Tag: raindrops

Freshened Up

Before lunch I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/08/17/a-knights-tale-149-farewell-to-sigoules/

Afterwards Jackie and Dillon transported many of our bags of garden refuse to the recycling centre, just avoiding the heavy shower that descended and

refreshed the garden plants which I later photographed as a weak sun attempted to pierce the cloud cover.

Elizabeth visited bringing some garments for Flo. After a lengthy conversation between all five of us Jackie and my sister collected Mr. Pink’s fish and chips which we ate with pickled onions and cucumbers. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, Elizabeth, Barossa Valley Shiraz, Flo and Dillon, Ribena, and I, La Virile Ferme white wine 2021.

Presenting The Albums

It is almost two months since last we saw a puddle in the gutter alongside our front drive.

After fairly steady rain for most of the morning one built up for a brief appearance (by midday it had drained away). Jackie just had to photograph

it with its raindrop rings; a lesser pool on the patio; further fountain ripples;

more precipitation on pelargoniums, petunias, begonias, hollyhocks and Hagley hybrid clematis.

I, in the meantime finished reading V. S. Naipaul’s ‘A Way in the World’ and, after lunch, posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/08/16/a-way-in-the-world/

This afternoon, dropping Flo and Dillon off in Lymington, we met Karen and Barry at the Community Centre where we handed them

their completed wedding albums. Jackie took these photographs.

Our friends gave us a thank you card bearing a fond message and a splendid picture someone else had produced of the confetti moment; with tokens for afternoon tea at Rosie Lea, which has become one of our favourite venues.

As we made our farewells Flo and Dillon rejoined us and we did some shopping in the town before returning home.

This evening we dined on a variety of flavoursome sausages; creamy mashed potatoes; firm carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli; cabbage fried with leaks, and tasty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I finished the Bordeaux, and Flo and Dillon drank Ribena.

Focus On The Windscreen

Nick Hayter visited this morning to assess the post-refurbishment decorating work he is to undertake. We enjoyed his usual pleasant conversation.

The unconsolable skies shed continuous profuse tears throughout the afternoon, which we began with a trip to the Lymington Post Office collection office to claim a parcel undelivered because of a shortage of £2 in postage. The good news was that there was no queue. The bad news was that the office was closed. I took an alternative option which was to stick the extra postage on the back of their card and post it back to them.

We then drove into the forest to make

a record picture of the lake at Pilley which is avidly collecting more liquid sustenance. I chose not to walk round to the other side for that view since I was already feeling a drip.

While waiting for a train at the Lymington level crossing I had plenty of time to focus on the windscreen.

Perhaps it is the intensity; perhaps the consistently fast pace; perhaps the comparative shortness; perhaps the bloodthirstiness of the historical context of Charles Dickens’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ that renders it apparently the most widely read of the master’s novels, in which there is no room for his customary dry wit, and little for his comic turns.

Later this afternoon I finished reading the work which becomes impossible to put down; and scanned the last four of Charles Keeping’s perfectly matched illustrations to my Folio Society 1985 edition.

‘ ‘Hope has quite departed from my breast’ ‘

‘He spoke with a helpless look straying all around’

‘Miss Pross seized her round the waist and held her tight’

‘She kisses his lips; he kisses hers’

This evening we dined on double egg and chips with sausages and baked beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Comté Tolosan Rouge.

A Mis-sold Cousin

Among this morning’s reminiscences is the tale of the mis-sold cousin. Becky told us about the announcement that she had a new cousin who was a girl. This was Alex, a few years younger. Our daughter was very young herself, but old enough to look forward to having someone new to play with, because she was surrounded by boys in the form of her brother Mathew and various other cousins.

When introduced to the two week old baby, Becky was so disappointed and remembers thinking “what can I do with that?”. Today she expressed the humorous view that this was a case of mis-sold goods.

