sheep – Page 7 – derrickjknight

Lunch Time

Yesterday evening Jackie borrowed the camera to photograph poppy heads. This morning we worked on cropping the images. (We didn’t crop them as much as WP Gallery, which see, is now enforcing)

Jackie then drove us to Kilmington, near Axminster in Devon, and back. Our friends Luci and Wolf are spending a week in a holiday cottage there. This is The Linhay off Whitford Road. It is a beautifully restored and tastefully presented former milking shed, and the owners, who live next door at Oxenlears, are most considerate.

The house is perched on a hillside overlooking an idyllic, sheep-dotted, valley, the pastoral quiet of which is broken only, it seems, at certain regular times.

On 17th December 2012 I described how, as I retired person, I sometimes don’t know what day it is. The same thing applies to the time of day. Such is the freedom of release from work commitments. Our friends would probably find the same uncertainty in their Devon hillside cottage, were it not for these timely clarion calls.

The most frequent is the clatter of the train crossing the valley from Lyme Regis on the hour every hour, followed by another coming from the opposite direction five minutes later. We may not have known which hour it was, but at least we knew it was something o’clock or five minutes past.

It was the sheep’s alarm that was the most insistent. Just as Luci announced that she was about to produce lunch, a clamorous bleating was set up.

The black-faced creatures had, until then, spent the day huddled around a tree.

They clambered or sprang to their feet and trooped eagerly, two by two, across to another field where they were being joined by cattle. Then we noticed the little white van and trailer that they were vying with their bovine companions to reach first. Whatever they were being fed was deposited on the ground without the driver having to leave his vehicle.

Presumably after the animals had had their fill, the sheep trotted back to their tree, and the cattle off to another field. Whatever they had been fed could not have matched the huge succulent chunks of juicy chicken that Luci had ‘thrown in a pot’ with mushrooms, new potatoes, carrots, and a tasty sauce for us. Jackie wondered whether she might be at risk of overdosing on carrots when we had carrot cake with strawberries to follow. Both were delicious so she took a chance. Luci and I drank a 2013 Wolf Blass red wine, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden. Wolf’s choice was fruit juice.

As usual, we all enjoyed each other’s company. Cheese and onion sandwiches were quite sufficient for Jackie and me when we returned home.

P.S. I am indebted to Barrie Haynes for pointing out that trains do not run from Lyme Regis any more.

The Nursery Field

This morning I walked along Christchurch Road to New Milton to meet friend Alison at the railway station. Jackie collected us from there, took us to Old Post House, and returned our guest later.
This road winds and undulates but is still busy enough to sound like a formula one racing circuit on telly. Much skipping to and fro across the road was required to ensure that I kept, as far as possible, facing the oncoming traffic. Because I always had to make sure I was seen by the drivers, on bends like the one I am approaching in the photograph I had to cross the road and present my rear to those driving on the left. I was quite relieved to reach Caird Avenue and the footpath into the town.

The verge on the edge of this wide tarmacked path was being trimmed.

Turning into Station Road I enjoyed the dusting of buttercups, daisies, and clover on the grass lining this thoroughfare. I expect they will be next for the chop.
Alongside Christchurch Road itself, a narrow cut has been applied to the otherwise pathless grasses. Cow parsley, bluebells, dandelion clocks, daisies, violets, and the occasional wild aquilegias have escaped the whirling blades.

The early lambs are fattening up nicely, making one feel slightly uncomfortable about mint sauce.

The nursery field still has a smattering of new occupants.

Wandering round our own garden early this evening, I was reminded of how much attention it needs. We cannot wait to get started on it, but it has to take second place to the inside of the house at the moment.

Jackie did tireless work cleaning, scraping off careless paint, polishing, and fixing loose fittings upstairs, so it seemed only right to take her out for a meal this evening.

