Tag: robin

Seeing Off Magpies

On a morning colder and gloomier than yesterday I spent some time watching birds through the window.

Magpies dominated the crab apple tree,

until the blackbird saw them off

and repossessed his larder,

to which he welcomed Nugget’s great-grandson.

Back came the magpies and this cycle continued throughout the day.

I read more of ‘The Brontës’ this afternoon.

Our dinner this evening consisted of meaty pork and garlic sausages and gravy; strong fried onions; boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli, with which I drank F. Stephen Millier’s Angel’s Reserve Merlot 2021 and Jackie drank Diet Coke.

In And Out Of The Sunshine

Before the sun left this morning we transported 15 more bags of garden refuse to Efford Recycling Centre barely keeping up with a dappled Martin who spent much of the day

continuing to add to them.

Clematis Cirrhosa draped over the Gazebo Path basked in the warming light,

as did laurel, grasses, an unblinking owls.

Dewdrops lingered on peeled Eucalyptus bark, pruned rose stems, and still persisting Just Joey,

and the Red Carpet Rose.

After the sun had shrunk behind the clouds the regular blackbird and robin continued feeding of the last off the front garden crab apples.

Later, Elizabeth popped in when passing and stayed for dinner, which consisted of tasty baked gammon; piquant cauliflower cheese; boiled new potatoes; firm carrots and brocolli; and tender runner beans with which Jackie drank Diet Coke, Elizabeth chose FreeDamm non-alcoholic lager, and I enjoyed La Reine de Fleurie 2023.

The Secret Garden

Last night I sat up late reading

My first Folio Society edition,

having boards and spine decorated by the artist comes in

a slip case bearing one of her drawings.

This delightful book, in fluent descriptive prose, charts the journey of Mary Lennox, born to an ex-pat English couple in India, until the age of ten when she was transported to Yorkshire. It is a tale of her transition of cultures and the consequent adaptations.

There is a touch mystery apart from that of the eponymous garden.

The prose contains many similes and metaphors, yet is itself a metaphor to the resurgence of neglected yet apparently pampered lives upon the introduction of loving kindness.

We learn how Mary encounters a kindred spirit with similar experience and emotional deprivation in the midst of wealth; and how this is balanced by a loving family with very slender means, but with a generous maternal mother who really knows children and their needs. Two of her children in particular are instrumental in Mary’s gradual learning to love.

We learn how crushingly destructive grief can be, but how it is possible to be helped to rise from despair.

I often find attempts at reproducing vernacular accents in speech, but Burnett uses it as a method of bridging cultures and engaging her characters. As Mary becomes closer to the Yorkshire people she learns their language. The dialogue in this book is faithfully rendered with the author’s perfect control.

The garden of the story, largely neglected for ten years, through the changing seasons, the gradual resurgence of plant life, and the lives of small living creatures, is the metaphor for life.

The robin, a particularly significant character threading a link through the story, first became imprinted on Ben Weatherstaff as a fledgling. Masterman’s drawings, although including many of the robin do not include a fledgeling. I am therefore taking the advantage to feature my

3rd August 2019 drawing of Nugget, who, still with blueish feathers and lacking his adult red breast, first arrived in our garden a short time before. Longer term readers will remember the many photographs in those earlier posts featuring him.

I have not included my usual quotations from the text, because there are many examples of the author’s prose alongside this selection of Dodie Masterman’s drawings. Those not taken from within the text are smaller tailpieces from most of the chapters except for the final one which might give too much away. I recommend enlarging these pages in the gallery.

The Easymaxx Wall Clock

On the morning of this cooler, dry, generally grey, day Jackie and I dumped another car load of green garden waste into Efford Recycling Centre.

Later, I read more of Vanity Fair, until Jackie returned from shopping at Lidl with a perfect present for our great granddaughter.

The central aisles at this amazing outlet is always a cornucopia of splendid surprises, cheap and of excellent quality, albeit generally short-lived. Ellie is very fond of both clocks and birds, so imagine

Jackie’s delight in finding an Easymaxx Wall clock featuring birds.

Each hour is represented by a named bird in place of a number. Except for the hours of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. this battery operated device, having a gentle tick, plays, at the correct time, the authentic sound of that moment’s avian representative.

Ellie can recognise and name most individuals on her clock. Otherwise she uses the generic “bird”.

Here, while Becky holds the “not a toy”, she indicates and clearly enunciates “robin” and “owl”, recognising the sound of the latter. Being the comedienne that she is she pulls a funny face during her performance.

This evening we all dined on roast pork, crackling, roast potatoes both white and sweet, Yorkshire puddings, carrots, Brussels sprouts, sweet corn and peas, with tasty gravy all cooked to perfection. I finished La P’tite Pierre.

Robin In Attendance

Jackie and I put in gardening stints early on another warm and sunny day, while Martin continued throughout the day.

Continuing my war with velcro-stemmed sticky Willy, I weeded and dead-headed a little.

Martin came to us on the recommendation of Jackie’s sister Helen. One of the last jobs he carried out for her included extracting a clump of geraniums from her front wall. She gave this clump to Jackie. Today

the Head Gardener separated this into individual plants and positioned them in the soil around the patio border – one can be seen at bottom left of the first two pictures in this gallery.

Accompanied by a pair of Nugget’s progeny

our gardening friend spent the day clearing and tidying more of the Rose Garden. Where’s Martin? (4) is the subject of the first in this gallery.

Here we have pink Festive Jewel with white Madame Alfred Carrière; magenta Roserie de l’Haie with yellow Laura Ford; white Winchester Cathedral; pink Schoolgirl before a yellow climber; pink Shropshire Lad beside Gloriana; peach Crown Princess Margareta; red thornless Zephirine Drouhin; a close up of Roserie de l’Haie; and bright red Altissimo.