After a tour of the garden on another drizzly day, Becky and Ian returned home this afternoon. These images include dahlias; a deep red gladiolus; three different views of the Pond Bed; hanging basket petunias alongside Japanese anemones; hanging basket lobelias, bidens, and petunias beside double lilies; hibiscus; roses; white sweet peas; mostly white planting on Dead End Path; yellow and orange crocosmias; raindrops on calibrachia and pelargoniums; and, finally, another lily.

Later, I published https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/21/a-knights-tale-20-no-mod-cons/

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent cottage pie; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and tender chopped cauliflower leaves, with which Jackie drank more of the Sauvignon Blanc and Tess and I drank Papa Figos Douro 2019 which she had brought with her.

A Forest Walk

During this pleasantly sunny morning, I was mostly dead heading while Jackie continued with her general garden maintenance.

After lunch I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/08/07/a-knights-tale-12-the-night-of-the-panther/

We had been promised light showers for the afternoon, and this is how it began, so my Chauffeuse drove me to the Rhinefield Ornamental Drive and parked in one of the designated car parks while I took a walk. The rain kept coming, but it was mild and sporadic enough for me to set off for twenty minutes each way, crunching along a gravel path and pine cones carpeting the forest floor

through the majestic giant redwoods and their neighbours

some of which, having fallen, would take their time returning to the soil. In answer to Yvonne comment below, I have discovered that “Managing forest land often generates lots of woody branches, pieces of trees and other loose woody material — slash in other words — from tree harvesting or thinning. While many landowners and managers look upon this material as a disposal dilemma, it also is a rich, and frequently overlooked, opportunity for to enhance wildlife habitat. Arranging slash materials into piles can provide birds, mammals and other wildlife in the forest with the food, water, space and cover they need.” (https://washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/not-just-another-stack-of-dead-branches-habitat-piles-for-wildlife/)

I believe Forestry Commission volunteers make the stacks we see.

At first there were many other groups of walkers taking a similar route.

This was to change in a moment, as quiet adult voices and shrill cries of children were drowned by the increasing crescendo of pattering precipitation misting the trees,

puddling the path, and running down my specs and my camera lens.

This was at my turn round point and continued, soaking me to the skin beneath my allegedly showerproof jacket, until my mud-spattered sandals, sans socks, reached the car. Just one family of three passed me in the rush to get out of the rain. The mother informed me that she had wet pants. “Is that all?” was my reply.

With all fresh ingredients, Jackie repeated yesterday’s menu for dinner tonight, with which we drank the same beverages.

Battered, Bedraggled, Bejewelled

I began a thoroughly wet morning by posting: https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/27/a-knights-tale-5-that-heady-optimistic-summer/

During the afternoon the rain eased off and I wandered round the garden with my camera, photographing

battered, bedraggled, and bejewelled blooms, each of which is separately titled in the gallery.

Later, I read more of Charles Dickens’s ‘David Copperfield’ and scanned four more of Charles Keeping’s inimitable illustrations.

‘The younger sister appeared to be the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand’

‘The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand’

‘Kneeling down together, side by side’

‘Jip lay blinking in the doorway of the Chinese House, even too lazy to be teased’

This evening we dined on an excellent takeaway meal from Red Chilli with which Jackie drank more of the Rosé and I drank more of the Shiraz. Mrs Knight enjoyed her sag triple: namely bhaji, paneer, and chicken; as I did my Naga Chilli Lamb, special fried rice, and plain paratha. There is enough left over for tomorrow.

Dank

During the morning of this decidedly dank day Jackie worked on tidying the lawn and its surrounding borders, while I did something similar in the front garden, cleared up debris and fed the compost bins front and back.

Just in time for lunch a downpour sent us indoors. The Head Gardener left her tools outside, so, when I took advantage of a drier period to wander around with my camera, I gathered them up and deposited them in the greenhouse.

A hoverfly wasn’t too bothered about the raindrops on clematis Mrs N. Thompson; other clematises, nasturtiums, Black-eyed Susan, angels wings and day lilies were similarly bejewelled.

