across to the far side of the field. Whilst I was engaged in photographing the horses, the woman I took to be my acquaintance’s mother arrived on her bicycle. She had just had a tyre replaced and the mudguard had kept catching on it. It seemed to be allright now. She told me she was a commoner and these were her horses. She had other horses on other land. These two were Primrose and Champion. Primrose was the most beautiful example of the New Forest pony you were ever likely to see. Champion had a bit of a cough which seemed a little better today. My informant introduced herself as Mrs. Audrey Saunders. She had bought herself a Victoria Pendleton bike but couldn’t get on with it so had given it to her daughter who, it seems, is less inhibited in whizzing around the lanes.

On a bend after the left hand fork of the forded road there is a steep camber in the road which is always full of water. When walking by it is sensible to wait for any cars to pass first. The opposite side of the bend abuts a very waterlogged private drive that someone is attempting to fill with gravel. Roadmenders’ cones have been placed to prevent drivers from running over the verge, creating yet more mud. This leaves even less room for pedestrians to negotiate.

By the time we left Lyndhurst the day that had dawned bright and clear had deteriorated into a damp deluge. No doubt the pool above has reached the cones by now, for the downpour did not desist. Indeed, it turned to hail and we waited in the car outside the house until the stones stopped ricocheting off the roof, windscreen and bonnet. The clean gleaming white hailstones on the grass contrasted with last night’s black shiny wet deer droppings.

This evening we returned to Lyndhurst for a meal at the Passage to India restaurant. This was excellent, and augmented by draft Kingfisher. We were quite disconcerted by a small Oriental group consisting of two young women and a little boy. The small fellow, although not looking too unwell, coughed and spluttered all the way through his meal. One of the women seemed to be bravely keeping up a cheerful conversation whilst reclining and slowly subsiding in her high-backed chair. Her face became more and more grey-looking; her handkerchief more and more soggy; her eyes more and more glazed; her nose more and more like Rudolph’s. Since Jackie traditionally has a Christmas cold she was most relieved when our neighbours left the restaurant.

Jogger’s Nipple

This was another beautiful clear winter’s day when the hard frost did not leave the ground, but continued to sparkle in the sunshine, except for the very open heathland where steam rose offering a misty veil across the backlit landscape. We reprised yesterday’s Ringwood trip, except that I didn’t have my hair cut; I walked further along the Castleman Trailway; and we had our brunches in Bistro Aroma, a much friendlier and more popular cafe, with a greater range of food better cooked. As she drove along the A31 Jackie spotted a hawk atop a fir tree, and likened it to a star on top of a Christmas tree.

It seemed to me that the waters were subsiding a little; just enough for the seagulls to share the fields with crows, and for the ponies to enjoy a little firmer foothold in parts.

As I now knew the way I walked further along the Trailway in the allotted time, managing to reach the edge of Ashley Heath and walk up the hill of pines and heathland by a pukka path provided with a small footbridge that spanned the ditch I had lept yesterday. I was able to look down on the small town before retracing my steps back to the cafe.

Whilst perhaps not quite ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’, this was definitely extremity-tingling weather. That phrase, incidentally, having nothing to do with cojones, is not as rude as may be thought. The brass monkey was a container for cannon balls on nineteenth century sailing ships. It was made of brass, which the balls were not. Because the two metals froze at different rates the balls would fall from their perch.

Having been revealed by Donna’s attention yesterday, my ears were certainly tingling. She had actually said, when exposing my lugs, that she hoped this wouldn’t make them too cold. Nevertheless, brisk walking, as usual, warmed me up, just as running had in years gone by. Training runs in a track suit were one thing. Running races in sub-zero temperature, clad only in the briefest of running shorts and vest, usually of some unyielding synthetic material, was quite something else. The combination of stinging cold and the friction engendered by clothing on skin could be quite painful. When awaiting a start in conditions such as today, the experienced person wore a black bin-liner until the last available seconds and discarded it before getting into a stride. This was when ‘jogger’s nipple’ was prone to set in. When, even through a vest, exposed to a cold enough temperature, the nipple would react as may be expected. The friction of regular movement would do the rest, and soreness and sometimes bleeding would result. As a runner you just had to grit your teeth and press on. Rather difficult if your gnashers were chattering with cold as you lined up for the off. Men’s particular appendages would also suffer in withering cold. It was not a good idea to jump into a hot shower before you had thawed out somewhat.

