sheep – Page 8 – derrickjknight

Printing Mottisfont Trout

Spring continues to be thrust aside by its hoary old relative. Why winter has been unable to enjoy an easy third age on the lecture circuit is a mystery to us all, except perhaps Michael Fish, the weatherman who infamously dismissed reports of the Great Storm of 1987. A solitary daffodil manages to defy the cold and to brighten the shrubbery opposite our dining area. Its companion probably isn’t going to make it.

Just as cold today, at least the wind had dropped. There was not much sign of life until I met the sheep as I walked the first ford ampersand. A couple of bedraggled, head-drooping, forlorn looking ponies jerked their slow way up the centre of the road through the village. A young woman relaxed aboard her pony at the end of a ride. The occasional car went by. Apart from the rider, the only other person I spoke to was a driver on my return journey who stopped and asked the way to the Study Centre. I trust Judith will be as impressed as I was by the detailed accuracy of my stunning directions.

Imagining being reliant on sheep for your day’s excitement should give the reader a better flavour of the day than yet more attempts of mine to find different ways of describing miserable weather. As I approached the sheep field in Newtown I was greeted by a very loud bleating chorus. This was emanating from the hedge through which it was just possible to see the vociferous ovine occupants. On turning a corner and drawing up alongside a five barred gate I felt like a London bus driver arriving at Morden bus station soon after school going home time. The parent sheep were already waiting at the gate baaing their heads off. It was then I saw the lambs. These small animals leapt, gambolled, pushed and shoved each other, and squirmed their way in front of the adults, determined to get to the head of the queue. The parents’ hubbub followed me as I continued on my way.

This afternoon I tackled the last of the challenges my new computer has set me. I connected the Canon Pro 900 printer to the iMac. Lo and behold, the software download was done automatically in about two minutes and I made an A3 print in a jiffy. The setup is now pretty well complete. The whole kit has to be confined to a fairly small space in our massive sitting room. Mac sits on the desk. The small Epson printer lies underneath on a ledge alongside the A4 printing paper, and the Epson V750 Pro scanner is perched on a small Sainsbury’s wine rack on its side on top of a little filing cabinet. There is no room in this arrangement for the enormous A3+ printer. Jackie, of course, came up with the ideal solution. This very heavy piece of equipment nestles in a laundry bag within a plastic box on wheels. All this stands at the bottom of her wardrobe. When I need the printer I open the wardrobe; pull out the box on wheels; open the box; lift out the laundry bag by its handles; carry it from bedroom to sitting room, where the kitchen trolley waits to double as a stand; place the printer on the trolley; and finally attach the plug in place in the trailing socket on the desk and put the cable into a USB port. I really think Heath Robinson, a superb draftsman famous for his drawings of complex and complicated contraptions for simple tasks, would have envied my lady her inventiveness. Not, I hasten to add, that there is anything ridiculous about Jackie’s simplification of my set up.

Today’s test print was of trout taken at Mottisfont on 7th September last year.

This evening we took a trip to Imperial China in Lyndhurst, where we enjoyed the usual excellent meal, and both drank TsingTao beer.

Post On A Till Roll

When she learned through on-line Scrabble chat that I walk every day regardless of the weather, my friend June suggested that I must be mad. This would be a view shared by the head of Bromley’s Probation service during the 1980s. One of my freelance contracts was to facilitate a support group for senior probation officers. During one particularly bad winter, possibly 1986/7, I was due to take a session one morning when the snow lay thick upon the ground. Traffic was in chaos. Trains were suffering from ‘the wrong kind of snow’. But I had my running shoes. Provided I was careful, and sometimes ran off piste, I could cross London quite quickly. On this occasion I arrived in Bromley, on time, having run from Gracedale Road in Furzedown, SW17. I was the only group member in attendance. The manager didn’t want to pay me, because she thought it a bit out of order to have turned up on a day like that. However, I had a contract which I had wished to honour. After some negotiation I received half my fee, which seemed a compromise I would have to accept.

This morning we had been promised heavy rain making its way from Southampton. A cock crew as I set off early down Running Hill in an effort to beat the blast. The Met Office must have been in touch with the sheep on the road up to Furzey Gardens because they had sought shelter from the open field. Further on, our neighbour Bill was walking his two Old English sheepdogs which he said were shorn when the sheep were shorn.

A solitary equestrian rider passed me on the heath beside the waterlogged cycle track. And the end of this I took the road towards Fritham and turned off left to a sign marked Linwood which I made my goal.

