poppy – Page 3 – derrickjknight

How Ridiculous Is That?

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On a dry, but much duller, day we spent the morning on largely abortive outings. First we drove to New Milton for a visit to the bank, to seek a lavatory seat, and to investigate wardrobes. The bank was satisfactory, but boring. We couldn’t find a throne (slang for a lavatory seat). We thought Bradbeers might stock wardrobes, but its outlet in Station Road didn’t have furniture.

OK, we thought we would put the wardrobes on the back burner, turned round, and drove in the opposite direction to Lymington where that wonderful hardware emporium, Knights, was bound to have a range of the required seating. Unfortunately Knights was closed. Permanently.

Back we travelled to Old Milton where there was a street I thought might have a suitable furniture shop. And blow me, there was Bradbeers furniture outlet with a wide range of wardrobes. We will be able to find something there once we have measured up.

Milford Supplies did have a limited range of toilet seats, none of which, we thought, suited our requirements.

By this time we needed to stock up on petrol, which, in the event, was all that we bought. How ridiculous is that?

Jackie has begun to transfer her hanging baskets to cold frames for the winter. In offering most minimal assistance, I noticed a self-seeded pansy pushing through the patio paving. It is a winter one of course, but there it sat beside an autumn leaf.

Outside the back door stands an orange poppy, normally long gone by autumn.

Still thriving geraniums merge with autumn-hued hydrangeas;

clematis Star of India is one of several blooming again;

foxgloves refuse to die back;

and flowering nasturtiums trail tendrils everywhere.

Approaching the middle of November, how ridiculous is that?

This evening we dined on Jackie’s excellent lamb curry, onion rice, and cauliflower bahji. The Culinary Queen drank diet Pepsi, and I finished the malbec.

The Playground Bully

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On another balmy morning I began a tour of the gardens at the front of the house, where

fuchsia Delta’s Sarah blends with the pink Japanese anemones framed by white ones and Michaelmas daisies;

and myrtle

and solanum continue flowering.

Outside the kitchen window, spritely spring poppies emerge alongside ripened sedum,

not far from sprawling autumn crocuses flanked by gauras and geraniums.

This tiny white fuchsia adds variety to the Rose Garden,

and honeysuckle hangs on in there.

Pink is a frequently encountered colour.

The still prolific dahlias Bishop of Llandaff are a richer red, still attracting the bees in their New Bed playground. This whacking great bee bulldozed a smaller boy from this flower with a thumping thud. (I am indebted to Barrie Haynes for correcting the sex of the bullied bee – it is a girl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)

He sloped off to another flower. Comparison of the bees against the similarly sized stamens will demonstrate what a big bully we have.

This evening we dined on beefburgers, mashed potato and swede, and cauliflower cheese. I drank Doom Bar.

A Topsy-Turvy Season

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A wander round the garden in this balmy morning’s light diffused by wandering clouds above raised questions about what season we are enjoying.

An industrious web constructing spider, seeking camouflage in the spent marigold seedpods

must have been confused by the plants’ fresh blooms.

By early evening the predator had moved house and wrapped its dinner.

Like many of our bidens, these have self seeded from hanging baskets and tubs.

The Small White butterflies still light on them and many other plants.

Some of the clusters on this lace cap hydrangea have turned blue.

Several hibiscuses are filled with flowers.

Petunias,

phlox,

fuchsias,

and begonias go on forever.

Others, like these antirrhinums in the Weeping Birch Bed

and alongside the Brick Path, are having a new growth surge.

Pansies and geraniums refuse to cede ground to the autumn crocuses,

and the little orange poppies and persistent lobelias really do think it is spring.

Digitalis cavorts with gaura,

and robins and other little birds swing along with rosa glauca’s hips.

It is difficult at this time to find a view that does not include Japanese anemones. Even here, one glows like a coal in the background shadows beyond the Weeping Birch.

Most of the roses are budding again.

Ballerinas are back on stage,

as are Mum in a Million,

Gloriana,

Flower Power, and many more.

When admiring the view through the urn at the southern end of the Brick Path

I did my best to ignore the fresh pile of cut branches produced yesterday by Aaron, Sean, and Rory while cutting down the grizelinias.

