River Thames – derrickjknight

Head To Head

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A patch of mostly dull and cold weather is giving me ample reasons for continuing with the scanning of the negatives of the long walk of the rather hot July of 2003. Today we are again back on the River Thames in South Oxfordshire.

Couples walking 7.03

This was still near enough to normal civilisation for elderly couples to be out walking along the banks.

If there were any footpaths on this stretch, they lay beneath the ripeness of Summer requiring negotiation, in the form of wild flowers attracting bees; grasses in seed; plantains trip over; broad backlit leaves bearing shadows of other floral forms; and convovulous carrying tiny beetles.

Convolvulus reflected 7.03

One of the latter plants trailed over the river, reflecting on the murky water.

Derelict hut 7.03

An avian trio perched on the coping stones of a derelict shed in need of replacement tiles;

a pair of peacocks entered into head to head negotiations;

Mallard and ducklings

a mallard paddled along ahead of her imprinted offspring;

Swans and cygnets

and a pair of swans introduced their cygnets to further reaches of the Thames.

Sheep and farm buildings 7.03

A flock of sheep grazed alongside what I took to be farm buildings of some sort.

The sun-baked natural world disregarded the two young men taking a leisurely row along the sleepy waters, passing a dangerous-looking weir, and negotiating a narrow lock.

Here, at home, dusk this evening lent a dramatic air to the looming skull of the virtually gutted North Breeze next door.

Shelly and Ron gave me a couple of very good Blason du Rhone Chateauneuf-du-Pape 2015 wines for Christmas. I drank a glass this evening with Jackie’s excellent chicken jalfrezi, and aromatic pilau rice, served with vegetable samosas. My lady finished the Coquimbo.

Tales From The River Bank

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BT excelled themselves today. Readers will remember that on 18th December I had cancelled my useless Broadband package, and retained the landline, having to create a new account to include £5 per month to keep my e-mail address. I was told that this new account would be in my name. Even though the payment has come out of my bank account for years they have never been willing to substitute my name for that of Mrs Stockley, who is in any case now, once again, Mrs Knight.

The latest bill still includes the full package, so I went through the hoops and the wait to speak to a man with an Indian accent. He was very helpful. He assured me that there would be a refund on the next bill. But. That is still in the name of Mrs Stockley. It cannot be changed. I politely expressed my displeasure. Eventually the gentleman told me it could be changed at the cost of £50. I hit the roof, and demanded that this be lodged as a formal complaint. It took him a while, but he returned saying he had done so, and included something to compensate for the ineffective Broadband. A manager will call me back within 48 hours. We will see.

Believe it or not, British Gas then capped this. I received, in the post, a bill for almost £700, including a sum of more than £650 I had paid by phone on 11th. I telephoned them. I went through more hoops. And another wait. I learned that the payment, like many others, had not gone through, because of a fault in their system. I was advised to check with my bank that this was so. I expressed displeasure at having to do this. The woman at British Gas offered to call me back in 20 minutes to check. My bank statement confirmed what she had said. She did ring me back. I paid the money and advised her that a simple letter of explanation enclosed with the bill would have been in the interests of customer service – something that her company could well do with.

Later, I decided to go on a long walk. Not, this time, literally. The trip was undertaken in July 2003 in a supportive fundraising effort for the epic row Sam was to undertake the following year. I have featured various anecdotes from the walk, the first appearing in ‘Nettle Rash’, before I had unearthed the negatives. I began to scan them today.

Sam took delivery of the specially designed rowing boat at Henley on Thames, and off we set on a fine Summer’s afternoon around the time of my 61st birthday. He and his friend James took the boat, whilst I walked along what I had hoped would be the footpath. I soon discovered that the banks of the River Thames and the Oxford Union canal were not as smooth and foliage free as that branch of London’s Regent’s Canal alongside which I had trained for the event.

Couple on riverbank 7.03

The stretch along which I followed this couple was plain sailing in comparison with what I had to battle through in the post highlighted above.