We chose The Jarna Bangladeshi restaurant in Old Milton. Its unprepossessing modern exterior in no way prepares the visitor for the cavernous interior modelled, according to Sam, the proprietor, on a cross between a Mogul palace and The Orient Express. Sam is proud of his heritage, as demonstrated by his dating the traditional cooking methods. Forget the flock wallpaper, The Jarna’s seating, walls, and even ceilings are clad in velvet. Naive paintings depicting scenes of Bangladesh are bordered by tied back curtain fabric and sculpted velvet. There are two sets of chandeliers and a number of discrete cubicles.

What is particularly marked about this place is how spotlessly clean everything is. With such soft, plush, fabrics this would seem to be impossible. Sam explained that four or five of them set to once a week with Vanish. It shows.

The food was excellent. My choice was Shath koraa, being this establishment’s version of the Hatkora I have eaten at Ringwood’s Curry Garden. Jackie enjoyed chicken dopiaza. We both drank Cobra.

Next time I will most definitely take my camera. There will be a next time.

Lambing Time

This morning I walked along Christchurch Road to New Milton to visit the bank to make a transfer and the station to check train times for my next London visit. Jackie shopped in Lidl then met me in the car park near the Council Office and drove me home.
Along the busy, meandering, and undulating main road lay fields of sheep. Four childless ewes in a small field sheltered from the drizzling rain that lent a sparkle in the morning light to roadside trees, some displaying apple blossom.
A suckling lamb’s tail wagged up and down, possibly, like a small dog, in anxiety, until it had grasped the teat. Further along the road others showed the usual inquisitiveness at my passing. All bore identification colouring.

A small corner of a field on the left hand side of the road seems to be where the very young creatures begin their lives.

Variegated gravel heaps seem a not unattractive feature of the landscape.

The one door in the house now capable of being locked is that to the family bathroom. This was not always the case. The catch plate, you see, was screwed in at a level placing its bottom screw in the lowest hole that can be seen in the door-jamb. Obviously the lock was not aligned with it. Maybe the idea of moving this down had been abandoned. I repositioned the receptive piece this afternoon. The door itself doesn’t bear too much scrutiny.

David Fergusson was unable to deliver the chests of drawers today, because his son has had an emergency appendectomy.

Later, when I walked down to the post box, shrieking black headed gulls swooped over the stubble field.

This evening we dined at The Royal Oak. My choice was steak and ale pie; Jackie’s was breaded scampi with a side of onion rings. I had a starter of vegetable soup; she finished with New York Cheesecake; I enjoyed apple crumble. My beer was Flack’s; Jackie’s was Becks.

Spring

The gloriously sunny weather that has welcomed us to Downton continued today.

I took a walk up Hordle Lane alongside the extensive rape fields that glowed beneath the cloudless blue skies. A footpath on the left led around one field and through another. At first the fields were on my left. Horses lazed in a paddock on my right. Further footpaths put the rape on the right and woods on my left.

Bluebells enlivened the forest floor through which they had penetrated as they sprung from their hibernating bulbs.

Naturally I took a path through the woods where primroses were equally abundant. This wound around a bit, but I could hear the roar of what I hoped was Christchurch Road, distant on my left. Some of the time. Otherwise I heard the cawing of rooks, the humming of various insects, and cackling of hens and geese. A bleating and baaing led me along another track in the hope I might see some lambs.

I was not disappointed. They littered wide open grassland to my left. Farmland to the right contained Shetland ponies and black sheep, one of which was a magnificent three-horned ram that took to its heels at the sight of my camera. Maybe I’ll catch it next time.
The wide track through Peter’s farm took me to Lower Ashley Lane, where I turned left to the junction with Lymington Road, a section of Christchurch Road. I returned home along this undulating, winding busy thoroughfare lacking a footpath. I had to be rather vigilant.
This afternoon we took delivery of Flo’s wardrobe from Oakhaven Hospice Trust. The men took it upstairs and our granddaughter manoeuvred it into its alcove.

