sequoia – derrickjknight

Ecology In Progress

We began this largely overcast day with a trip to Efford Recycling Centre transporting another carload of green garden refuse which will no doubt play its part in the progress of ecology once it has been processed.

This afternoon, after a brief Tesco shop Jackie drove me into the forest. As often on such a gloomy day we drove around for some time without tempting my trigger finger, before encountering

an approaching horse and cart, the driver of which, having spotted my lens through our windscreen, smiled and waved between the last two images in this gallery – unfortunately I missed that shot.

We have learned that there are thousands more giant redwood trees in UK than in California; a number planted more than a century ago in

the Rhinefield Ornamental drive in our New Forest.

To the left of the second picture above lies the trunk of a tree we first noticed a few years back when it first fell. Now we can watch its contribution to the forest regeneration.

I watched a gentleman photographing two children against a recently fallen giant, and later, from a greater distance through trees, spotted one climbing the corpse.

The broken tree in the second and third images in this gallery will join the first example above, making its own contribution. I am not sure at this stage of the difference between the sequoias and the Douglas firs, both of which feature in this drive, but that trunk in the last picture certainly contains red wood.

The sequoia towering above the sun-kissed trees in this picture was planted in the garden of Castle Malwood Lodge, where we lived for our first 18 months in the forest, by Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone during one of his visits in the 1880s..

This evening we all dined on Jackie’s stupendous chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh, crusty, bread with which I finished the Shiraj.

A Knight’s Tale (Positive Postscript)

Having completed my story of my place in an era with the Sigoules disaster followed by: ‘Given that, since 9th May 2012, my WordPress blog has been a daily diary and we are now settled in comfortable twilight years in Hampshire’s New Forest, this seems an appropriate time to close the pages of “A Knight’s Tale”.’, following some readers’ responses I will expand a little on the advent of the ‘twilight years’.

For the years 2011/2012 when living in Morden Jackie and I spent weekends caring for Elizabeth’s garden at The Firs, West End, near Southampton.

Once we had decided to move to the New Forest, Danni found the ideal flat for us in Castle Malwood Lodge, Minstead.

There Jackie built her garden outside our apartment on the right hand ground floor corner of the building.

We have William Ewart Gladstone’s Chancellor of the Exchequer to thank for the beautiful place in which we lived while waiting for the proceeds of Jackie’s London home. The lawyer and Liberal politician had the house built in 1880 and became Chancellor in 1886. In this post Sir William Harcourt was responsible for the introduction of death duties as they are today. At that time the Liberals, a different party than the one we recognise, were seeking measures to increase taxation in a more acceptable way than income tax. The modern bereaved inheritors may have a view on that.

The great Victorian Prime Minister planted a sequoia in the garden during one of his visits there. That tree now stands above the others which crowd the land beyond the rhododendron hedges, in an area that now merges with the forest. It is so tall it has become a local landmark.

Eventually on the first of April 2014 we moved into Old Post House, where we began our “twilight years” which are chronicled on my Rambling blog started on 9th May 2012.

‘All Is Flux, Nothing Stays Still’