Lock gate 7.03

Elderly lock gates, green tresses dripping with possibly unsavoury water, were to be a regular feature of the journey. This was quite useful, as it gave me an opportunity to catch up.

Waterfowl 7.03

Waterfowl were plentiful;

Suckling goat 7.03

a woolly goat, or perhaps a sheep, suckled its young;

Riders

slightly older horse riders ambled leisurely along;

Lichen 7.03

and yellow ochre lichen clung to knobbly branches.

Bridge

Numerous bridges were to be negotiated.

This house is one of those in which I enjoyed a peaceful overnight stay. The story of the most notable exception is told in ‘An Uncomfortable Night’.

These fields were probably located in the vicinity of the above house.

This evening, over dinner, we experienced more of faceless moneymakers’ scant regard for customer service. Our meal was taken at The Raj in Old Milton. On this Saturday night the carpark was virtually empty and, although the restaurant was doing brisk takeaway business, we were the only diners. The first thing we noticed was that, entering the parking area as usual we found ourselves passing through no entry sign. Then came the frequent notices stating that parking at any time, was only permitted for 20 minutes and anyone overstaying would be charged £100. Jackie parked in the street outside and I spoke to the manager. Apparently, with no warning whatever to the row of shops fronting the parking area, the landlord of some of the buildings has implemented the restriction. Many of the outlets, including The Raj, are freeholders who bought their buildings with free parking included. The first owners of the Raj building did so in 1962. There are two other caterers in the block. None of their customers could eat and leave in 20 minutes. All the occupants of the block have joined in making a legal protest.

Jackie chose chicken sag; I chose king prawn khata; we shared a plain paratha and special fried rice, and both drank Cobra beer.

Paddling Along The Thames Part One

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Norman 6.4.02

Given his abiding interest in Paddle Steamers, it was only to be expected that my friend Norman should celebrate his 70th birthday,

by hiring the Viscount to give all his friends a boat trip to remember. In the second of these images, Norman greets the guests as they embark. Today I scanned this batch of colour negatives from 6th April 2002.

We were offered a waterborne view of The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The last of these images contains the queue of people walking along Westminster Bridge to visit the coffin of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, whose body was lying in state. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about

‘Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was the wife of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. She was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from her husband’s accession in 1936 until his death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother,^[2] to avoid confusion with her daughter. She was the last Empress of India.

Born into a family of British nobility, she came to prominence in 1923 when she married the Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. The couple and their daughters embodied traditional ideas of family and public service.^[3] She undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance.^[4]

In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became king when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth then became queen. She accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of the Second World War. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. In recognition of her role as an asset to British interests, Adolf Hitler described her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”.^[5] After the war, her husband’s health deteriorated and she was widowed at the age of 51. Her elder daughter, aged 25, became the new queen.

From the death of Queen Mary in 1953 Elizabeth was viewed as the matriarch of the British royal family. In her later years, she was a consistently popular member of the family, even when other members were suffering from low levels of public approval.^[6] She continued an active public life until just a few months before her death at the age of 101, seven weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.’

As we steamed under that bridge guests were already happily mingling.

St Paul’s Cathedral stood proud along the embankment. It was in this place of worship that Norman had been ordained some years before.

Blackfriar's Railway Bridge

Soon we arrived at Blackfriar’s Railway Bridge,

beyond which we reached the recently reopened Millennium Bridge, known by Londoners as the Wobbly Bridge, and beyond this Southwark Bridge.

This extract from Wikepedia’s entry on the Millennium Bridge explains how it acquired its epithet:

‘The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, is a steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing the River Thames in London, linking Bankside with the City of London. It is located between Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge. It is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Construction began in 1998, and it initially opened in June 2000.

Londoners nicknamed the bridge the “Wobbly Bridge” after pedestrians felt unexpected swaying motion. The bridge was closed later on opening day, and after two days of limited access, it was closed for almost two years while modifications were made to eliminate the motion. It reopened in 2002.’