This evening we all dined on succulent pork and apple sausages and creamy mash; flavoursome carrots, cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and tasty gravy with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Bardolino.

Recalling The Arrival Of Nugget

Towards the end of the morning we gleefully unplugged all the very costly electric oil-filled radiators that have been devouring our power for the last couple of months. Stuart, from Tom Sutton Heating had replaced the contaminated fuel pump from the boiler and serviced the system. The central heating radiators gurgled with pleasure. So did we.

On perusing earlier posts

Mudlarking

this afternoon I believe I found a way to recover the original pictures belonging to them. It is a bit convoluted, so I won’t go into detail here, except to say that I had to enter and save the pictures into the WP media file via my Mac desktop.

This enabled me to preserve the picture of this little chap at the moment he adopted Jackie as his mother, the story of which is one of those recorded in the Mudlarking post. I was also able to repeat him in this post and make a header feature of him.

This led me to another post –

Portrait Of Nugget

Although that publication bore the header post, it did not appear in its place in the text, and could not be moved. Neither did the other images. Fortunately I was able to trace these in my iMac Photos and apply the procedure mentioned above.

The colouring of our familiar robin suggests I was referencing the very juvenile earlier photographs.

This evening we celebrated the return of an effective boiler by dining at The Smugglers Inn in Milford on Sea, where I enjoyed a plentiful starter of whitebait with salad and tartar sauce followed by spicy Mexican Chilli Burger, salad, and chips; the others, including Ellie, shared a Nachos starter and also chose excellent burgers, namely Moroccan lamb for the ladies, and Cajun chicken for Dillon. I drank Sol Del Oro Merlot 2022, Jackie drank Amstel, Dillon Inch’s cider, and Flo apple juice.

Afterwards we departed the pub in a temperature just below freezing and returned home with bursting stomachs to a warm house.

Where Is Nugget Junior?

Martin has reported a little friend that has followed him around in recent months.

The little robin came and went regularly this morning, surveying our Gardener Plus

continuing to remove unwanted materials to the skip, and levelling the patio preparation.

Today he concentrated on preparing the ground for the sleeper wall.

After each trip of Martin’s this undoubted descendent of Nugget hopped down and investigated the supply of wriggly things exposed.

Where is Nugget Junior? Can you spot him on the edge of the gravel?

This evening we dined on tempura and hot and spicy prawns with Jackie’s flavoursome savoury rice with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Gran Selone.

Sway Open Gardens

Today’s plan was, after an early lunch, to visit as many as possible of the 21 gardens in the village of Sway that were open to the public.

In the event I seem to be experiencing a reaction to yesterday’s Covid booster vaccination so I didn’t trust myself to go wandering about. The ladies therefore left me dozing over a book and

lunched at Rosie Lea while chatting to

a friendly robin. The first gallery of pictures was provided by Jackie, who also took the first two robin shots, while Flo took the third, and all the garden images which are to follow.

They walked around five of the gardens.

The first set are from Tarna on Brighton Road;

then came 4 Buldowne Walk;

followed by Holmlea;

15 Oakenbrow was next;

and finally Ashen Bank in Adlams Lane, where the camera battery expired.

As usual each picture is titled in the galleries.

This evening we dined on the excellent fare of Hordle Chinese Take Away with which Jackie drank Tsing Tao beer and Flo and I didn’t.

“We’ll Leave You Alone Now”

After lunch we took advantage of a spell of sunshine and drove into the forest.

At the Roger Penny Way end of Cadnam Lane

we stopped to converse with the pair of Gloucester Old Spots we often see there; and a robin that we don’t.

Reflections rippled over the stream spanned by the road bridge.

Jackie’s photographs are the last two in this woodland gallery incorporating a large decaying stump.

Further along ponies chomped on hay against the backdrop of a sheep field.

The ford fence that I had reported in a state of collapse on a recent visit has now been repaired; a trio of sows and a solitary pony will now be safe to cross.

On the lane to Bramshaw we kept meeting and passing a friendly equestrienne until I finally called out of the window “We’ll leave you alone now.”

This afternoon’s Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and Wales failed to record, so later I watched the game between France and Ireland.

We then dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp with fresh crusty bread.

Eggshells

Martin spent the morning tidying the back drive beds. He applied his painstaking effort to cutting back excessive growth and cleaning the brick edging. He chopped the refuse and added it to the compost.

Two robins who we think are a grandson of Nugget and his female partner have been attracted by the work. Longer term readers will be familiar with our late tame robin and the occasional challenges to find him. Hopefully we are starting a new “Where’s Nugget’s grandson?” with these two, the first being No. 1 and the other No. 2. You may need to enlarge the images.

While all this activity was going on a big bumble bee slept away the morning on a blooming bergenia.

Hellebores and violas are also in bloom.

Owls and burnished Lanarth White hydrangea basked in the warm sunlight.

Snowdrops are now in flower throughout the garden

and on the kitchen table.

Another flower arrangement of Jackie’s consisted of a clutch of hard boiled eggs which took us back to our youth when most eggshells were white. Even in our early adulthood it was the brown shell that was unusual. Until someone decided that brown ones were considered more healthy. It seems that Tesco is in the vanguard of reversing the trend.

At mid afternoon we purchased a few items at Ferndene Farm Shop then took a short forest drive.

Sunlight picked out distant slopes beyond Burley Road and its moorland. The ponies in these landscapes showed interest when I disembarked from the Modus, but turned their backs when they realised I was not carrying food for them.

On the approach to Bisterne Close a field horse looked wistfully across the lane at a pair of

pony cousins enjoying their freedom.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s wholesome cottage pie; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; firm Brussels sprouts; and tasty gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Azinhaga de Ouro Reserva 2019.