rose garden – Page 7 – derrickjknight

Graham Stuart Thomas

This warm and changeable day turned out to be perfect for a visit to a National Trust garden. We drove quite smoothly through Romsey, and past the Mountbatten home of Broadlands, where we would normally expect to encounter queues of traffic. It was, however, as we neared our goal that we met the queues. Cars formed lines in each direction at the entrance to the overflow car park. The main one was already full at midday. Rather harassed young men with SECURITY stamped on their jerkins waved us in one by one. As we alighted we were told we were in the wrong place and likely to cause a bottleneck. It wasn’t immediately clear how we could do that, but Jackie, adopting the usual placid persona she reserves for anything to do with the car, calmly and collectedly moved her Modus to the far corner of the uncut meadow which served as a parking area.

What could possibly have brought all these vehicles to a National Trust house on a Tuesday in term-time? Ah. All was soon revealed. The aged of the nation had descended en masse on Mottisfont. We have now joined those privileged senior citizens who have done their time in their offices, factories, or whatever workplaces, and have the opportunity to litter the countryside with their presence. I posted a previous visit to Mottisfont on 7th September. This time, we were earlier in the season and able to enjoy the rose garden for which the house is justifiably famous.

For more than 800 years people have lived and worked on the Mottisfont estate. The name comes from a Saxon moot, or meeting place, by a fountain. This site remains in the grounds, and is still a clear spring.

Crossing one of the several threads of the River Test, one sees the house across rolling lawns. Meadows are retained on the edges and the area is home to many a massive tree. Benches are dotted about and their shady situations offer places for rest or contemplation. Motorised buggies transport those less mobile.

We immediately made our way to the walled garden that contains many roses itself, and leads into the showpiece.

Last September there were still some roses in bloom, so I was familiar with the garden created by the Gardens Adviser to the National Trust, but I was totally unprepared for the magnificent display that greeted us as we made our way through the ancient brick walls to the gravel and stone paths laid amongst the profusion and variety of colourful flora. That the sun had chosen to light up the garden, filled with pensioners, some of whose clothing matched the horticultural hues, completed the picture.

I think Monet would have loved it.

Whether one focussed on the whole landscape picture with the figures of those of a certain age dotted about amongst the flowers, or on the blooms themselves, there was much to delight the eye.

Among the roses can been seen other plants such as peonies, irises, delphiniums, or allium. All clearly benefitting from well-nurtured soil.

The aforementioned Gardens Adviser was Graham Stuart Thomas. He moved his outstanding collection of old-fashioned shrub roses to Mottisfont’s walled garden during 1972 and 1973.

A fine yellow rose bears his name.

We chose not to visit the house today, and went for a walk along the river bank. Last September there was an exhibition in the house of E.H.Shepard’s illustrations to Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Shepard’s drawings include an iron bridge much like the one you must cross to reach the riverside walk. Indeed, to accompany the exhibition, a rowing boat such as Toad may have used, had been moored by the bridge.

A number of couples walked along the water’s edge. Some ventured even further, into a vast meadow where cows lowed.

Ready for a sudden insecticidal leap to the surface, large trout lurked like U-boats among the underwater reeds that were flattened and fanned out by the swift flowing current that forced the ducks to paddle furiously just to persist in their desire to swim against it.

As we made our way past an enormous sylvan structure that is two ancient plane trees in one, a troop of children that must have had very little impact on the average age of today’s visitors, fell over each other to be the first to reach the subject of their field trip. Their escorts struggled to keep them to order.

Back home we learned that all the garages had been broken into overnight. We lost nothing. One man lost a torch, and another, two golf clubs. It was rather difficult to see the point of the burglary.

Jackie made a juicy liver casserole as an excuse to use the giant cauliflower she had bought a couple of days ago. This was enjoyed on my part with the last of bottle number 012919 of the Terres de Galets and the first of number 000198.

The Listener Setters’ Dinner

This morning, tramping around Morden Hall Park, I came across two young men examining the construction of a bridge, in preparation for a boardwalk through the wetlands. As I said, this should save our shoes and trouser bottoms. This meant I just had to investigate that waterlogged area. I should have tried out my new wellies, but they are in the car and Jackie had the keys. I was, however, rewarded by meeting two surveyors who were measuring the terrain.

This reminded me of ‘Under the boardwalk’ from The Drifters’ marvellous 1963 album ‘Up on the roof’. You can hear it on youtube.