Beyond Southwark Bridge lies the famous Tower Bridge, near which is moored H.M.S. Belfast.

Wikipedia tells us this about the museum ship:

‘HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy, currently permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London, England, operated by the Imperial War Museum.

Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. She was launched on St Patrick’s Day 1938. Commissioned in early August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast was initially part of the British naval blockade against Germany. In November 1939, Belfast struck a German mine and spent more than two years undergoing extensive repairs. Belfast returned to action in November 1942 with improved firepower, radar equipment, and armour. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944, Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. In June 1945, Belfast was redeployed to the Far East to join the British Pacific Fleet, arriving shortly before the end of the Second World War. Belfast saw further combat action in 1950–52 during the Korean War and underwent an extensive modernisation between 1956 and 1959. A number of further overseas commissions followed before Belfast entered reserve in 1963.

In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast‘s expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. A joint committee of the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Ministry of Defence were established and then reported in June 1968 that preservation was practical. In 1971, the government decided against preservation, prompting the formation of the private HMS Belfast Trust to campaign for her preservation. The efforts of the Trust were successful, and the government transferred the ship to the Trust in July 1971. Brought to London, she was moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978. A popular tourist attraction, Belfast receives over a quarter of a million visitors per year.^[8] As a branch of a national museum and part of the National Historic Fleet, Belfast is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, admissions income, and the museum’s commercial activities. The ship was closed to visitors following an accident in November 2011 and re-opened on 18 May 2012.’

Tower of London and St Paul's

Beyond Tower Bridge, St Paul’s still dominates the horizon.

Soon we passed another paddle steamer, the Dixie Queen, a luxury party boat; and the Tower of London.

I would have been very remiss had I not photographed Oliver’s Wharf and made a print for my grandson Oliver. The Victorian Web has this to say about this building on Wapping High Street:

‘Oliver’s Wharf. F. & H. Francis. 1869-70. Wapping, London E1. Built for George Oliver “in the Tudor gothic style, this wharf handled general cargo but had special facilities for tea” (Craig et al. 45). Bought for redevelopment in 1972, it was the first warehouse in Wapping, and one of the first of all the old warehouses, to be converted into housing, yielding twenty-three very expensive luxury flats. It has been described as “the most architecturally sophisticated warehouse” in its street (Williamson et al. 228).

I made many images of this event, and will continue the story in due course.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips with pickled onions and gherkins.

Birthday Girl

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Today’s rainy day post begins with this morning’s scanning of some 1983 and 1984 black and white negatives.

In ‘Across One Bridge And Under Another’ I published a colour photograph of Matthew on the bank of The River Thames at Putney with his driftwood find. This was towards the end of 1983. Here are some more of that trip:

The railway bridge can be seen behind the road one,

across which still runs the number 14 bus taking in Putney Heath, Fulham, South Kensington, Piccadilly Circus and Warren Street Station. 24 hour service.

Matthew was in his element digging around in the bank of the Thames at low tide.

Here he is with Sam in tow,

taking a pause to discuss finds with another mudlark.

Exposure of this film was completed at the beginning of 1984, on the occasion of friend Tony’s marriage to Liz.

Outside the venue in, I think, Chelmsford, was a thriving greengrocer’s,

haunted by the ghost of Sigmund Freud.

Given that today is Becky’s birthday, it is perhaps fitting that she features in the next few frames, including

two in the car park,

and two preparing for the reception.

My next task was to make Jackie a set of 5″ x 7″ prints of the photographs from Poppy’s last visit.

This evening, to celebrate Becky’s birthday, we dined with her and Ian at Dynasty in Brockenhurst. My choice of main meal was king prawn Ceylon and special fried rice. Jackie and I shared an egg paratha and we all shared onion bahjis. Becky drank red wine, and the rest of us, Kingfisher.

