Red Admiral – Page 2 – derrickjknight

A Splendid Morning

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The weather this morning was splendid. The morning was to become more so, with a visit from good friends.

In eager anticipation of the arrival Jackie was out early sweeping the corridors, manicuring the green carpet, refreshing the flowers, and generally tidying up the reception room that is the garden. It seemed only right that I should get out there and help.

Right on time at 11 a.m. Geoff Le Pard arrived with the Textiliste, the Vet, and Dog.

We all sat on the patio with coffee and sparkling water. This is one view across the Kitchen bed.

Everyone then wandered around the garden. Here are a couple of views featuring the Textiliste, a skilled gardener herself.

This was the first bench tried out by Geoff.

Partly for the benefit of our mutual friend, Pauline, the Vet reprised a photo of Geoff and me taken a year ago. Dog wasn’t in the last one. He didn’t get the joke his master and I shared.

The Vet, of course, was, herself, far more worthy of the camera’s attention. Was Dog feigning an ailment in order to obtain a scratch?

The large chimney pots, one of which holds this bidens, were much admired.

Jackie, amused by the photo session,

was soon to be joined by Geoff and Dog on the Nottingham Castle Bench. In the right foreground of this shot is another of the chimney pots.

The opposite corner of the Dead End Path contains this heuchera and these day lilies.

On a final visit to the Rose Garden before we set off for lunch, I spotted a bee slaking its thirst on Summer Wine.

Watched over by an Ogre we all lunched at The Beachcomber Café at Barton on Sea. He seemed to be having as much fun as we were.

Afterwards, Jackie drove me to the Birchfield Dental Practice in New Milton for a clean and check up. All was well.

We arrived back home in time for the televised Wimbledon tennis semi-final between Johanna Konta and Venus Williams.

I then wandered around the garden again, along the Head Gardener’s Walk to the Shady Path

beside the Dragon Bed,

where a glowing begonia shines like a beacon.

A rather tatty Comma butterfly took a rest,

then flitted across to join a Red Admiral in the sunshine.

To the left along the Gazebo Path,

a large cluster of agapanthuses, in different stages of emergence, are bursting from their cases.

This is the trunk of the dead tree that supports solanums and clematises.

In the corner of the Rose Garden beside the orange shed, fuchsia Mrs Popple provides a strong contrast to Lanarth White hydrangea.

Finally, I thought Bruce would like to see how the sweet peas are coming along.

This evening Jackie and I dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips, pickled gherkins and onions. I drank Arborescence Fronton 2016.

From Autumn Leaves to Snowdrops

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Bill Edney had the unenviable task of getting those of us schoolboys at Wimbledon College who could not manage Latin through ‘O’ Level Geography after several terms without a teacher. Today I remembered a different anecdote from that told in the link highlighted above.

Sheep, I know do not like long, lush, grass. How do I know? Because Mr Edney, a bluff countryman, publicly humiliated a classmate by ridiculing him for writing in an essay that sheep “like long, lush, grass”. According to the master they most definitely do not. How were we townies to know that? This lasting intelligence prevented me from seeking ovine assistance on our patch of overgrown grass. Having no sheep, I sheared it myself.

It still looks manky at the moment, but should perk up now the air can get to it.

This exercise exposed the tortoise, removing its hibernation cover.

Close examination of this view along the Heligan Path reveals that

purple crocuses are now emerging.

These paler ones share with snowdrops the shade of hellebores in the Weeping Birch Bed.

During the morning the warm sunshine brought out insects such as bees on hellebores

and on snowdrops;

and a Red Admiral butterfly basking on laurel leaves,

seeking camouflage in autumn leaves,

and slaking its thirst on snowdrops.

This view across the Palm Bed leads to the grass patch.

Jackie spent the morning clearing and thinning areas such as the erigeron clumps by the windows to the living room. This will soon be carpeted once more with daisy-like flowers.

This evening we dined on roast lamb, Jackie’s sage and onion stuffing, sautéed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, carrots, cauliflower, and greens. I finished the Cote du Rhone.