Volunteers were tending the rose garden.

The small adventure playground contained much activity. Those playing in there were wearing wellies.

This afternoon I made a lamb rogan josh. All my balti meals are based on a wonderful little book, Mridula Baljekar’s Real Balti Cook Book. Jessica bought this for me in a remainder bookshop in Edinburgh on the only occasion she accompanied me to the Listener Setters’ Dinner. It wasn’t her scene but she tried it out once.

I had discovered the Listener crossword puzzle when The Times took it over in the early nineties. Solvers who successfully completed each of the 52 puzzles in a year were rewarded with an invitation to attend. After Mike Kindred and I realised we were never going to earn our admission that way, we began to set puzzles ourselves. Mike never did attend, but I enjoyed several of the annual gatherings which take place in different cities throughout the UK.

John Green, who, as a labour of love, checks all submitted solutions, sends all received comments to the setters. There are many comments. One of my proudest moments was opening a most complimentary letter of approval from Vikram Seth. On one occasion one of my clues was inadvertently omitted from the published puzzle. I received a plain postcard from Georgie Johnson. It read, simply, ‘was Mordred (my pseudonym), poor bastard, really one clue short of a crossword?’. There began a correspondence friendship. In those early ’90s, we didn’t have computers, so we communicated by post. Jessica suggested I should invite this delightfully witty penfriend to a dinner. Georgie came to York. Since we had never met, we arranged to convene in the hotel bar. I sat waiting with a pint of beer until in walked a most elegant woman who had the poise and looks to have been photographed by Patrick Litchfield in her youth. ‘That can’t be her’, I thought. She looked across the room, turned and walked out. ‘Ah, well,’ I thought. Then she came back in and I noticed she was clutching a copy of ‘Chambers Cryptic Crosswords’ (see 12th July), which had been our identification signal. After she joined me she confessed that she had thought ‘that can’t be him. He must be an actor or something’. We enjoyed a most pleasant evening which lasted well into the small hours. In the twenty first century we continue our correspondence by e-mail.

I have resolved my PayPal problem. Pictures can continue.

To celebrate, with our rogan josh Jackie drank a bit more of the Wickham medium white 2010, and I dipped further into the Era Costana rioja 2009.

Pooh Sticks

On this rather dull morning I wandered along the Wandle bank in Morden Hall Park; came out onto Morden Hall Road; turned left, then right into St. Helier Avenue; right again along Bristol Road; left into Central Road; then crossed London Road into Morden Park, through which I made my way back to Links Avenue.

Building works which have been continuing for some months now, upon inspection turn out to be the first London example of an Archimedes Screw. This is a micro hydro-electric turbine, a modern waterwheel which will harness the power of the river Wandle to generate enough electricity to provide for the renovated stable yard. A working model is already installed there. The workmen were just finishing their break. Mothers and children were enjoying the rose garden, as was a gentleman reading. I admired Morden Cottage on my way to the bank.

Having been long intrigued by two statues situated on the far side of the bank, yet unable to get close enough to examine or to photograph them properly, I asked a man strimming some weeds if he knew a way across. He suggested swimming or paddling. Since this didn’t seem a very elegant method, I enquired at the Property Office. Unfortunately my informant was correct. Anyone carrying out general maintenance has to wade across. This is a deliberate attempt to protect these relics from vandalism, which they have already suffered. The shop does not carry postcards of these works of art. So I did my best.

On my way past the rose garden I had seen a woman showing a little girl the water flowing under a small bridge. I had suggested you could play Pooh Sticks here. Whilst the adult smiled at this and acknowledged that you could, it didn’t happen. En route to the Property Office, I met Ruby and her mother, with her little brother in a pushchair. I had heard Ruby’s Mum saying that when they had gathered enough sticks they could play a game. ‘You’re not going to play Pooh Sticks are you?’, I asked, hopefully. ‘Yes, we often play it’, was the reply. They were making their way to an ornate bridge across the fast-flowing stream. They were happy to be photographed in this activity.

Hello Ruby.

Another bridge, this time in Central road, across the railway, afforded an alternative view of the mosque, of which I had been given a tour on 18th. May. In Morden Park the marquees had been removed, and the hay from the meadow was being baled up. What has not been removed is the flytipping. (see yesterday’s post)

This evening Jackie and I enjoyed a varied salad. I drank some Carta Roja Gran Reserva 2005. Jackie’s tipple was Hoegaarden.