This morning I walked up Hordle Lane taking a route on the right through what are now flint-strewn stubble fields sporting attractive daisies.
Yeatton House, now converted into flats, could be seen peering from the trees in the distance.
Feeling like a rat seeking egress from a maze, I took a diagonal tractor track across a 
fallow field and came to a barrier I recognised. This was the padlocked five-barred gate flanked by barbed wire that had deterred me when I had followed the path alongside Apple Court garden. This time I scaled it and walked back home.
This afternoon, armed with offer vouchers from their brochure, Jackie drove us to Otter 
Nurseries where we bought hardy cyclamens, Murphy’s compost, tulips, and various other items. When Jackie said ‘We’ll get the Murphy’s first’, and walked towards sacks of potatoes, I momentarily thought I’d got the wrong end of the stick.
Afterwards we visited Braxton Gardens and nursery. It was rather late in the season fully to appreciate this establishment, which could do with a little more help with the plants, and for which the proprietors make no charge for entry.
I did, however, find one or two roses in bloom, and the teasels looked attractive in the sunlight.
Then it was off to Ferndene Farm shop for pansies, violas, and ivies. We planted and watered in the cyclamens, leaving the rest, well soaked, for tomorrow.
We had no need to hunt for colchicums, for they have risen to the surface in our garden.
Dinner this evening consisted of Jackie’s chicken curry and savoury rice, always even more tasty the second time. I finished the cabernet sauvignon and Jackie abstained.
Tag: roses
Owling With Attitude
The blackbird still sits on her nest. Peering through shrubs at a safe distance, sometimes her bright little eyes are visible to the viewer, sometimes her upturned tail.
Today’s task for me was to clear one bed of brambles and other unwelcome growth. Simple enough for a day’s work. I thought. In fact the wild blackberry bushes were the least of my problems.
As I began to feel my way into the undergrowth I came across a number of previously unseen plants. One was a heavily-budded passion flower which had become entwined in a hebe, and, of course brambles. The necessary disentanglement was a most delicate operation. Having carried out the surgery I gave it a leg-up by means of netting attached to a metal post set in concrete that Jackie had found elsewhere in the garden. Another such climber had clung to the weeping branches of the birch tree, but had many stems trailing in and out of the bed grasping at anything in its path. Further similar treatment was required. This time the netting was strung between two wooden stakes.
Two types of tree that are abundantly self-seeded in this garden are hawthorn and bay. There was one of each in this bed, their roots, as always, taking shelter among those of other plants; in this case the weeping birch and some lilies that have not yet flowered.
I had no chance of reaching them unless I removed the wooden bed head nailed to the tree. No doubt this once had a decorative purpose of sorts. I couldn’t prise it off. Once the rust had been scoured off the nailhead it turned out to be a screw, so dilapidated as to be bereft of a slot. I tried to make one with the trusty hacksaw. I couldn’t get it deep enough.
Then along came Superwoman, who saw that if we removed the rickety slats and the other end, we could leave the post where it was. D’oh!
That is what we did. I dug out the offending trees and replaced the rest of the bed head. Two of the joints had by now disintegrated, so nails will have to be used, when I have bought some of sufficient length. In order that it does have a decorative function, I optimistically fed a passion flower stem through the secure bit.
Jackie speaks of the June gap, which is that unproductive time between the finishing of the spring flowers and before the arrival of those of the summer. The planting here has been so well planned that there is no such hiatus.
I took a break after lunch and photographed water lily, philadelphus, roses, petunias, diasca, pelargonium, begonia, poppies, verbascum, rodgersia, and clematises which are just a few of those we currently have flowering.
Our blackbird is still awaiting the emergence of her chicks. Not so the owl in my friend Hari’s tree. Her two are about three weeks old, and able to reach the ground, but do need to be returned to their Mum. If I am able to photograph our fledglings I am confident that my pictures would not be as striking as the one Hari e-mailed me today. She believes the creature was displaying a mind of its own when it stared back at its rescuer. I rather like her term for a baby owl, especially one with attitude, which has provided today’s title.
This evening’s meal was Jackie’s beef and mushroom pie with mashed carrots, swede, and potatoes; and crisp cauliflower and broccoli. Tiramisu ice cream was to follow. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the tempranillo.