This evening Jackie produced a flavoursome, hot, chilli con carne. She drank Hoegaarden and I had a glass of Le Pont St Jean minervois 2010.

Helen having recommended the village of Bartley’s Christmas lights, we drove out after dinner to see them. Many of the residents of this location have decked out their gardens and houses with an amazing array of colourful electrical and mechanical celebratory illuminations. Deer, for example, glow with light and move up and down as if grazing. Particularly as street lighting is at a minimum, this alternative serves to guide one round the village. One of the literal highlights of Christmas in Morden was the ritual drive down Lower Morden Lane. House after house seemed to vie with its neighbours in producing similar spectacles. As people of the Muslim faith have moved in, so these displays have reduced, but it is still worth the trip. In Bartley we have found a most satisfactory substitute.

Researching Seamans

On this dull dank day I took yesterday’s walk in reverse. In Minstead village there is field containing two ponies which are often seen by the gate, at this time fetlock-deep in water-filled well-drilled hoofprints. Nearby buckets perhaps contain some kind of food supplement for these animals leaving the slightly drier centre field to watch the world go by. The wooden stile has a signpost alongside it indicating a public footpath across the land. I doubt anyone has trodden it for some months. Yesterday afternoon a couple were strewing sawdust over the pools. I asked if they were ‘trying to make that passable’. ‘For the horses’, the man replied. Hoping he didn’t think I was daft enough to venture onto the footpath, I made it clear I knew it was for the horses. Mind you, this did remind me of soggy cricketing afternoons when sawdust was called for to give the bowlers a bit of purchase, as we wiped the red surface from the ball onto damp rags instead of the thighs of our flannels. Today, the brown horse was looking over the gate, its black companion preferring to remain in the field.

By the side of Football Green, a New Forest Agister’s jeep was parked. There was no-one in it or on the green so I was unable to check out Seamans Lane’s Agister’s Cottage.

On my way through London Minstead I stopped and chatted to Geoff Brown who was mending his fence. This very friendly man invited me to knock on his door any time I was passing, when he would be happy to give me coffee. He did not know the origin of Seamans Lane, but he, too, directed me to Nick on the brow of the hill. I knocked on Nick’s door. He was out, but his wife, Jeanie Mellersh, was very welcoming and we had a long talk. Geoff had told me she was an artist, so she really should know the truth of the most startling information she gave me. She thought Nick would not know a great deal about Seamans, but they knew a man who would. This was Steve Cattell who lives opposite the village shop. He runs the local history group which she recommended to me. She didn’t know the truth of the press gang story. She had heard another tale the veracity of which she could not vouch for either. This was that Seamans Lodge was a home for old sailors. There is in fact a Seamans Lodge, not visible from the road, behind Seamans Cottages.

The information she gave me that did ring true, however, concerned Grinling Gibbons. This seventeenth century Englishman, born and educated in Holland, who settled in England and became what many people consider the greatest woodcarver of all time is known for his realistic and intricate representation of flowers, fruit, and birds. These are often bas relief in a vertical format, much like the carved mantelpiece above the fireplace in the communal entrance hall of our wing of Castle Malwood Lodge. When I told her where I lived, Jeanie asked me if there was still a grand entrance hall with a white painted mantelpiece. This, she told me, was by Grinling Gibbons. We certainly agreed that Sir W. Harcourt, for whom the house was built, would have been rich enough to have imported the carving from an earlier source. Whatever the fabric under the many layers of paint on this piece, it is certainly reminiscent of Gibbons.