The Butterfly Net

Jackie and I spent the morning weeding whilst Aaron and Robin continued refining their paving. This involves finishing of the ends with brick cut to shape with an angle iron. There are only the central joins left to be completed. We are so fortunate that the proprietor of A.P. Maintenance is such a perfectionist.

We now have several crocosmia blooming.

According to my research, this one is Xcrocosmiiflora. Jackie says it’s ‘common or garden monbretia’;

about Lucifer, there is no doubt.

Jackie grew these marigolds from seed.

‘When did you take that?’ bemoaned The Head Gardener. ‘I dead-headed those this morning’.

The air was positively aflutter with butterflies this afternoon.

Commas abound. Here one seeks camouflage on an echinacea;

as did this Peacock on a dead stump. It kept me waiting, back bent, lens poised, before opening its wings. With these closed, the creature looked just like a crack in the bark.

I think this, on a verbena bonarensis, is a Green-veined White.

Is this poor, battered, Red Admiral a reincarnation of February’s Battle-Scarred example?

I have written before of the penchant of Chris and I, when we were very little boys, for collecting various insects. Between us, my brother and I did not possess a camera, but we did have a butterfly net. Many happy hours were spent, mostly unsuccessfully, dashing around what were, to us, head-high fields, gleefully waving this weapon in the vague direction of the adult versions of the caterpillars that had so horrified our grandmother. What we actually did with the unfortunates we did manage to snare was not meant to be unkind. After all, when we stuffed them into jam jars, we did insert a few leaves and bits of grass, and punctured the lids so that they could breathe. I don’t imagine that these imagos lived out their, albeit brief, natural span. My current collecting is done with a camera.

Anyone driving to us for the first time, is likely to miss the existing sign on the front wall facing directly out onto the road. Jackie has therefore made another that she has fixed to the angled wall so that at least people coming from the direction of Christchurch, can’t miss

If you aren’t interested in cricket, you may prefer to skip the next paragraph. If you are an English cricket fan, you may prefer to skip the next paragraph. If you are an Australian, whether interested in cricket or not, you probably wouldn’t want to skip the next paragraph.

I made the mistake of watching the TV highlights of the second Test match at Lords. Australia had, in their first innings, scored 566 runs for eight wickets. They then bowled England out for 312. Before lunch today, the visitors had taken their overnight second innings score to 254 for 2, at which point they declared their innings closed, leaving England 509 to make in more than a day and a half. Less than five hours later, England were all out for 103. It was nothing short of slaughter.

This evening, Jackie and I shared our hob in producing fried egg, bacon, tomatoes, and mushrooms, baked beans, and toast. We enjoyed the rest of Shelly’s apple pie and cream, with half each of a chocolate mint brought back from the Veranda last night. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and, despite it not being the most suitable accompaniment for a fry-up, I drank Louis de Camponac merlot 2014.

The Golden Touch

On the way through the garden this morning, to continue working on the back drive, I paused to admire Jackie’s two new planters, originally candle-holders from Redcliffe Nursery. They display her usual flair. Turning into the drive, I encountered the trail made by a mole. As this stopped at the site of the bonfire, perhaps last night’s embers were still warm enough to deter it from popping its head out.

Jackie soon joined me and she made good progress pruning the conifers along the side of the fence between us and 5 Downton Lane.

Hampered by wire netting through which grew thick brambles and anumber of trees, I, however, taking the whole morning, covered about two yards. Three hours and a couple of feet separate these two photographs. After that we stopped for lunch.

A little further down, some fine hardy fuchsias form a splendid hedge. They blend well with the blackberries, which we are picking as we go along. Butterflies are enjoying our long summer.

A Red Admiral seemed particularly partial to the blackberries, while the broad shiny leaves of trees we cannot identify bore a Comma and a Speckled Wood.
For variety, I took the longer Downton Lane/coast road route to the shingle beneath Hordle cliff, and returned via Shorefield.

A jelly babies wrapper, linaria vulgaris, lichen, and dandelions, one of which attracted a small cricket, lent golden touches to the hedgerows.