Later this afternoon, Jackie drove us to Steamer Point, between Highcliffe and Mudeford. I will publish photographs tomorrow, because I think I have enough on this post today, and because, for reasons that will become apparent, we plan to return in the morning.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s luscious lamb jalfrezi, and omelette-topped onion rice, with samosas and onion bhajis. I drank more of the Fleurie and Jackie drank Le Héron Gros Manseng 2015.

Our First Open Day

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Last night I had several attempts at photographing Jackie’s garden solar lights. She had one preference; I had another.

Only the brave need indicate their favourite.

Knowing the weather would soon change, I took advantage of the early sunshine to wander around the garden and take a few pictures.

On the front trellis clematis Mrs N. Thompson has joined solanum;

on the edge of the patio fragrant Asiatic lilies blend with petunias;

and poppy plunderers have hind legs like Popeye’s forearms.

We were joined for lunch by Jackie’s two sisters, their husbands, and cousins Pat, Christine, and Olivia.

Jackie laid out the buffet food she had prepared yesterday on the table,

and cooked a marvellous mushroom soup.

After several platefuls, and a fairly wide variety of alcoholic beverages, the sun having emerged after rain, we had a tour of the garden.

Our guests trooped from the patio past the kitchen;

admired the wisteria pergola;

and took the Gazebo Path.

Shelly brought her coffee with her.

Passing Florence at Fiveways

the group admired the Rose Garden;

on her return along the Brick Path Helen paused to savour the scent of Wedding Day.

It seems reasonable to consider this our first Open Day.

Christine and Olivia left early in the evening. Helen, Bill, Shelly and Ron remained a while longer, and Pat stayed the night. ( Actually, I took a chance in posting this before Helen and Bill departed. They also stayed the night ).

We all had a second go at the buffet and beverages.

Lee Van Cleef

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Not only was today wet, but we experienced 40 m.p.h. winds, and it was cold.

The flowers were taking another battering. It was a day for beetles, not for bees.

Thinking that few people would visit the recycling centre today, we transported two bags of green waste there. We were so wrong. The queue was 45 minutes long. Still, we got rid of our clippings and came back with one terra cotta and two stone planters.

Here, therefore, is what Paul Clarke terms a rainy day post. I scanned the next batch of my Streets of London series of colour slides from May 2004.

I couldn’t make my mind up about whether this elegant house in Crane Grove N7 is Georgian or Victorian. Neither, it seems, can the Estate Agent who has it on the RightMove website priced at £1,500,000, and described as period. The period of the inside looks to me like last week.

We are told that Highbury Corner is within walking distance of this home. I zoomed in on the block of flats that had attracted my attention because Arsenal’s championship Year was being celebrated on the top floor.

Even nearer is Digswell Street with its gross graffiti. This lies off the Highbury end of Holloway Road, part of the A1 running North from Highbury Corner. It may, of course, have been cleaned up by now.

Upper Street is a continuation of this major thoroughfare running South.

From Islington we move back to West London in the form of Clifton Gardens W9, in Little Venice, which, I think, was being graced with new street lighting. That is a pretty mature plane tree in the front garden of the building behind the wall.

Clifton Gardens becomes the short stretch of Clifton Road before Maida Vale is reached.

In a basement at that corner Clifton’s restaurant struggled to survive in the 1990s, eventually making way for an Indian restaurant which didn’t last very long. Well, it wouldn’t, being diagonally across the road from the Akash.

I was an occasional visitor to this rather good subterranean eating place with normally excellent wines. John, the proprietor, was keen on the Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword. On learning of my sideline in such puzzles, he would sometimes seek my assistance.

This was in the time when people still smoked in restaurants. I smoked a pipe, but never in a restaurant. John had a ceiling extractor fan which he insisted had been installed for me to smoke my pipe. I did, occasionally when, as often, there were no other customers. The proprietor was prone to relate that Ringo Starr brought his family there on Sundays.

Observant readers will have noticed, the ‘normally’ in the description of the wines. The reason for this is that this is so far the only place where I had had to return a corked bottle. Poor John had to agree, and was rather upset at having served it.