If you have a shop that can sell you ready prepared pastry and have saved enough beef casserole (recipe) you, too could make the pie. Simply drain off the sauce from the casserole and use it as gravy; roll out the pastry, insert the filling into it, and bake it in the oven for about half an hour on 200. The chef, when pressed for her timing, said: ‘Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t time it, I just stood and looked at it until it was the right brownness’. I don’t expect she did this for the whole time, but I think that gives you the idea.
I Have Written Down The Process
The crow has now sussed the bird feeder. It is over to us to work out how to deter it. We have nothing against the creature, but we can’t afford to feed it.
A midnight dark thunderstorm that kept us inside this morning made way for a gloriously sunny afternoon.
My friend Norman is something of an authority on coastal passenger ships. He is currently writing a book on those in the Bay of Naples which he has visited many times in a long life. His comprehensive collection of photographs goes back almost sixty years. There are a dozen or so of which he has negatives but no prints. I have undertaken to make the prints, and began the task whilst it was raining. It took the whole morning just to produce two scans.
The black and white negatives are 2.25 inches x 3.25 inches. I spent a frustrating hour trying to stop my scanner, set for 35 mil, bisecting the images. This is a difficulty I had surmounted a month or so back, but couldn’t remember how. When I had managed this today I reproduced pictures of boats with their names back to front because I had inserted the film into the holder the wrong way round. Having corrected this error I needed to remove a lot of spotting. I’ll do the rest, and make the prints, when I’ve got over the experience.
And yes, I have, this time, written down the process. These are Norman’s pictures to publish, so I won’t reproduce any here.
Three trips to Walkford and back were all that was needed to bring the last of the portable garden back home.
All the roses we have brought to light, are now smiling aloft. There is a red one at the back of the oval path; there is a pink one alongside the first path we cleared; and the white one on the new arch is multiplying.
There are a number of aromatic plants, such as lemon balm, scattered around the garden.
One I have not met before is the eau de cologne mint outside the back door. When subjected to a certain amount of friction it really does emit the aroma of certain elderly relatives’ handkerchiefs.
I made considerable progress on clearing and raking the oval path today until I realised that the last section joins a wing of the older brick route. I decided I couldn’t really call the job completed unless I fully exposed this. I began to do so, rapidly flagged, and decided, as Sam would have it, I couldn’t be assed. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Once again Jackie outlasted me. Some might say it is because she is a woman. Not just any woman, but Superwoman. She continued cutting back, tidying edges, and planting both new purchases and flowers retrieved from Shelly and Ron’s, in hanging baskets and recovered beds.
Wherever you turn there is a heuchera.
In the evening sunshine, the Chinese lantern tree was alive with the ceaseless hum of worker bees. The walk along the path carried the sound of passing a thriving hive.
Yesterday, in order to have more gardening time, Jackie had made enough delicious sausage casserole (recipe) for a couple of days. We therefore dined on that with freshly cooked vegetables and new potatoes. We each continued with the same choices of wine.
Sold By Spencers Of The New Forest
On a glorious spring morning Jackie drove us to Ferndene Farm Shop in Bashley Cross Road. The ground is drying up and many pools on the roads and heathland receding.
I have before photographed the shelves inside this shop which has the best produce of its kind I have sampled. The produce outside would grace any good garden centre. Like everything else they sell, all the merchandise is in tip-top condition.
A good range of garden plants and wonderfully colourful cut flowers glowed in the sunshine.
Brightly hued primulas were much in evidence.
Daffodils, violets, and hyacinths were arrayed in trays.
Less flamboyant shrubs, heathers, and grasses displayed pastel hues.
The most vibrant palettes had provided pigments for the roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums in the various bouquets. There were also bunches of tulips and narcissi.
Even the compost bags are attractively packaged.
From the farm shop we drove to Milford on Sea and wandered around there for a bit, then checked out Everton Nurseries. You see, Spencers’ sign in the garden of the house on which we have recently exchanged contracts to purchase, confirms that Ferndene Farm Shop, Milford on Sea, and Everton Nurseries will soon be our local resources.
It announces:
The farm shop’s superb smoked ham provided the meat for our salad lunch.
This afternoon I watched two Six Nations rugby matches on television. Ireland beat Italy by a lot and France beat Scotland by a little. Neither game was very inspiring, although Brian O’Driscoll enlivened the Irish performance by profitable flashes of brilliance, and Yoann Huget scored a ninety metre interception try for the French.