Various hanging baskets and other containers are flourishing, well stocked with petunias, lobelias, begonias, and more. Beside the vertical picture of Alan Titchmarsh, deep red Love Knot and lighter hued red carpet rose, are portraits of Ernest Morse and the climber Super Elfin. We have encouraged the honeysuckle to infiltrate the Back Drive from the garden of the adjacent care home. The purple and white Delta’s Sarah is in the patio bed.

Five more chapters read of Charles Dickens’s novel, David Copperfield, carry five more of Charles Keeping’s superb illustrations to my Folio Society edition.

‘She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck’

In ‘We stand around the grave’ the artist chooses to place the burial party in the distance.

‘Away we went on our holiday excursion’

The figures in the foreground, bursting out of the frame of ‘I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed’ give a typical perspective to Keeping’s street scenes.

Note the artist’s trademark dog in ‘There was a very long-legged young man, with a very little empty donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk’

This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s hot and spicy pasta arrabbiata with full, firm, and tender green beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the especially smooth Rioja.

The wind is whipping up, reminding us that tomorrow afternoon we will need to batten down the hatches in the usual manner in preparation for the gale expected to strike early the next morning.

A Dreich Dundee Day

Cowering trees swayed before the breath of the Big Bad Wolf raging overhead huffing and puffing in his attempts to blow down little pigs’ houses; pattering trotters tripped across the roof; bejewelled yet disconsolate blooms bent their weeping heads; precipitate rivulets raced down the window panes, as we awoke to a pleasantly cooler bedroom breeze succeeding last night’s heavy humidity.

Jackie braved an early supermarket shop in this weather, which did not desist throughout the day, so

apart from those photographs produced during a brief period while I was unloading the shopping and soaking my shower-proof coat anyway,

the rest of these rain-spattered images were gained through panes of glass. As usual, individual titles may be gleaned by clicking on any image to access either of the galleries.

Elizabeth joined us for tonight’s dinner which consisted of Jackie’s succulent cottage pie; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender cabbage, and meaty gravy, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and my sister and I drank Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2020.

Rippling Reflections

Dark, brooding, precipitating skies were occasionally brightened today by suddenly, briefly, escaping sunshine. The opposite was also true, on the trip we took into a waterlogged forest after purchasing three bags of compost at Ferndene Farm Shop.

I left the car when Jackie parked on the verge of the Thorney Hill end of Burley Road. My intention was to take a shot from the top of the hill of the waterlogged landscape stretching out below. A pair of siren mallards called me from a winterbourne lake some way down. Before I reached them the ducks had disappeared; dark indigo clouds loured overhead; pattering raindrops washed my hair; my woollen jacket took on the aroma of wet sheep; and I craved automatic wipers for my blurry specs.

As Magnus Magnusson on TV’s ‘Mastermind’ would have said, I thought, “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. I was wet, anyway. I failed to photograph the downhill expanse, but

I did capture raindrops sending ripples over the surface of the downhill running streams and the reflective pools that had been created by the recent days’ and last night’s storms. The forest fauna, more sensible than I, kept well under cover somewhere.

This afternoon Jackie planted a vast number of seedlings into nursery pots in the greenhouse and together we carried the

rusted Ace Reclaim bench to the concrete patio where it will provide a platform for larger planters.

This evening we dined on tangy lemon chicken; moist chilli-spiced ratatouille; tender green beans; and boiled new potatoes, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Recital.

4 P. M. Watershed

On a very dull and wet morning we visited Mum at Woodpeckers. As usual, we had to be separated by a screen in which Jackie is reflected. In the second picture here my mother indicates where she recently had her second, painless, Covid vaccination.

It was not until 4 p.m. that the rain desisted and the sun put in an appearance.

Then I put down my book and took up my camera to look round the garden where sparkling precipitation prevailed, mostly on hellebores, and additionally on the amanogawa cherry blossom, camellia and others. Euphorbia, daffodils, primroses and the lichen flower on the Nottingham Castle bench are also pictured.

This evening we dined on Hunter’s Chicken Kiev; oven chips; and baked beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Dao.