I may be no wiser about the origin of Seamans, but the search for it is already proving fruitful. Jackie Googled the word this evening and discovered it to be a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Given the inland nature of the New Forest this makes sense to me. But we still have to verify this as pertinent to our Lane.

This afternoon we visited The Firs and partook of Danni’s succulent sausage casserole followed by Elizabeth’s excellent apple and plum crumble. Various red wines, Hoegaarden and Coke were drunk by the assembled company.

Almost A Local

Today’s dawning put me in mind of the old adage: ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning shepherd’s warning’. This was a morning of heavy frost, frozen pools, and slippery tarmac.

I walked to Lyndhurst via the A337 and back by way of Emery Down. The purpose of my trip was to collect my eye ointment. Jackie had taken the prescription in yesterday and so diverted herself making other purchases in the chemist that she forgot to wait and collect it.

As I crossed the cattle grid to our lower drive the sudden swish of fallen leaves alerted me to the starting, leaping, and bounding off in unison of three startled deer who disappeared deep into the forest. Their superbly synchronised scuts and elegant rear limbs would have graced an Olympic swimming pool. Four unperturbed ponies nonchalently continued chomping at the bracken, gently rustling the foliage underfoot. Their inelegant legs were matted with dried mud.

The building pointed out by Lindsey yesterday as having been the Post Office is Hungerford Cottage which lies on Running Hill shortly before Seamans Corner. Villages throughout Britain have, in recent decades, lost their Post Offices. Another example is Upper Dicker in East Sussex, home of the Village Shop run by Tess Flower posted on 12th May. That shop once included a Post Office counter which, despite much local objection, was withdrawn about three years ago. Incredibly this was just after Tess, as a recent subpostmistress, had been sent on a training course by the Post Office decision makers.

Ice pattern 12.12

When a small car containing two women who asked me directions stopped in Lyndurst road I was rather pleased to be able to point the way to Minstead Lodge in Seamans Lane.

Four more ponies, which I have seen before, were grazing by the twig circle I noticed two days ago. I reflected that these animals are often seen at this site. I then remembered that last night, driving back in the dark, I had recognised the pony from outside Perry Farm just a bit further up the road than usual. Arriving at Seamans Corner two and a half hours after I had passed the first quartet of ponies, I saw that three of them had made it this far down Running Hill. I now begin to understand how Jeanie, who I met on the 30th November, recognises photographs of her ponies. They seem to have their own preferred or allocated territories and, contrary to my uneducated original impression, they do not all look alike. Obviously they have different colouring, bearing different shades of white; and browns ranging from ochre to chocolate; with white, golden, black, or brown manes.

I am beginning to know my equine neighbours; those streets that do have names; the names of some buildings I pass; even one or two actual people. Hey, I’m almost a local.

This evening’s meal consisted of Jackie’s succulent cottage pie followed by apple crumble. I finished the McGuigan Estate shiraz and Jackie didn’t.

Gracedale Road S.W.

Just before mid-day I took the upper drive route down to Minstead; turned right by the red phone box; walked up through Fleetwater; took the right turn at the junction towards Stoney Cross; and right again on the A31 back to Castle Malwood Lodge.

The thatchers in Minstead continued their work. A house in Fleetwater had been demolished and a wooden structure was being built. I couldn’t tell whether it was a replacement house or a rather splendid shed.

Walking up from the ford by the school you encounter a fork in the road by a clearing at the edge of the forest. The left fork takes you nearer to Emery Down, and the right to Fleetwater. I was intrigued by a large perfect circle of twigs laid out, some way off the road, on the turf. Is this The New Forest’s answer to miraculous crop circles?

On the road past Fleetwater which runs between the A31 and Lyndhurst there were numerous ponies of varying sizes. One came trotting down the tarmac towards me, as if straight out of a Thelwell drawing. Its mane covered its eyes and almost reached the ground beneath its short, stubby, legs. I half expected to see a similarly shaped dazed schoolgirl in jodhpurs and a crash helmet, planted in the bracken festooned with saddle and trappings, having been dumped by her dumpy steed. Another silver haired grey-dappled horse, much taller than the others, blended beautifully with the forest birches. Many of the ponies were haloed against the light of the low winter sun.