Flo took some rather lovely photographs of the garden. This one she entitled ‘Spring’.

My manly tasks today were helping Jackie to put up more curtain rails, then to add to the skip pile. Anyone from Globe Removals may wish to skip what follows. Their stalwart men moved four dismantled IKEA wardrobes, all carefully marked up by Michael, from his Wimbledon house to storage; out of storage; and into our garage ready for us to reassemble. They are too tall for our ceilings, which is why we bought another from Oakhaven Hospice Trust. We have been unable to give them away. This afternoon I began humping the extremely heavy sections from garage to garden heap. I didn’t finish the job. But there is a lot more room in the garage.
This evening Jackie drove to the Hordle Chinese Takeaway in Stopples Lane and returned with a plentiful feast on which we dined with Flo. I drank Spitfire ale.

‘You Do Get About Don’t You?’

Although still rather windy, the morning after the storm dawned bright and sunny. On a springlike day rooks cawed on the wing and smaller birds sang in the trees or squabbled, flapping, in the bushes as the females fled the males. Water still poured off the fields and trickled down the gullies or roared into ditches as I walked the two fords ampersand.
A Highway Maintenance team had just finished patching the pitted tarmac at Seamans Corner. They agreed they were very busy at the moment. The rest of the team declined to be photographed and left the youngest member to face the camera.
Clear streams rolled off the fields onto the lanes of Minstead. Two odd gloves and a banana skin nestling in one of the pools must have a story to tell.
Rivulets crossing the fords were still swollen, so much so that when I stood in the water to photograph the torrent, my socks were soaked.
The telephone box at Newtown bears a notice informing us that coins are not accepted. Since there is nothing inside I wonder who might be considering a donation.

Sheep were out in the field again.

Two women thanked me for photographing them in their horse drawn vehicle. I don’t think the teeth marks left on a tree by a stream came from their steed.
I have mentioned before that post is delivered throughout the area from a little red van. I often exchange waves with the bearded driver. Today our paths crossed on numerous occasions. As he parked up and approached a house clutching a couple of letters he quipped that he should have given me some and I could have delivered them for him. ‘You do get about, don’t you?’, he said.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s delicious chicken jalfrezi and special fried rice, with which I drank Cobra and she chose Hoegaarden. For the method of cooking the curry readers are referred to that for the lamb version described on 22nd January. In this case the chicken is not pre-cooked, but added at the same time as was the lamb. The richness of this particular sauce is obtained by adding up to half a pint of water as required and bubbling the pot on hob mark one for up to a couple of hours. Have a look at it, give it a stir, and see what you think.
Again, on the 22nd January, pilau rice has been described. Jackie has transformed this into what the restaurants call special fried rice with the addition of an egg.
Do not chuck the egg in straight from the shell, otherwise you will just bind all the rice together. Make a small single egg omelette, chop it up, and scatter the pieces into the mixture when it is virtually cooked. Stir it in. We said before that anything you wish can go into the rice. Today’s variation was peppers of three different colours.
Bon appétit.

Doctor Who

When I began this daily blog in May last year, it was possible to provide an individual header picture for each post. Following my acquisition of a digital camera that June, I have illustrated posts ever since. Some time later, WordPress made amendments to the presentation of articles. I was unable to use the new system to introduce a different header each day. It may be my lack of proficiency, but I managed to lose all my individual feature pictures and abandoned the idea of one general series header. I thought I had permanently deleted those I had used . Recently I have discovered I hadn’t, and have been able to reintroduce them, not as headers, but in an appropriate place within the text. I spent the morning taking this process up to mid-August 2012.

Showing a great deal more respect than those of you who know who you are, my old friend Geoff Austin, still under the illusion that I resemble Jon Pertwee, had the good grace in an e-mail to point out that, as I was never as scruffy as Worzel, the role of the third Doctor Who would be a much more appropriate comparison. Maybe, back in the 1980s when awestruck children gaped in my direction and exclaimed: ‘There’s Doctor Who’, it was Jon Pertwee and not Tom Baker they were thinking of.

