Our Head Gardener this morning toured the garden making
a pictorial record of its current condition now the full force of the heatwave seems to have subsided somewhat. Some may consider that the task which fell to me – loading the pictures into the computer, making the tiled gallery and titling the individual images with some additional information – was rather easier.
This evening we dined on succulent roast chicken; crisp Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes; crunchy carrots; firm cauliflower and broccoli; tender runner beans, and flavoursome gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I drank more of the Bordeaux, and Flo and Dillon drank Ribena.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. THOSE IN GROUPS ACCESS GALLERIES THAT CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE.
This morning, like the curate’s egg, was “good in parts”.
Bishop: “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones”; Curate: “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!” “True Humility” by George du Maurier, originally published in Punch, 9 November 1895. A “curate’s egg” describes something that is mostly or partly bad, but partly good. (From Wikipedia).
First, Baz (Barrie) and Owen, chimney sweeps came to discuss our plans for the fireplace and to offer suggestions. They will come again to start work in a couple of days. That was good.
Then we drove to New Milton for a visit to the bank. That was good.
The next trip was to Gordleton Barn to investigate fireplaces. There is only one day of the week that this architectural salvage outlet is closed. It is today, Tuesday. That was bad.
On we travelled to Streets Ironmongers in Brockenhurst to collect the house name commissioned on our last visit. That was good.
From the vast variety of superbly organised floor to ceiling stock, we also bought a shoe horn, an adhesive hook, and a couple of food covers. I will let the photographs speak for the contents. I could probably spend a fortnight here without repeating myself. On leaving the shop Jackie voiced the opinion that “There’s nothing they haven’t got”.
Since it is impossible to drive around The New Forest without coming across at least one Openreach van, it was hardly surprising to be following one waiting for the level crossing gates to open. That, for someone, was bad.
On our return we tackled the septic tank pipeline blockage once more. Determining to blast the manhole with water, we filled the relevant bath and as many cans and buckets of water as Jackie could lay her hands on.
Very soon after we unplugged the bath the hopper below overflowed, pouring its contents around the base of the house.
I then climbed our stepladder, expecting to find the container full of leaves. It was as clean as a whistle. Obviously the flow from the bath was too fast for it to cope with. When It had finally emptied we emptied most of the cans into the hole then went in for lunch. That was bad.
After lunch Jackie tipped out the last few buckets, replaced the manhole cover, and returned to the sitting room where we stopped thinking about it.
This evening we visited Mr Chan at Hordle Chinese Take Away for his usual excellent fare. I finished the Cabernet Sauvignon.
As we were both up before dawn this morning we took a trip to the coast to catch sight of the dawn over the Isle of Wight. There was nothing to see. It was raining and the sky was covered in grey cloud.
John Keats famously described autumn as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. We haven’t had any mists yet in this delayed waning of the year. So I guess we must be patient.
Many flowers, such as
nicotiana
and nasturtiums continue to bloom.
There is, however, a certain amount of “mellow fruitfulness” in the form of
crab apples,
rosa glauca hips,
just a few apples on a tree that was laden last year,
and the seed clusters of six foot tall nicotiana sylvestris,
just one pod of which produced this cappuccino chocolate cloud of minute seeds on the poppy tray.
I cannot remember how to calibrate my scanner to the laptop, so the last two photographs I e-mailed to Emily were produced by
photographing the prints and uploading them.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s spiky pasta beef arrabiata and runner beans with which I drank more of the malbec.