Arriving at Stoney Cross, and not wishing to walk back along the scary A31 which has no footpath, I did my best to find a path running parallel to that road which should return me to upper drive. I was unsuccessful and therefore had to brave the buffeting of blasts from the vast vans speeding past.

In Fleetwater I spoke to a man who was blowing leaves from his drive. He was proud of the old LNER cast iron sign he had fixed to his gate. LNER was the London and North East Railway that had been one of the four major companies which ran UK’s pre-Nationalised railways in their earlier privatised incarnation. Forty shillings was a lot of money in those days. Once upon a time most street name signs were made of similar material painted black and white. They can still be found, but are gradually being replaced, in London at least, by lighter, less substantial signs put up by the Boroughs which came into being in 1965. In 1987, Gracedale Road, SW16, in Wandsworth, just before Jessica, Sam, Louisa, and I left it for Newark in Nottinghamshire, boasted such a sign at each end. Two weeks before our departure flimsy substitutes replaced them both. One old one was left in the gutter and never removed. Not until we departed, that is. With the sign in our car. Matthew cleaned up the trophy, gave it a fresh coat of suitable paint, and bolted it to the brick wall of the old boiler house attached to the back of Lindum House. I like to think that little part of Nottinghamshire still bears the legend:

For our evening meal Jackie produced an excellent chicken korai with an elaborate pilau rice which was eaten with paratas from Portswood International Stores. She drank Hoegaarden whilst I imbibed McGuigan Estate shiraz 2010. For sweet we had gulabjam. Jackie was a bit concerned that she hadn’t any cream to go with it, but the evaporated milk we used was a good complement. When I suggested cold custard she called me a philistine.

The Avon In Spate

There are nine very tall panels to our bay window where the dining table is situated. This gives us a kind of treble tryptich view of the beautiful lawns and trees beyond. Over lunch we watched a pied wagtail running around, it’s bobbing appendage providing evidence of the aptness of its name. A robin was hopping in the background.

Having to wait in for TV technicians, we did not go out until mid-afternoon. Jackie drove us to Ringwood where she went shopping and I went walking. From the main car park I walked through Meeting House Shopping Centre, across the High Street, and down Kings Arms Lane to Riverside Walk, along the bank of the river Avon and back to the car park to meet Jackie for our return home. Still standing in the shopping centre is John Conway’s tomb. It looks to be about eighteenth century, but is now worn illegible. Instead of grass and daisies it is adorned by bricks, chewing gum spots, and dog-ends. The other night it bore an empty drinks can.

At the end of Kings Arms Lane a village green now has a pond which surely wasn’t planned. A bare tree does a dance on its surface.

As I approached the actual riverside I was amazed to see the path I would have expected to walk along completely submerged and the gate to it padlocked. Trees sprung out of fast-flowing water and, as Jackie put it when seeing other such waterlogged fields, tufts of greenery stood up like the marsh symbols on Ordnance Survey maps. I walked around some houses and crossed a bridge which had a torrent running only just beneath it. The Walk itself was on a high enough level to be traversible, but either side of it the terrain was covered with water, with streams pouring into fields. This was a combination of the Millstream and the River Avon. It was hard to tell which was which.

As I gazed across a field that was now a lake, I saw two ponies apparently tethered to a horse box on one of the few areas of solid ground. I wondered if they were about to be rescued from a watery grave.

Walking left along the riverside I came to a road and turned back to follow the other direction, meeting a friendly man who told me some of the local history. It was he who confirmed I had been watching the Millstream and the River Avon. He was walking his two small terriers. This was Mike Hooper, who turned out to have been working at Paddington Station in the 1970s when I had been working in the area. He had lived in Ringwood for the last twelve years and had never seen the area so flooded. He said the water level was usually three feet below the bridge I had crossed. He pointed out new houses at risk of flooding, and a caravan site where the residents needed to wear Wellington boots to cross to their field. Another man’s huge garden had become a lake. He told me there had been twenty ponies in the now waterlogged field not long ago, and that they were being moved out. They had been standing in water. He thought the two I had seen were probably the last of the group which had been being kept in a field rented from the farmer who owned the land. Swans, egrets, and other water birds now claimed residence.