It had been a pretty uninviting morning, strong winds having buffeted the trees, and grey clouds having produced hailstones to hammer them and our windows. This afternoon sparkled by comparison. Leaves adhering to the Nattier bonnet of Ari’s resplendent Rolls Royce, somehow managing to look more delicately decorative than those on that of Jackie’s more mundane Modus, which seemed rather like an unpleasant rash.

Thus bedecked, at the wheel, wandering at will, Jackie drove us up Roger Penny Way and meandered through pretty villages, now in Hampshire, now in Wiltshire. Bramshaw, Langford, Hale, Woodgreen, Downton, Redlynch, Nomansland are a few of the names I can remember. It would have been possible to add another portfolio of stunning autumn colour to this post. I refrained, but thought a pony in Shave Wood and sheep on a hill in Bramshaw worth getting out of the car for.

Harissa was an unusual, but effective ingredient in Jackie’s chicken jalfrezi this evening. Served with savoury rice including an unknown powder, part of a Christmas present, that was probably garam masala, this was as delightful as ever. Spicy pumpkin pie and cream was the perfect sweet. Finishing the rioja with this, I knocked over my last glassful, which was a shame.

Holly’s Beauty

Light rain began to fall just as I left home to repeat the walk I had taken with Matthew and Oddie on 7th. This precipitation was to take the form of intermittent showers for the first three quarters of an hour or so. During the few periods when the sun pierced the grey cloud cover, the hedgerows, now counting convulvulus among their constituents, glistened with the raindrops. Not having the excuse of Mat’s ageing little terrier to call Jackie to collect me from the bottle bank, I had to walk the final stretch up Running Hill as well.

Once I had emerged from the forest at Little Chef I was alongside the A31 for a short time. I passed that building, the Travelodge, the Esso garage and various houses which are found roughly at the area where the signs to Stoney Cross bring the hopeful traveller.

What is now a major East/West dual carriageway has very little in the way of pedestrian thoroughfares. The derelict footpath from just past the Esso garage to Forest Road betrays the fact that ordinary people without cars once trod this way. Now it is only people like me who venture along it. A row of hardy hollyhocks, having escaped to the central reservation, clung to the thin soil as passing vehicles did their best to create enough turbulence to tear them up.

I exchanged waves with a woman working in a garden not far from a tall, isolated, house called Rufuston that seems to have its own Royal Mail collection box. The name must come from the nearby Rufus Stone (see post of 19th November last year). As I reached this house I paused to photograph it. The woman tentatively, with a quizzical look, approached me from my left. She wondered why I was taking photographs. It seemed a reasonable question really, especially as it was her house whose image I had just pocketed. My explanation of what I was up to must have reassured her, for we parted pleasantly and she expressed the wish that the weather would stay fine for the rest of my walk.

At the bottom of the hill that leads from The Splash to the Furzey Gardens junction, Tim was digging mud out of the ditch that leads to his farm. This trench joins a pipe that runs under the road. Like the ditch, the pipe was full of soggy earth. Tim was working to clear as much as he could from the ditch and the underground pipe. I have before wondered whether there was a machine to carry out this task. If there is, Tim wasn’t aware of it as he plied his garden fork. Although the farm is his, he said the land on which the road lies belongs to the manor, the owners of which, in his view are responsible for the clearance. Apparently in the old days there was a villager with a technical title Tim couldn’t remember, whose job it was to keep the ditches clear. Tim also told me that the two goats and few sheep on his little farm are what might be called rescue animals. The goats were found abandoned as kids some fourteen years ago near Godshill; the sheep were ailing as lambs and bottle-fed in the same haven. I joked that if I found any stray creature in the forest I would know where to bring it.