Reflections

Jackie drove me to and from New Milton station today, for me to lunch with Norman at The Archduke. He and I both enjoyed the sweet potato soup starter and the chicken escalope with chips. Norman went on to pecan pie. We shared a bottle of Sicilian shiraz.

The quill-like image on the windscreen of a parked car at New Milton was formed from reflections of the Masonic Hall, and its fence, situated opposite. Nearby, I picked up a bag of 70 Sparaxis tricolour corms. We had to look them up, and learned that they are gaudy, and should be planted in the autumn for spring flowering. I doubt that that will save a trip to any of the garden centres that Jackie frequents.

On the taxi Approach Road to Waterloo Station, a multi-storey cycle rack bears witness to the number of people who must bring their bikes up on the train. Or perhaps they cycle into the capital for work.

Before meeting Norman, I climbed the South Bank steps and peered at the River Thames from beneath the railway arches, a wall alongside which was decorated by a line of figures in a naive art style. The artist may be disappointed to learn that iPhoto only asked me to name the brunette with the red mouth, clearly not recognising the others as people.

It was a dull day, enlivened by the music of busker Scott McMahon, who gave me his e-mail address so that I could send him a copy of this photograph. He has a vibrant voice and a pleasant personality.

Multicoloured hangings proclaiming LOVE, like the one behind Scott, were affixed all around, their hues reflected in strident barriers protecting work in progress. These screens blended well with the parasols of the as yet unpatronised Strada restaurant, and gave a certain jaundiced tinge to passers-by.

Other pedestrians were, as usual, reflected in the three-dimensional rectangular structure I take to be sculptural, that stands at the corner of Sutton Walk. The fact that even the material from which this is constructed is not graffiti-proof confirms that the woman in the red jacket is part of the reflection.

Fellow blogger, arlingwoman, on learning that I was reading Robert Frost’s poems, assured me that I would enjoy them. How right she was. With uncomplicated, descriptive, language, particularly in the longer, narrative, poems, Frost moves seamlessly through straightforward observation to basic truths. These anecdotes, sometimes in the form of a dialogue, are written in the racy, sometimes vernacular, style of the countryman that the poet undoubtedly was. He writes of the weather, farm work and its implements, flowers, trees, animals, birds, and insects in a detailed, spare, manner, with an ease that belies his skilful craftsmanship; and clearly relishes the shelter and security that a home provides from the elements. As he ages, he reflects more on the human condition and its lifespan.

I have read widely all my life. As I closed my book, finished on the train, I reflected on the fact that I had left meeting such a man until now. My edition is of The Folio Society’s selection enhanced by Jonathan Gibbs’s illustrations, small examples of which grace the boards of the book.

I was back home early enough to photograph our eucalyptus flowers.

Can any of my antipodean friends specify the variety?

Our fearless little starling chicks, their pink pelican-like throats expanding and contracting beneath their buff baby fluff, poke their heads out of their cave, shouting for their food. Their more wary parents, when we are about, fly off again, their children’s dinner in their beaks.

The babies are already looking remarkably intelligent, even quizzical; and jostling for position on their balcony.

Our evening meal consisted of cheese, onion, and mushroom omelette and baked beans.