After I parted from Mike I saw some activity at the horsebox. The ponies were being coaxed into it. I spoke to the woman doing this. She was a very pleasant person who was the owner of all the ponies who had been in the field. These were the last two being removed. There had been twenty one in all, and I was watching ‘the awkward ones’. One had developed a certain lameness since yesterday. Whilst the woman, Jeanie, was talking to me, one of her horses emerged from the box. We were leaning on a stile some yards away. ‘Get back in that box’, said Jeanie, kindly but firmly. Like a reluctant dog being told to sit, the animal lifted a tentative hoof, and reluctantly, stutteringly, began to comply. I learned from Jeanie that the forest ponies, although roaming free, are actually owned by people who have ‘forest rights’. There are sales of them just as there are of other livestock. She has some in the forest and some in fields. On a couple of occasions she has recognised her own ponies in photographs in the media. A local newspaper has put some on disc for her.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb roast pork with crunchy crackling. I drank more of the McGuigan Bin 736 whilst Jackie preferred the English Three Choirs Annum 2011.

Right Said Fred

I took the upper drive route down to Minstead this morning which has a little more forest to walk through before arriving at the road. This meant passing the new lakes that have formed since we arrived here. Turning right at the Furzey Gardens sign I continued past the gardens along an increasingly muddy and pool-ridden path until I came to what I took to be the elusive Stoney Cross. As Jackie said, this is just a few houses. From there I could see another underpass under the A31, further West than the one leading to Malwood Farm. The equine hoofprints and piles of droppings lent credence to my speculation that the ponies use these underground passages to cross to the other sides of the forest. This is not necessarily a definitive answer to how the animals cross the road. The evidence may have been provided by such as the horse being ridden by the young woman cantering past me up the hill leading to Stoney Cross. Nevertheless it will suffice until I do actually spot something more conclusive.

A small child’s coat hung on a gate by the waterlogged underpass, which led to very soggy terrain covered in small lakes and piles of equine excretia. Crossing this would, I felt sure, lead me to the road to Rufus Stone (see 19th November post). There were no footpaths, and it all looked a bit risky. Then I saw the trail of hoofprints peppered with heaps of poo. The ponies surely had picked out a route. I followed it, reached the road I wanted, turned right, crossed over the A31 and returned home.

I have always wondered where and how the forest animals sleep. I still don’t know, but today outside Furzey Gardens, I saw ponies lying down for the first time.

Before going for my walk, Jackie and I had moved my desk from the sitting room to our bedroom. On 12th November I had suggested that this item, which was proving problematic to get into the sitting room, might go through the window. The removal men had thought it wouldn’t. It did. This had been how the desk had been manoeuvred into the study in Sutherland Place. It had gone into the sitting room window, through that room to the dining room, through the dining room window, whence it had been lowered to the basement floor and through a set of French windows. Before that, in Leinster Mews, it had served as a dining table, which it was to do again in Links Avenue, and, until today, in Castle Malwood Lodge.

I had bought this piece from Norman King, the husband of the couple from whom Jessica and I had purchased Lindum House in 1987. He could not fit it into the house to which they were moving. His study became my study, and there the desk remained for the next nineteen years. It has accompanied me on my several moves since. Psychoanalysts would no doubt call it my transitional object. Jackie and I found it reasonably straightforward to take it out of our sitting room the way it came in, and to transfer it to our bedroom by the same method.