On one memorable occasion a young gentleman behind me was introducing his lady companion to the joys of the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone. This was the trio of low budget films bringing Clint Eastwood to fame as ‘The Man with no Name’. It just happened that I was a fan, and have been known to join in other people’s conversations. I couldn’t resist it. I just had to turn, politely ask if I could add my two pennyworth, and upon being welcomed, observe: ‘Forget Clint Eastwood. Lee Van Cleef is the man’. This made my interlocutor’s day. He agreed entirely. I hopefully thought that with any luck the young woman was amused. I was being rather tongue in cheek of course, but Van Cleef had the looks for the part.

On the opposite corner of Maida Vale, with Hall Road, stands one of the luxurious apartment blocks that line this part of the A5.

Vale Close, just North of this point, is a small private road. Who would place this within a mile of Marble Arch?

For dinner this evening, Jackie produced a wholesome heart casserole, with crunchy carrots, new potatoes and green beans, followed by scones. These latter were eaten like those in traditional West Country cream teas, that is, with clotted cream and strawberry jam. This gave us a problem. These cream teas are native to both Dorset and Devon. The trouble is in one county you put the cream on first, and in the other, the jam. We couldn’t remember which was which, but we did think we might Google it and follow the practice of the county which had supplied our West Country Clotted Cream.

The address of the distributor was in East Kilbride in Scotland.

I put my cream on first. I don’t know which way the Culinary Queen voted.

Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Carles.

The Magic Carpet

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Having spent much of the night watching the BBC’s presentation of the unfolding of the EU referendum, I wasn’t up to much this morning.

I did, however, post my day 5 offering on the Facebook nature series.

This was it. It appeared on my WordPress post Earthworks, of 29th September 2015.

I then occupied myself with dead-heading, and, after lunch, cut off more of the hedge along the back drive. Although there was very little rain, the sun made only fleeting visits, enough to encourage this

determined hoverfly to hitch a ride on the tempest-tossed magic carpet that was a single, clinging, poppy petal. As the insect rode the turbulent waves, not a slither did it make.

As so often, the evening was bright and sunny. We took an amble around the garden.

The rose Wedding Day, a prolific climber, is just coming into bloom on the Agriframes arch.

Also flowering is the rodgersia

that dominates the foreground of this view along the Cryptomeria Bed.

The Dragon Bed and the Head Gardener’s Walk are now both well established.

This evening we dined at Lymington’s Royal China where we received the usual efficient, friendly, service and excellent food, accompanied by Tsingtao beer.

We enjoyed some splendid sunsets overlooking Christchurch Bay on our return via Milford on Sea.

A Dust Bath

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This is the second of my 7 day nature series on Facebook.

It appeared originally in https://derrickjknight.com/2014/04/29/a-fascinating-collage/

When we paid for Country Girl last week, Jackie also bought one of her favoured wrought iron candle holders for use as a planter. It has a screw fitted to adjust the height.

Today, I moved it to the gravelled concrete at the southern end of the garden. This involved moving a pile of bricks from where it now stands, and raking gravel to cover that corner. I had to evict a large number of woodlice, slugs, and, one snail.

Jackie had moved a few of the bricks earlier. Feeling the heat she must have removed her jumper, and slung it over the nearest available hanger, thus providing the Country Girl, now dubbed Florence, with a purple hair extension

The white climber is now making its way up the Agriframes Arch straddling the Brick Path.

The clump of geranium palmatums halfway down that shot draws bees so large that they weigh down the petals to which they cling whilst plundering the nectar.

Those plants are at the corner of the Dead End Path, alongside which a large philadelphus is in bloom.

Other plants attracting bees include poppies (this one also has a beetle)

and linaria.

Bees have shaken off so much pollen in the poppy that much smaller insects avail themselves of the bowl for a dust bath.

What, now, is this nosey creature entering the foxglove?

It’s a mosquito making a bee seem comparatively harmless.

My afternoon tasks including gathering up The Head Gardener’s weeding and clippings, and dead-heading roses, mostly in the Rose Garden where a few clematises like this

Hagley’s Hybrid have been incorporated for variety.