This afternoon was spent once again grappling with security problems with BT e-mail accounts. Firstly I received one of those hijacking missives purporting to come from someone in urgent need of money. Because the whole e-mail address of the sender is taken over by these evil scammers, any reply never reaches the alleged originator. It goes to the crooks. This happened to Louisa a year or so ago. Chris and Frances were said to have been mugged in Rome where the Embassy was unhelpful. Chris was visiting our mother in West End at the time. These messages are instantly recognisable firstly because anyone in such dire need would use the telephone, and secondly because the English is so appalling. Neither Louisa nor Chris would write so badly. The whole business is a dreadful headache for the true account holder, because it affects everyone in their address book. All contacts are lost.

As I was contemplating the plight of my brother and sister-in-law I received an e-mail allegedly from Yahoo! Customer Care which seemed to me to be equally spurious and contained the usual booby-trapped ‘Click here’ message. It had not even been put into the Spam folder by BTYahoo! mail. I smelt a rat and phoned BT. When I finally got to an agent he said he didn’t deal with such technical matters and consequently put me in a queue for technical help. It took some time before I got a person, who didn’t know whether this latest message was Spam or not. After I read it out two or three times, pointing out the errors and where it didn’t seem to make sense, she decided it was more likely than not to be a scam. She advised me to put it into the Spam folder and send it to abuseadbt. I asked if that was all one word and we managed between us to establish that it wasn’t. The ad bit was the symbol @. When I asked how I was now to have any faith in BT security she told me that she herself had been unable to receive messages for six months because she had been hacked and her password rejected, until suddenly it was accepted again. This failed to reassure me.

I had opted to take part in a telephone survey after the call. It consisted of a triple choice questionnaire, 1 for good, 2 for bad, 3 for unsure; followed by an opportunity to make recorded comments about why I had scored it as I did. I took the opportunity. In the midst of this, despite the repetition of how important and helpful my views would be, I must have run out of time, for I was cut off in full flow. It was a machine that conducted the survey. I don’t think it was programmed to register when it has interrupted the customer and call them back to offer more time. Either that or I upset it when I mentioned that a difference in accents of spoken English makes for a certain difficulty in communication.

I am not convinced of the security of my e-mail account. I cannot understand how the survey as performed can be of benefit to anyone. BT, if you read this, I am open to all attempts at reassurance on either matter.

Of all the different varieties of fuchsia Jackie has been growing in her pots, the one the blooms of which she has most eagerly awaited is named ‘Holly’s beauty’ (otherwise known to her as Orlaith). This has come into its own today.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s chilli con carne and pilau rice. My drink was Chilano cabernet sauvignon 2011 and Jackie’s was Hoegaarden.

Aviemore

Beside many cattle grids are placed small pedestrian gates, for ease of crossing. Most people seem to either drive or walk over the grids. Mat’s little Jack Russell, Oddie, simply trips across them. Flo’s Scooby, on the other hand, managed to slip and hurt his foot on one. Our lower drive gate is so seldom used that the latch grows moss.

Today’s walk, starting by crossing the grid, was to Fritham where Jackie met me at The Royal Oak for a ploughman’s lunch and a pint of beer, and drove me back afterwards.

The sheep in the field alongside Furzey Gardens road were looking very shaggy this morning. All but one unfortunate, who appeared to be masquerading as the sheepdog in the Specsavers advertisement, and consequently retained straggly bits of fleece. Or maybe the shepherd, having somewhat unsuccessfully sheered just one, had decided to have his eyes tested.

There were still some boggy patches across the heath on the North side of the A31. So maybe sandals wasn’t a good idea. But the ponies usually find a way through, and they know it is much more fun to ford a gravelly stream than to squelch through a soggy quagmire. At one point I disturbed a dear little doe who scutted away from the gorse bushes before I had seen her. Had she just lain doggo I would have missed her altogether. But then, she didn’t know that.