The reason for this further move is that our recently purchased dining table and chairs were to be delivered this afternoon. I had explained that the only way the table could be admitted to the room was through the window, and I wasn’t even sure about that. Chris was optimistic. For some time after the two delivery men’s arrival, Jackie and I got to know Chris and John rather well. For Chris, as he actually said, the glass was always half full. John, cheerful and friendly enough, had his doubts. The central leaf had already been removed and the winding mechanism employed to make the circumference smaller. I stationed myself in the room. Jackie placed a couple of cushions on the window ledge. The men lifted the table up from the outside and passed two legs through the window. Table legs, that is. I grasped them and slid them across. As far as they would go, that is. Which wasn’t far enough. Another window was tried, with the same result. There was nothing for it but to try bringing the table up the hall and through the door of the room. This meant moving stuff out of the hall, and putting it into the nearest available bedroom. Because we didn’t start to move some loaded bookshelves until it had become apparent to John and me that there was no way the table was going through the door, Jackie and Chris had to do this, because I was in the doorway and couldn’t get past John who was hanging on to the table for dear life. Eventually even Chris was becoming a little less optimistic, until I offered another suggestion. This was that the casters should be removed. He brightened considerably at this idea. I was still trapped in the sitting room, so Jackie provided screwdrivers for Chris to begin removing the wheels from the feet of the table. This procedure took some time. I had to assist by holding a torch with which to offer some light to help Chris to locate the screw heads. Now the bookshelves were moved, John was able to wriggle round the table and tackle some of the feet himself. Jackie stacked a pile of screws and casters in the spare bedroom and we tried again. Still no joy. It just wasn’t going to go. Jackie suggested that if the winding mechanism were unscrewed it looked as if the table would become two pieces. Chris was wary about that.

But maybe now there were no casters it could be slotted through the window. Another bright idea of mine. Back the men went, through our front door, across the two communal hallways with their very heavy doors, and round the side of the building to the window. The previous procedure was followed, with the same result. Chris, who was absolutely determined that this table was going to fit into our bay, then came up with the solution. It should be up-ended with its length vertical, taking advantage of the height of the window. It slipped in beautifully, but not exactly a great deal more easily. Central leaf was wound in, casters screwed back, and we had lift-off. As the chairs were brought in I had You Tube on full volume on my laptop playing Bernard Cribbens’ 1962 hit record ‘Right Said Fred’. If you don’t know it, or even if you do, it is well worth a listen.

Jackie christened our new table with a luscious lamb stew. I drank McGuigan Bin 736 2011 and she didn’t.

IKEA 3 (R18)

On this clear, cold, and sunny morning I took yesterday’s walk in reverse. Smoking chimneys enlivened the line of the horizon. Distant cattle lowed; cocks crowed; steam rose from one sunlit ditch whilst a blackbird spuddled in another; the occasional cyclist whirred, and the occasional car sped, past. Otherwise it was just me and the ponies.

Walking back through London Minstead, I was greeted by another Father Christmas (see yesterday’s post). The word must have got around.

Later in the morning we decided to assemble our IKEA bed. Extracting the headboard, Jackie realised it was too wide to fit our carefully measured space. Too wide by 17cm. I got out all the paperwork and checked the identification numbers on the boxes against the measurements given on both our Self Service Picking List and the Sales Receipt. Consistently shown on each docket and on each box are the measurements 140 x 200; thus the three bed frame items are marked BED FRM 140 x 200. Our bedstead was 157cm wide.

Now, as my readers know, I will always find the humorous side of any situation. If it is possible. We were not amused. Not in the least. I reached for my phone and dialled customer services. A machine warned me that there was a waiting time for calls being answered from between 20 and 30 minutes. After being notified for the second time that I was number 13 in the queue, I blew a gasket and was all for going straight back to IKEA there and then. In the meantime, Jackie had consulted a 2013 catalogue which she had picked up on departure from the store. She found the bed frames listed as 157 x 211cm. These were to take a 140 x 200 mattress. If that were so, then why are the boxes and documentation for the frames given as 140 x 200? And why didn’t our extremely helpful shop assistant not make this clear? Did she know any more than we did? I was no calmer. They could have the whole lot back and refund all the money including delivery charge.

