This morning Jackie drove us to Ringwood where we had a successful shop. We even secured a parking space quite near Sainsbury’s. The place is very busy, so we usually have to leave the car some distance away. 
The encased poster welcoming visitors to this historic market town, wore an earring. A helpful finder had tucked it between the wooden frame and the perspex covering. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you will be able to read about the town and check whether it is your earring.
There is a very car user friendly system of charging for parking in the New Forest towns. You can buy a very reasonably priced cardboard adjustable clock, and have fun turning the dial to indicate your arrival time. You then display it on your windscreen. It gives you three hours parking in all but the most frequented beach settings. The idea is to enable shoppers to shop, rather than offer a cheap option to those who have come for a day at the seaside.
Back home, the idyllic nature of our environment was slightly dented. Waste disposal and vandalism seem somewhat problematic. We have a well-made fenced and gated area where we are to place our bin bags. These are black for normal refuse, and clear for recyclable material. To the left as you enter the enclosure is a sign on the wall stating that that side is for black bags. To the right, one for clear bags. Someone in this building is regularly using clear bags for household refuse and placing it with other people’s black ones. We run out of the council-supplied black ones sooner than the clear ones. We then buy our own black ones and use those. Presumably the miscreants have also run out of black bags and not thought of buying their own. The bin men are not having any of it. They only remove the black ones, leaving the clear ones to accumulate. There seems to be a silent stand-off in progress.
A little more difficult to comprehend is the matter of dog refuse. Outside the bin enclosure this morning lay a small plastic bag most likely containing animal excreta, two heaps of which currently lie, unbagged, on our immaculately tended lawns.
The aforementioned shit looks more like that of a canine than a cervine variety. There are currently no obvious deer droppings in the garden, although it appears that our tamer grown up Bambi has indulged in a little wanton vandalism. Jackie’s favourite fuchsia – photographed in its splendour on 10th August – on our return, lay broken on the ground outside the kitchen. Since the table on which it stands was beside it, it is unlikely that wind was the culprit. Jackie has fingered the deer.
As I sat drafting this post, I could hear a dull banging. It was a windy day, so I went in search of an open window, and found a splendid one on the mezzanine landing above our bathroom. The securing bolt was loose, so I tightened it. Soon after that I had to change a light bulb, which in our main room involves climbing to the top of a set of steps, standing on the platform thereon, and praying the defunct bulb will come out without too much resistance. I was lucky. If I’d had to have used any sort of two- handed force, precariously perched as I was, the offending article would have become dislodged all of a sudden and I would have spun round and wobbled all over the place. Possibly with disastrous consequences.
For our evening meal I stuck battered haddock and chips in the oven for the required lengths of time; the contents of a tin of mushy peas in the microwave for rather fewer minutes; extracted three different jars of cornichons and one of pickled onions from the cupboard; wheeled it all to the dining table and served it up. I drank Cimarosa Pedro Jimenez 2012. Jackie didn’t feel like it, which was a shame, because it was a little on the sweet side for me and I think she would have enjoyed it.