This evening we dined on battered cod and chips, gherkins, pickled onions and mushy peas, with which I drank a glass of Bergerac Grande Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2012.
Ondekoza
Although it brightened up enough around noon to add a glow to vibrant magenta roses intertwined with honeysuckle in a Minstead hedgerow, the day dawned dull and dank as I walked the Seamans Lane/Shave Wood loop. I did not venture off the tarmac.
The blossom I had seen on the edge of the forest leading to Football Green was indeed apple, as evidenced by the little green fruit on the boughs.
Until I met Anne in Minstead, I had the road to myself. The elderly woman has been away for a while whilst her dilapidated house with its waterlogged garden, photographed on 21st April, was being refurbished. It was good to see her back home and looking well.
On 24th February I posted information about Elizabeth’s Open Studios exhibition to take place in August. 
There I mentioned that I was to submit some photographs of drumming that I took in September 1976, of the stunning Japanese band of timpanists that entertained the Soho Festival that year. 
This afternoon I made a start by unearthing the original colour slides, scanning them and uploading (if that’s the right word) them to my computer. There was a fairly considerable amount of retouching to take out tiny blemishes in these little rectangles of positive film almost 37 years old. They do not have the sharp clarity of today’s digital images, but maybe they are none the worse for that. 
One I have even managed to crop, yet still retain enough of a focus to show the speed of the drumstick fanned across the drummer’s face. We’ll see what I manage to do when I come to print them tomorrow.
Jackie is camping at Corfe Castle with Helen and Shelly, but she still fed me this evening. She has left me enough cooked meals and cold meats, pies and bread to last me a fortnight, let alone the four days she will be away. 
This evening I made a little impression on the large casserole of chicken curry, and ate one of the beautifully served dishes of savoury rice with a vegetable samosa and a nan, accompanied by a bottle of Kingfisher. I did have to microwave the home-cooked dishes and heat the samosa and bread in the oven, but that wasn’t really any hardship.
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.
It Was Christmas Day In Islington
Before I was reunited with Jackie, my life was much simpler. My belongings were only in three different places. In particular, clothes, books, other personal items, and the furnishing for one room resided in The Firs. The idea was that I would spend half my time there and half in my house in Sigoules in the Dordogne area of France. Then Jackie and I began to share a home again and we furnished another flat, eventually relocating to Minstead, just twenty minutes drive from Elizabeth’s. We were happy, especially if we were to continue maintaining my sister’s garden, to leave our belongings in her care.
Then came Danni. My niece is to return to her family home for a while and would rather like her old room back. Today, therefore, was spent moving us out. Beforehand, Elizabeth gave us lunch, we had a look at the garden, and Jackie tended to the plants in the greenhouse. 
The tete-a-tete daffodils were just one of the varieties of bulb Jackie had planted last autumn. It was very pleasing to see they, among others, had survived our long winter.
Late in the afternoon, two car loads of books, clothes, and other belongings left The Firs in convoy and sped to Castle Malwood Lodge. It was a race against the rain. We just got the last of the books inside before thunder, lightning, hailstones, and rain struck. This was such a storm that when we set off afterwards to Lyndhurst for a meal at Passage To India we were puzzled as to what was the white stuff in strips on the road, that is the part not under water. It turned out to be hail, that, in the restaurant car park, still lay thick and crunchy underfoot. We enjoyed the usual top quality meal at this establishment, accompanied by Kingfisher.
This has been a long, very wet winter, not particularly good for roses. In 1974, however, the season was much more clement. That year was during a previous period of unsettled rented accommodation. Then Jessica, Michael, and I lived in a house belonging to The Peel Institute, a boys’ club in Lloyd Baker Street in Islington. It was our home on condition that I performed not very onerous caretaking duties in the clubhouse. The Lloyd Baker Estate is a very trendy area in which to live. For us, it was short-term, pending the refurbishment of the very elegant house. We enjoyed a beautiful garden which I was happy to maintain.
On Christmas Day 1974 I picked a bunch of fresh, vibrant roses. I still have the colour slide of Jessica’s photograph to prove it. Unfortunately I cannot, this evening, get my slide scanner to work properly, so I can only reproduce the substandard early version which is all that Elizabeth had to work with in producing number 6 of ‘Derrick through the ages’. If I manage to solve the problem I will replace the photograph in this post.
P.S. The problem is solved, but I’ll keep this as it is – it is part of the day.