Bags

I began the day with a wander round the garden in the morning light. Jackie has been steadily working away at the creation of her open air gardener’s shed. This is what it looks like at the moment:
As she walked under the weeping birch she came alongside the growing log pile that I will eventually saw up for the wood burning stove.
We have now reached the stage where we have clear views all across the garden. I amused myself by taking a photograph from each of our five seating areas. What you can see depends on the direction your chair is facing, but I satisfied myself with just one in each case. Perhaps I will make a set in the evening light quite soon.
Before driving me to New Milton for the London train, Jackie took us to Ferndene Farm Shop where we bought three large bags of Violet Farm Compost, and deposited them at home.
On the station a couple were waiting for the arrival of our train, ten minutes late, because they had left their bags on it and were hoping to find them. Presumably they had been travelling from London and trusted that their belongings would be transported back after having reached its destination. Another unfortunate young man boarded the train at Winchester, dashed back to the door as the closing beeps were sounding, jumped off, and didn’t make it back. His friends said he had left one of his bags on the platform.
The buddleia has been described as the railway plant. This is because our lines are riddled with it, as seen through the window on the approach to Basingstoke.
The train had lost another ten minutes by the time we reached Waterloo, just allowing me to take my usual walk to Carol’s, along the side of the Thames where the sun glinted on the wavelets, and, in the shade of the embankment wall, the produce of ice cream vendors was being avidly devoured.
After the usual pleasantly stimulating conversation with my friend, I took the customary transport back to New Milton, where my carriage awaited. Jackie drove me home and fed me on a luscious liver casserole, with crisp vegetables and boiled potatoes. She tells me that different stages of the cooking were interspersed with gardening activities, but there was in my meal no trace of privet or any other plant except for the bay leaf which was there by design.

Where Did That Come From?

This morning I delved into the archives of black and white negatives. Firstly, I made three more prints for Norman, of his photographs for the book he is working on. He had not been happy with the first versions of these; two he considered too dark; and in one I had undeniably snipped the stern off the ship. I couldn’t understand why I had unwittingly cropped this picture. After a few more efforts at printing from iPhoto I remembered that this method does have that unfortunate effect. That we had discovered when engaged in our card factory. It took me a while to work it out again, but I did. And wrote it all down. Had I referred back to the Clipped Wings post of last August before I began to wrestle with the problem, I could have saved myself some time.

Having completed the task for my friend, I turned to my own unsorted negatives. Next in line for my attention were some rather atmospheric shots of the banks of the Thames from about 1982. Apart from their displaying scenes that the developments of the next thirty years would change forever, they also show either a remarkably rapid feat of building or a miraculous appearance.
I haven’t studied these pictures in the intervening years, and if I made prints of them they have vanished. Since, however, they are still on the strip of Ilford film, I know the order in which I took the photographs, and have repeated it here. The second image down, provides the mystery. Examine the Booth’s Gin building. Then look at it in the next two.
Or maybe it is just a matter of perspective.

Michael was almost sixteen when, in 1980, the year of Sam’s birth, we moved to Gracedale Road in Streatham from Horse and Dolphin Yard in Soho. In his earlier teens Michael had been Soho’s only newspaper boy. At seventeen, he graduated to becoming the relief manager for the chain of newsagents, Rippon’s, from one of whose shops in Dean Street he had delivered the papers. When he was given the peripatetic job, he had bought himself a Yamaha motorbike for transport between the branches spread London-wide.

As soon as Sam was big enough, probably three years later, he would mount the steed and imagine he was driving it off into the unknown. Here he is in the street outside our house.

The buddleia in the garden is now attracting a variety of butterflies. Here are a pair of peacocks.

Early this evening I walked along Hordle Lane as far as the paddock and back. Horses wear protective masks to keep the flies off, but still have to use their tails as whisks.

The cow parsley in the verges has run to seed and now looks quite sculptural. Kenneth Clark in his study of ‘The Nude’ likens the classical ideal human figure to architectural forms. Perhaps all our creations take inspiration from nature.

The barley in the fields along the way is coming on nicely.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s divine sausage casserole (recipe) with crisp vegetables and smooth mashed potato garnished with our own chives from the garden. I received four bay leaves, this time not a source of embarrassment. Dessert was mixed fruit crumble and custard. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, while I began Villa Blanche 2013, an excellent Pinot Noir given to me for my birthday by Helen and Bill.