After a night of steady rain following an unrelentingly graphite-layered day on which the sun never got out of bed, it stirred itself this morning, weakly lifted its head, peeped through the trees on the Eastern side of the garden, sent exploratory fingers across the lawn, then stared through the living room windows.
Just before noon, when the sun was making its way painfully to its evening resting place on the Western corner, I wandered around the garden before we set off in the car for Clapham and Wolf’s 85th Birthday Party. Not always managing to penetrate the cloud cover, it did manage a feeble salute for Gladstone’s sequoia.
Yesterday, on the forest verge of Upper Drive I had noticed a recently exhumed skull of some forest creature. I wondered how it had found itself there, and, indeed, what it had belonged to. It is still in situ.
Our journey to Wolf And Luci’s home for the afternoon party took just over three hours, sixty five minutes of which was a slow crawl from the moment we left the A3 at Shannon Corner near Raynes Park on the A298 straight through to Clapham on the A24. We hardly ever reached above 7 miles an hour. Consequently we had the opportunity to look about us and see the changes to the landscape that is rows and rows of buildings on either side which are constantly undergoing evolution. Tooting, which had just a few Asian shops when I lived there thirty years ago is now dominated by establishments reflecting the Indian sub-continent. The Colliers Tup opposite Colliers Wood tube station has, in just over a year since we left Morden, had a complete facelift and been renamed the Charles Holden. As recently as 31st October 2012 I photographed Delhi Heights which had, before it was that fusion establishment, been an English pub. It is now Istanbul Meze Mangal, offering Mediterranean Cuisine. On the 16th of that same month The Emma Hamilton in Wimbledon Chase was no longer operating as a public house. I photographed it in its reincarnation as a car wash enterprise. It has now been pulled down and has developers’ hoardings surrounding the space it had occupied.
Even the Nelson Hospital, where our children Matthew and Rebekah were both born, has now disappeared. One part is, the boards tell us, allocated to a McCarthy and Stone residential enterprise. The rest, retaining its facade, but otherwise demolished, bears the NHS logo on its protective barriers.
To the side of the Istanbul restaurant in the picture above can be seen the ‘black elephant’ of Colliers Wood. This is a building which is apparently unsafe either to use or demolish because it stands over the underground railway. It has, I am told, been empty for many years.
It was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said: ‘All is flux, nothing stays still’.
Some things however, do remain constant. One of these is my forty-five year friendship with Wolf Blomfield, whose party it was today. At a small and convivial gathering Jackie and I enjoyed the company of the great man and his wife Luci, and renewed some old acquaintances, notably Wolf’s children Vishvapani and Sarah who Jackie and I knew when they were children. Grandchildren were represented by Leo and Anna. Some others there have known Wolf longer than I. One goes back seventy years.
We were provided with a feast of tasty sandwiches, samosas, scones with jam and clotted cream, and finally chocolate birthday cake. A variety of drinks was on offer. I enjoyed some very good red wine.
Kiti, who managed the catering, and Luci took a number of photographs. If our friend can take a hint she may e-mail some to me so that I can add one or two to this post. In the meantime, here is one Luci took of Wolf and me not so long ago.

Sir William Harcourt

This morning I finished H.C.G. Matthew’s contribution to The Oxford History that I had continued yesterday evening by the glow of the outside lighting. I went on to start reading Kenneth O. Morgan’s piece, ‘The Twentieth Century’.

Last night it had been warm enough to sit outside in shirtsleeves, and to marvel at the sight of the building, looking like, as I described in an adolescent poem, ‘cardboard cut-out houses glued on an inky sky’. A bejewelled necklace was Jackie’s solar lighting draped over the box hedge.

This morning I walked the London Minstead/Bull Lane/Football Green loop. Watching the usual group of ponies chomping away at Seamans Corner I noticed that they vary their diet with clover and buttercups.

On my return, the light tan coloured creature with the white blaze that, having no concept of personal space, had so scared the life out of Becky last Christmas day, looking much sleeker than the bedraggled animal it was then, approached me in its usual deliberate manner. I wasn’t able to upload her video from her Facebook page, but if you are a friend of hers I recommend you watch it with your volume turned up (25.12.12). Tee hee.

In London Minstead, using the gentle tones of the man I had heard talking to his donkey in Sigoules on 17th May, a resident was attending to his horse’s shoe.

The camera obscura affect noted yesterday works on tarmac too. This time my shot was in focus.

We have William Ewart Gladstone’s Chancellor of the Exchequer to thank for the beautiful place in which we live. The lawyer and Liberal politician had the house built in 1880 and became Chancellor in 1886. In this post Sir William Harcourt was responsible for the introduction of death duties as they are today. At that time the Liberals, a different party than the one we recognise, were seeking measures to increase taxation in a more acceptable way than income tax. The modern bereaved inheritors may have a view on that.

The great Victorian Prime Minister planted a sequoia in the garden during one of his visits here. That tree now stands above the others which crowd the land beyond our rhododendron hedges, in an area that now merges with the forest. It is so tall it has become a local landmark.

Jackie was back home this evening, and we dined on the last of the chicken curry, this time garnished with fresh coriander direct from one of the garden pots. She drank her customary Hoegaarden, and I opened bottle number 010166 of the Terres de Galets. We were more than somewhat distracted at the beginning of our meal by a very noisy hornet that seemed unable to find its way out of an open window. It is a strange phenomenon that flying insects can find their way into houses through no gap at all, but cannot locate any mode of egress.