For our dinner this evening Jackie produced a stupendous beef stew with new potatoes. So tasty was this that when offered a choice of more stew, sticky toffee pudding, or more stew and sticky toffee pudding, I opted for more stew. That way, I reasoned, I could eat more. Jackie drank Peroni, and I drank Patrick Chodot Fleurie 2014, except for the glassful I knocked over the table, which was a shame.

The Darling Buds Of May

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Today being drier and a little brighter than yesterday, there were enough glimpses of sunlight to be more conducive to garden photography.

New clematises are emerging daily.

Mostly, as with this Piilu, I am grateful for the identity labels, because they all look so much alike.

Star of India, blends well with geranium palmatum.

Petunias abound;

some share their pots with pansies. The new urns, like this one, are all planted up now. Everywhere, honesty is turning to seed medallions.

Lilacs are in full bloom;

and this tree, that had only one leafing branch when we first arrived, is making a remarkable recovery. New trunks have begun to swallow the original pock-marked member.

A few bees, such as this one plundering an orange poppy

and another burrowing into a somewhat perforated pansy risked getting wet for the good of the hive.

On the edge of the rose garden, a single Altissimo bloom lives up to its name,

For Your Eyes Only burgeons within,

and most other bushes, like Absolutely Fabulous and Special Anniversary, are on the verge of bursting forth the darling buds of May.

This rhododendron

enhances the Grass Patch Bed, at the end of which stands the recovering tree mentioned above.

This pivotal patch can be viewed from the tree peony hiding behind the viburnum plicatum;

from the Dead End Path;

and from the Brick Path.

Elsewhere, sculptural alliums, like these in the Palm Bed, are opening out all over.

For our dinner this evening the Culinary Queen produced pork chops coated in mustard and demerara sugar and topped with almonds; boiled, sautéd, and sweet potatoes; cauliflower and carrots; and peppers, tomato, leek, and onion sauce; followed by bread and butter pudding and custard. She drank Hoegaarden, and I drank Reserve des Tuguets madiran 2012.

A Lost Shadow

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Ronan the Boilerman fitted a new thermostat to our hot water cylinder tank this morning. That means we no longer scald our hands and have to turn on the cold tap every time we want to wash them.

Jackie spent much of the day weeding and planting.

Once The Head Gardener had prepared it, I covered Elizabeth’s bed with compost. It took eight bags.

The gradual burgeoning throughout the garden can be seen, for example, along the Brick Path – and, yes, Jackie has smuggled in another owl since this was las displayed –

and along Margery’s Bed, in the foreground of which a geranium palmatum has pushed its way into the light.

We have varieties of tulip,

including tulipa saxatilis lilac wonder;

daffodil;

and aquilegia.

elegant leaves stretch their fingers out from this Japanese maple.

Pulmonaria crops up everywhere,

attracting equally hirsute bees clutching petals as they suck the nectar.

Butterflies, like this Small White flitting from honesty to honesty, are also back,

as are poppies, one of which, like Peter Pan, has lost its shadow.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice Ferndene Farm Shop chilli pork sausage casserole, mashed potato, carrots and Brussels sprouts, followed by chocolate eclairs. The Cook drank Hoegaarden, whilst I consumed more of the madiran.

Orange Symphony

Kimber’s carpet fitters made an excellent job this morning of installing our new stairs and landing carpet.

Much of the day was spent exchanging e-mails with partners in two different joint projects. One thread was with Paul, who is finalising the flyer for the exhibition at The First Gallery.

Here are a few further suggestions of prints on to be on show. Just for fun I have chosen an orange theme.

This was the gentle overture to 6th April 2015.

This bee burrowed into a crumpled poppy on 23rd September the same year,

and the following day Mamma Mia became bejewelled.

Could this be the same bee on the kniphofia on 28th?

The second exchange of e-mails must remain secret at the moment. It concerns my draft of a post brought about by collaboration with a man I have never met. I await his approval of the text.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s perky paprika pork and exquisite egg fried rice. She drank water and I finished the merlot.