The Hat

A comment from Becky on yesterday’s post prompted me to delve back into my photographic archives, and scan three more ancient colour slides.
In June 1971, we went on a family holiday with Ellie and Roger Glencross to their cottage, The Haven, in Iwade in Kent. Here they are, on the beach, with Matthew in the foreground:
The following August, Jackie, Michael, Matthew and Becky – seen posing outside The Haven – and I, spent a week there on our own. Michael displays his ever-paternal response to his brother and sister. The children had yet to learn that it is infra dig to wear socks with sandals, and this was the era of hot pants. It was in this low-ceilinged cottage that I learned to tape newspapers to the beams so that I would see them and bend my head to avoid bashing it. This ploy didn’t always work.
Jackie, who crocheted the hat that Becky is wearing in this picture on the beach, tells me it is not a mob cap, such as the one appearing on yesterday’s market stall, but a successor. In any case, almost everything in that display was sold. Becky did, however, wear the prototype mob cap. After she had been pushed around Raynes Park sporting it in her pram for several months, a maternity shop, called One and a Half, in Wimbledon Village began selling mob caps. Jackie is convinced they followed her lead.
So excited was I by the above exercise, that I stayed in my dressing gown until I’d completed it. Well, that’s my excuse, anyway. I wasn’t looking forward to tackling the concrete slabs I had abandoned two days ago. I did, however, take up the task again this morning. This involved wielding the grubber axe in order to penetrate the iron-hard soil on one side of each buried block, and gravel and hard-core on the other. The next step was, when the obstruction looked possibly loose enough, to give it a good kick; to discover that it still wouldn’t budge; and to repeat the process until it did. Prising it up was done with whatever garden tool was nearest to hand, until there was enough space to get my fingers underneath it and heave it up.
I had thought there were just three slabs in the row, until I came to the corner and found there were more, extending along the long side of the bed. Anyone wondering why I didn’t know these were there, should understand that they are mostly covered by two or three inches of weed-infested earth. After four of the extra ones, I stopped for the day. After all, it was still hot enough to keep the bees buzzing.
This afternoon I walked down to the Spar shop to replenish our stock of sparkling water. This gardening lark is thirsty work. The rooks, chasing each other across the skies, are back in residence.
Roger Cobb was ploughing his maize field.
Bev and John are our only neighbours likely to be affected by a bonfire. I always ring them before lighting one. This was the call I had tried to make two days ago that had alerted me to the problem with my mobile phone. I attempted to telephone them again this evening before burning more branches. I had the same problem. And I couldn’t find the reset button. So I rang O2 at Christchurch. The man who answered the phone knew only of one reset which would wipe all my information. He suggested I took the battery out and put it in again. I did that and it worked. Except that I got a voice telling me my stored numbers were not recognised. I waited a bit and tried again, successfully getting through to Bev. This time Jackie helped with the combustion and we made quite good progress before dinner which consisted of her delicious chicken curry and savoury rice. We finished the Cuvee St Jaine.

Contrasting Skies

In January 1964 I took four colour slide photographs of birds being fed at the Tower of London. The best of these has been lost. I had used it to produce a calendar for Mum a year or so later. Sadly, of the twelve pictures selected for that present, this is the only one that has sunk without trace. Two others are just not good enough for my eye which is far more discerning now than it was then. If you have just one or two of something in a collection, maybe you are more likely to retain what would be better thrown away. If you have thousands amassed over fifty years, you don’t mind creating a few gaps. These two are now in the bin.

This is the one that, with a considerable amount of retouching, survived for my posterity collection. It is feeding time for the gulls and pigeons that no doubt still gather to snap up the offerings of those generous souls giving up their lunch hours to line the railings and toss bread for the birds as yesterday’s Ibsley woman tossed carrots for the ponies. I fondly speculate that I still occasionally photograph descendants of these very avian symbols of London and The River Thames. Well, I am given to the occasional romantic thought. The woman nearest the camera was a daily visitor. The lost picture contains her outstretched arm and shower of airborne crumbs glinting in the low winter sunshine. I see it still.

A perhaps less romantic observation is that the dockers whose cranes, so prevalent in 1964, no longer line the shores, are long gone from the scene. Five years after this photograph was taken London Docks were finally closed to shipping and sold to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, who set about redeveloping them for residential purposes. Further vast improvements to the area were, of course, undertaken for the 2012 London Olympics.