Taking a short cut across the heath near Fritham, and hearing the drone of a single propeller airplane, I looked aloft in time to see it disappear into the fleecy clouds. Possibly the plane confused me, for it was soon after that that I realised the short cut wasn’t. This required the unnecessary circumperambulation of several farms and contributed to my being slightly late for our rendezvous. Had I not taken this minor diversion I possibly would not have met the smallest foal I have ever see. He will no doubt grow up to be a Thelwell pony like his Mum. A little later I was rather chuffed to be able unerringly to direct a car driver to the pub.

With less than a mile to go I found my way barred. A cow had adopted the standard New Forest stance of head in hedge. She stirred herself sufficiently to extract her tagged ears and fix me with a stony stare. This necessitated a little rear negotiation on my part. I shifted a bit sharpish as she twitched her tail and tap-danced her back legs. She may have also moved her front legs, but I wasn’t looking at those.

It is just possible that my ‘poof redders’ may be tempted to inform me that you won’t find either ‘scutting’ or ‘circumperambulation’ in a dictionary. As far as ‘scutting’ is concerned it seemed to me to be a perfectly good way of describing the bobbing of a deer’s scut, or rear end, as it romps away. And why not describe a circular walk as a ‘circumperambulation’? After all, sailors get away with circumnavigation. I’m hoping the Oxford Dictionary scouts spotted that one when I first used it on 20th July last year.

This afternoon, having slumped a bit after our lunch, we stirred ourselves to visit a National Gardens Scheme open garden in Bartley. We were so pleased we did because we could not have anticipated the breathtaking display that greeted us in this comparatively small establishment in a village street.

Having been planted with expert knowledge and care it is clear that this garden has been planned for all-year-round colour, with an eye for texture and shape. So varied is the fare that I could identify only a fraction of the menu. Trees have been carefully pruned; when one plant is over for the year, up pops its neighbour, like the poppy by the pond; variegated leaf adds to the palette; and all kinds of artefact are used as containers. Butler sinks are filled with succulents and alpines. One of these lies atop an old mangle. Mata Hari lounges in a corner by the stream that flows through the bottom of the back garden. A chair has faced the front garden pond long enough to harbour plentiful lichen. Almost every tree or trellis has a resident clematis or other climber. Raised beds have been constructed for vegetables.

A tasteful, artistic, and skilled hand has planned the optimum use of the whole plot, a modest one that can be viewed on an epic scale. I remember my surprise when I first saw the originals of some of William Blake’s engravings and realised how small were these monumental works. Aviemore is not dissimilar.

I could go on and on about this home of Sandy and Alex Robinson and their eldest son, Gavin. Perhaps the attached photographs may be more eloquent.

Helen and Bill’s champagne, Etienne Dumont 2012, was a slightly incongruous, but nevertheless delightful, accompaniment to our evening meal of fish and chips, mushy peas, pickled onions, gherkins, sliced bread and butter, and tomato sauce.

A New Audience

A bright, warming, sun lit the horse chestnut candelabra in the garden this morning as I set off to walk the two A31 underpasses route this morning. A cool caressing breeze offered welcome refreshment. As the day went on it remained bright, but didn’t really warm up unless you were directly in the sun.

Fresh growth of all kinds is piercing the forest floor. Near the edges of the woodland new spring flowers emerge daily. Young bracken, just two weeks ago crouched curled and cowering from the cold conditions, now stands proudly erect, flaunting its youth beside its withered forebears.

In parts the ground is hard clay pitted by ponies’ hooves; in others the darkened soil warns of a quagmire beneath.

I nearly found my way between The Rufus Stone and Castle Malwood Farm without a hitch. Not quite. I am now recognising a few fallen trees and just about know which way to turn when I cross the stream. However, crossing the stream is only a first step. What to do when you get to the other side is not always clear, and clambering over sleeping giants that once rose aloft gets more and more difficult as the months pass.