Variations on this hue were provided by rust stains running down from the iron hinge of a beach hut, and by

the tennis ball being held up by a gentleman encouraging four spaniels to pose for their photograph.

It was a day for spaniels, one of whom frolicked with a group of four young women.
This evening we dined at Daniel’s in Highcliffe. We each enjoyed haddock and chips, mushy peas, and onion rings. I drank tea, and Jackie drank coffee.

‘Not Two Peoples…….’

When you wake up at 6 a.m. in an all-electric house to find you have a power cut and cannot make your morning coffee; and you have often passed a cafe in New Milton that professes to open at 6.30, there is only one thing to do. We did it. Dopily, Jackie drove us to Sunny Side Up Cafe. When, on entering, you learn that the big breakfast contains Ferndene Farm Shop sausages, suddenly coffee doesn’t seem enough. Jackie enjoyed her poached egg on toast, but I just had to have the full works.
And I could read about the Test match in yesterday’s Sun. Moeen Ali, permitted by the English Cricket Board to wear wrist bands bearing the legend ‘Save Gaza – Free Palestine’, had been stopped from doing so by the International Cricket Council. Steve Harmison, M.B.E., former England fast bowler has been quoted as saying that the spinner’s action on a cricket field was dangerous. Perhaps so, but Gaza has been an insurmountable problem for generations. Even without being able to unravel the rights and wrongs of the situation, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have made his statement.
Through the cafe window we watched the driver of a huge articulated lorry tidily loosening his load for delivery to Travis Perkins. We had watched him drive past the depot, presumably because he could not negotiate the left turn, and on to the next roundabout where he could backtrack and execute a right turn from our side of the road. Others were queuing, awaiting the store’s opening for their reception. From the top of the pillar box a POST OFFICE sign has been removed. Our home therefore has a shared history with the eating place, as does the Upper Dicker Village Shop, and no doubt many others of our smaller post offices which have been lost.

I took a walk along the maize field and collected more flint stones, completing the head gardener’s path on my return. I blame my Dad for the visual pun, because I thought of him as I peered down a hollow tree branch lodged in the hedgerow. One day when I was very small my father appeared in the doorway with one cardboard centre of a toilet roll held up to each eye, thus forming a pair of makeshift binoculars. Somewhat mystified, I gazed up in amazement.
‘Not two peoples’, said Dad. ‘Two peepholes’. Yabba dabba doo!
He would have been proud of his grandson Matthew’s offering related on 31st August 2012.
Between the tyre tracks on the path alongside the field, bees worked their way along ground covering convolvulus. Back home, another burrowed into a morning glory.
This afternoon I dug up and stacked more of the heavy concrete blocks and a few bricks from the kitchen garden, and Jackie completed her compost wall, then pruned and trained the wisteria.
This evening’s Red Admiral butterfly perched on a solar light, presumably waiting for it to come on in order to enhance its colour. It is of a duller, more orange, variation than, and consequently perhaps envious of, its redder and brighter relative seen yesterday.
We dined on Hordle Chinese Take Away’s delicious offerings. Jackie drank T’sing Tao beer and I finished the Cotes du Rhone.