Today’s weather did not improve in the afternoon, although the storms were not as violent as they had been yesterday. We drove Flo through rain, hailstones, and darkening skies, to blink through drops running down the car windows at the home in Downton we hope to buy. In mid-afternoon it seemed like nightfall to the east whilst a golden sun pierced clouds to the west. I could even see small patches of blue sky in Jackie’s wing mirror.

This dramatic contrast was even more apparent on the beach at Milford on Sea. We went on there for Flo to give Scooby a run around on the coastal footpaths, as the choppy waves crashed on the granite rocks below the cliffs. Turner would have painted the nearer clouds to our right as the sun slowly subsided in a clear blue sky. A young man stood contemplating the scene. At the same time the lighthouse light warning of The Needles, on our left, flashed away, clearly visible against a patch of open sky beneath the untinged blanket of cloud. You will need to zoom in on the picture to see what we could see. I found it amazing that looking out across the same stretch of water, simply by changing one’s angle of view, one was seeing such differently hued cloudscapes.

Scooby trotted up and down for a bit, whilst Flo gave me the benefit of her artistic direction. It was cold, so we didn’t stay outside long enough for Jackie to get into her programme on the car radio. We then showed Flo the town and shopped in the Old Milton Tesco.

This evening Jackie fed us on succulent sausage casserole with the usual array of vegetables. I drank a glass of Trottwood 2011 shiraz, whilst Jackie’s preference was for Hoegaarden,

Panettone And Jam Pudding

13th November 2013

Jackie drove me to and from Southampton Parkway today for my visit to Norman. I took my usual Green Park route from Waterloo as far as Piccadilly, which I crossed and continued up Old and New Bond Streets to the next station on the Jubilee Line. It was high tide on a choppy Thames as I approached Westminster Bridge. Gulls on the embankment wall were being tempted by one woman to provide photographic material for another, younger, one – and for me. They were both amused at my efforts. The fact that we did not understand each other’s languages was no barrier to communication. On 1st November 1973, Queen Elizabeth II gave the honour of unveiling the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square to the great man’s window, Baroness Clementine. The sculpture, gazing across from the green to the Parliamentary arena that its subject so dominated during the years of the Second World War, captures his distinctive posture so well that a silhouette is all that is needed for recognition. Ivor Roberts-Jones was the artist. The green grass still largely uncovered by leaves in St James’s Park, provides the carpet for crows, squirrels, waterfowl, and humans. Although the London planes slough their bark throughout the year, their leaves are retained a little longer than yesterday’s gorgeous maples. The reason I know about the bark is a little embarrassing. Some time around 1980, I was gazing thoughtfully out of my Westminster office window when I noticed planes in the street outside shedding their skin. Wondering whether this was a consequence of the hot summer and something should be done about it, I telephoned the department responsible for their maintenance to alert them of this fact. ‘They are meant to do that’, was the reply. ‘That’s how they get rid of city dirt’. Neasden’s trees were making a valiant effort to brighten its unattractive blocks of flats, but no amount of fallen leaves could have invited carpet slippers onto the ramshackle surface of the Neasden Lane pavements. Norman served a tender, well marinaded beef stew and pilau rice for lunch. Not having used his Le Creuset casserole dish for some months – since last Christmas as it turned out – he was surprised, when removing its lid, to find it contained half a panettone. He also had a jar of jam he wanted to finish up. Consequently the planned bread and butter pudding became one of panettone and jam, baked with a custard topping, and served with cream. The peel in the brioche type bread made an excellent substitute for marmalade which is sometimes spread on the bread of our normal version. I thought this an agreeably inventive variation on a theme. The choice of wine, appropriately, was an excellent valpolicella. My journey home was uneventful. Seeking an illustration of panettone on Google, I discovered the BBC posh panettone bread and butter pudding, and am able to insert a picture of this. It doesn’t have custard or jam, so I consider my friend could legitimately take out a patent.