Jackie, however, remained calm and thought again about the layout of the room. If we moved a portable cupboard and brought the bed up to the large French windows we could just about make it feasible. We could squeeze past the bed to open the windows when necessary. What we couldn’t have was a bedhead jutting into the doorway. So far, so good. All we have to do now is put it all together. Tomorrow.

After lunch we drove to Totton for a vast Lidl shop. In the process we found a very good quality double airbed for 10% of the cost of the IKEA bed. So we bought one. There is plenty of room in the sitting room for this, which means we can now accomodate two couples. We had momentarily considered that we should have had an airbed for the spare room and still sent the IKEA one back. Then we remembered nights in Louisa and Errol’s spare single room on a double air mattress on the floor with no way of heaving ourselves up because there was no space around the bed, and thought better of it. Have you ever tried to prise yourself up from the middle of an airbed whilst in intense pain from a hip requiring replacement?

Before dinner I made a few amendments to my next Independent crossword puzzle scheduled for 27th. We then ate spare ribs in barbecue sauce with vegetable rice followed by baklavas. Jackie, having taken the entire contents of Lidl shelves, drank Hoegaarden, and I consumed Cono Sur reserva 2010, an excellent wine of which, unfortunately, we cannot remember the source.

Nobby Bates

The hot water problem resolved itself. We had hot water in the morning, and the Dimplex radiators we had not managed to get to come on, did function in the small hours. We are apparently on Economy 7 which I have heard about but never investigated. Through this system electricity is drawn at night and stored for the day.

Throughout the morning, as we continued unpacking and sorting out our home, we watched, through our immense windows, a gardener blowing leaves, using a kind of reverse vacuum cleaner. As fast as the poor man cleared a patch, more foliage fluttered down from the trees.

This afternoon I walked through Minstead and along Lyndurst Road, then right along the A337 to Lyndhurst to collect postal redirection forms. Postal redirection is a service offered by the Post Office whereby any post sent to your old address is intercepted and diverted to your new one. On the way I received a call from Lynne Bailey of KLS, the landlords of Links Avenue. One of the matters she called about was the return of the keys to number 40. This was handy because I could post them there and then from the Lyndhurst Post Office.

Ponies grazed alongside the minor roads, or lolloped or loitered on the tarmac, all traffic respectfully ceding passage. Wire fences and cattle grids protect the animals from straying onto the A337, where the fast-flowing streams of traffic render the road dangerous for them. Lacking a footpath, it is not too safe for humans either. On my way back I must have turned off this major road a bit too soon, for I wound up in Emery Down, and had to call Jackie to come and rescue me. Well, I suppose it was bound to happen. As it was well after dusk when this occured, I learned that, on the minor roads, it must be far safer in the dark for the protected New Forest fauna than for stray septuagenarians.

On the children’s recent visit I explained to Jessica the purpose of cattle grids. I had thought I was speaking to both the girls who were in the back of the car, but it transpired that I was talking to the top of Imogen’s head, because, seconds after getting into the car she had slumped forward in slumber, prevented only by her seatbelt from taking a nosedive. Jessica, however, knew all about cattle grids and hedgehogs falling down them and having to be rescued. Rather amazed, I asked her how she knew this. She said she had read it in a book. I still didn’t twig until I mentioned this to Louisa, who explained that she read to the girls ‘Operation Hedgehog’ by Margaret Lane, just as I and her mother had read the book, which I had bought, to her when she was little. It had been one of Louisa’s favourites and was now loved by her own daughters. This was the tale of Nobby Bates, who lived in a cottage in The New Forest and devised an escape route for hedgehogs who had fallen down the cattle grids.

This evening we drove to Ringwood in search of an Indian restaurant we had discovered eighteen months ago. Settling on India Cottage we had some debate about whether it had been that establishment. It was good enough, but only when returning to the car and passing the earlier eating place were we sure that we had been in the wrong one. We both drank Kingfisher.