A Rose For Retirement

Early this morning Jackie resumed a task she had first undertaken more than forty years ago. She cut my hair, thus putting Donna-Marie out of business. Its colour was rather different first time round. The dark bit must be a trick of the light.
After this I placed the beach stones between the slabs in yesterday’s path. There were still not quite enough, and they put those found in the garden somewhat into the shade, so we will probably need a few more, even after I picked up some interesting pieces of flint on my later walk, and inserted them in place on my return.
During a break, Jackie has managed to identify two of the plants that had us beaten. The first is the white flower, libertia, depicted on 28th April; the second had been identified by Tess, but we couldn’t remember the name of the hebe salicifolia koromiko. Like our daughter in law, and so many of our garden treasures, these are both natives of New Zealand.
The day’s major joint task was to start on clearing the kitchen garden in preparation for its transformation into a rose bower. Largely hidden beneath the greenery lie treacherously uneven criss-crossing paths in all sorts of material, mostly brick, stone, and concrete, covering ancient layers of gravel. Any speculation about the evolution of this ankle-twisting surface would be fruitless. This, we have decided, will be the one area where we abandon what we find previously laid down, level it all off, and start from scratch with a sheet of squared paper.
I have begun piling up the paving, apart from the concrete slabs Jackie has snaffled to build a wall with which to restrain the compost.
Jackie has planted up what was the rather barren shady bed opposite the pale blue Ace Reclaim bench. The red rose in the container beneath the Gardman arch was given to her by her work colleagues when she retired from Merton Social Services Department two years ago. It has survived several moves, including overwintering at Shelly and Ron’s.
Later this afternoon, I walked down to Shorefield stream and back. The field opposite the entrance to the Country Park has a fine crop of mare’s tails. The New Forest Tour bus stops at the zebra crossing leading down to the chalets beyond the stream.
I had been hoping to photograph some coots today, but there were none in evidence. I did, however, watch a pigeon doing a high-wire act, and a male small tortoiseshell butterfly sunning itself on a buddleia. Our butterflies, like this male Red Admiral prefer basking on our paving stones to perching on our version of that plant.
We dined on refreshing salad again this evening, followed by strawberries and evap (for the uninitiated this is a family term for evaporated milk) on a bed of Tesco’s raspberry twirl cheesecake. The cheesecake was reduced in price because it was pushing its sell-by date; the evap was reduced in fat content, because it is less likely to fatten the consumer. I drank more of the French cotes du Rhone and Jackie her Belgian beer (Hoegaarden in case you’ve forgotten).

A Chicken And Egg Situation

At last, this morning, the preparation of the new bed was completed. This involved composting the soil and tidying up the edges. I had to fetch bracken compost, having mixed it with horse manure, in several trips with a wheelbarrow; spread the mixture across the recently prepared area; and dig it all in. Having done this, I made a defined trench between the bed and the grass with a hand trowel. A thrush which had obviously been watching me, waited until I sat down, then hopped into the trench and began to pull up and consume worms and other creatures. Had it been the robin, he would, no doubt, have done his foraging under my feet. The thrush, being a more timid bird, waited until the coast was clear.

Jackie continued with her planting and weeding. She also changed the location of plants which were not thriving because of the nature of the soil, or the amount of sun or shade they were subject to.

After lunch we sat with Elizabeth on the benches by what will become the scented bed, and marvelled at the range of insects swarming on the Joe Pye Weed, which is a variant of Hemp Agrimony. Apparently Red Admirals use it for breeding on. This cluster has also a number of different flies, bees, and butterflies. I had never knowingly seen a hoverfly before today.

After this, Jackie and I went shopping in Sainsbury’s for some of the ingredients for tonight’s meal.

We then went to visit Mum for a while. She is getting about better now, although she still needs two sticks.

Jackie had bought some samosas yesterday, which I forgot about until she reminded me as we were about to start eating tonight’s Jalfrezi. That didn’t go down too well, especially as Elizabeth, Danni, and I opted to continue drinking Lussac St. Emilion, which we had been consuming whilst I cooked, rather than the Kingfisher Jackie had bought especially. Jackie stuck with the Kingfisher. The vegetable samosas themselves, however, did go down well, as we ate them before the sweets which consisted of blackberry and apple crumble made by Jackie, or apple tart made by the supermarket.

Being an avid reader of these posts, Danni was rather disappointed to discover yesterday what she was going to be eating this evening. She prefers to read about the Knight/Keenan meals after the event. In explaining why we had eaten the same meal two night’s running, I had given her advance notice. Sadly, she knew that tonight we would be consuming chicken Jalfrezi, and that therefore there would be no culinary news to read about. But I could not leave my niece in her unhappy state. And I could not produce a wholly different meal. It seemed logical to add boiled eggs to the dish, thus transforming it in a perfectly legitimate manner.

Now, Danni, whenever anyone poses the old conundrum about which came first, the chicken or the egg, you will always have a ready answer.