We drove to Shelly and Ron’s home in Walkford for a barbecue lunch which extended into the evening and was shared with Helen and Bill and Jackie Ryder and Malcolm. Ron presented us with skewers of sausages, swordfish, beef, and chicken tikka. Shelley provided an array of fresh tasty salads and a fruit flan that was so full and artistically presented that it wasn’t until it was sliced that I realised it had a base. The barbecued items were tender and cooked to perfection; in other words to a correct even temperature, not burnt to a crisp one side and raw on the other. And they didn’t taste of firelighters. The various beverages included red and white wines and beers. Cheese and biscuits and mints accompanied coffee.

As always at such gatherings, tales are told, jokes are shared, and there is much reminiscing. A consequence of the forty year hiatus in my relationship with Jackie’s family is that we fill in the gaps in our histories; I have a completely new audience for my stories; and Bill has the opportunity to share his with someone who hasn’t heard them all before. The musical activities of Jackie’s nephews and nieces led the conversation in the direction of musicians, which gave me an opening to speak of Tom, posted on 24th August last year, and tell of his A level in guilt quip, given on stage in Newark.

As we entered Minstead early in the evening a flock of excited sheep came streaming up the hill, various young farmers following in their wake. They appeared to have escaped from somewhere.

Our Shrinking World

On a drowsy Sunday morning the birds were our main focus of attention. Wagtails are always on the lawns, but in recent days, attracted by the mealworms, they have ventured onto the feeder, much to the chagrin of the robins, who are quite vicious in their suggestion that this is their territory. The visitors’ tail feathers are ever at the ready for take-off. These timid newcomers to the feeder spend so little time there that I was unable to photograph them until Matthew stood in hiding to the right of the window, watching a wagtail crossing the lawn in flight to the mealworm tray and warning me of its approach. I stood poised on the other side, and just managed to take the photograph. At least one robin regularly scuttles under the box hedge. To a nest, perhaps. Nuthatches and various tits took their turns to feed. Visible high above the distant forest trees, a buzzard glided overhead. Over lunch, a wren, wings fanning like a hummingbird, seemed to be stripping moss from the underside of the balcony above, no doubt for home building.

The day remained dull and heavy, yet cold. As I waited until our son and Oddie left for his home, after a very relaxing and enjoyable time with us, it was late in the afternoon before I walked the ford loop via the footpath to All Saints church. At the stream opposite the Study Centre I met a black labrador with its owner on a lead. I wondered why the owner, Sarah, was wearing Wellies, and soon found out the answer as the dog dragged her into the water to investigate a couple of apple cores. As I stepped down to engage the woman in conversation, we both noticed, perched on the dried mud bank, a Bog Arum lily, otherwise known as a Yellow Skunk Cabbage. Neither of us had seen one before. The labrador had to be dissuaded from giving the plant a closer examination.

The lambs in the field by the church path are growing well. This evening they were more interested in feeding with their dams than in frisking and frolicking about.

In the later Newark years I took to using ‘the smoking shed’. This had nothing to do with kippers. My pipe was becoming less popular indoors, so, for a smoke and a session of creativity, I set myself up in a brick-built outhouse. This had electric light and a power point into which I plugged an oil-filled radiator. The roof was of slate. I sat at a long work-bench which sufficed for a desk, and my reference library sat on shelves which had once held tins of screws and nails, and other assorted stuff in jars. The marvellously atmospheric black and white photograph that is number 16 in ‘Derrick through the ages’, was taken through the window by Elizabeth, as I worked on a crossword, in about 2002.

Dining on Jackie’s lamb curry and savoury rice, followed by bread and butter pudding, we reflected on how much and how recently rapidly our world has shrunk since the Portuguese were a world power. Here we were, eating one of this country’s favourite foods, imported from the Indian subcontinent, which is renowned for its use of the chilli, itself transhipped to India from Mexico in the very early sixteenth century by the countrymen of Vasco da Gama. I drank Kingfisher, an Indian lager and Jackie had Hoegaarden, a Belgian beer.