Before the turn-off I noticed, strewn at irregular intervals, oranges on the right side of the road. My puzzlement increased as I continued along the road, until, on the left hand side I discovered a further crop that had been ditched. The teeth marks on one of the discarded ones suggested this was a variation of the popular Halloween pastime involving apples and a tub of water.

The clopping of coconut shells by a cinematographic sound effects man on the road behind me signalled the extremely rare sight of galloping ponies. They had possibly been attracted by the arrival of a mini coachload of ramblers, whose lack of proffered goodies probably disappointed them and brought them to a standstill. Their more cynical companions who hadn’t bothered to cross the road, merely glanced up and continued cropping the heath.

It was my nostrils on the Linwood road, that alerted me to the controlled burning that culls the bracken.

I turned right at a road junction to which a gang of Hampshire council workmen were working their way replenishing the grit on the verges, in an attempt to stem the tide, thus reducing the numerous rock pools. Having walked past and through some deep enough to harbour crabs, I was able to tell them what they were in for. They were going need a few more lorry loads.

The storm struck just as I reached the Red Shoot pub at Linwood. I got pretty wet seeking a phone signal in order to ring Jackie, tell her where I was, and, since I was expecting her to drive me home, invite her to lunch. She also had to bring my wallet. The hospitality of the staff at this excellent establishment extended to offering to start me a tab so I could have a drink whilst I was waiting. They also lent me a couple of lengths of till roll and a biro with which to amuse myself writing notes for this post.

Roast chicken was our evening accompaniment to the last of the burgundy for me and the Latitude 35 degrees S for Jackie.

If At First You Don’t Succeed

Yesterday’s rain was magnified today. Looking out of our windows I thought the limited visibility was mist. It was the deluge. All vehicles on the A31 had headlights glowing, falling raindrops adding hazy coronas. Undeterred, I walked the loop taking in the two underpasses.

Pebbles on a beach revealed by a receding tide gain, until dried out, an enhanced depth of colour. So it is with leaked petrol, as seen yesterday, and with leaves, lichen, and moss, not that these latter fruits of the forest have much chance of drying out at the moment. Gravel in the beds of streams glistened invitingly.

Roads and footpaths were again flowing with water. The uphill stretch of the A31 was a torrent. Ducking to avoid dripping branches as I walked along its verges, simply meant that spray thrown up by lorry tyres hit my face a bit sooner. The extra gusts of wind these vehicles created as they rushed past seemed more unsettling than usual. My choice of route was beginning to seem a less than good idea. However, to borrow from Magnus Magnusson’s ‘Mastermind’ catchphrase, I’d started so I would finish.

Once safely on the soggy heath I made my way to the Stoney Cross underpass. One of the pony trails led to a fresh waterhole being rapidly and plentifully replenished.

In 1978, Denis Healey, Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, famously said of his friend and opposite number in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet that ‘part of his speech was like being savaged by a dead sheep’. Geoffrey Howe was not dead, but he was certainly Wet in political parlance. Seeing a wet sheep this morning attempting to gain some shelter, I thought of these two amicable rivals.

After lunch I attempted to start a new life with my new iMac. The first step was to sort out a password problem with our Broadband. We managed to get our Windows laptops connected to our Home Hub when we first arrived here, but now are often automatically connected to Wi Fi, requiring us to disconnect from that before connecting to the Hub. Recently the password has been rejected. This did my head in because we had written it down. Maybe we were looking in the wrong place. So I rang BT and had the man take me through resetting the password, choosing the very same one as the old one for the replacement. It worked. When pressed, the adviser admitted that there had been an internal problem with BT Yahoo. That annoyed me even more.

I then tried to get on the Internet with the new Apple machine, and kept being told I was inserting the wrong password. So I rang the emergency support line which comes free for 90 days. The technician confirmed that the password required was the BT one and not something specific to iMacs. I put it in again. Three times. It was rejected. Three times. I couldn’t bear to go through the BT phone system again, and settled, for the time being, for the insecure Wi Fi route. So I moved on to the second problem I had discovered. The scroll bar for moving up and down the text of this post disappeared as soon as I looked at it. This was a comparatively simple adjustment, so I was able to edit this document on my new toy. But why does the M on the keyboard look exactly like an upside down W? After a thoroughly frustrating afternoon, my head was already spinning enough. I’d rather face any amount of dead sheep and savage terriers than go through that again. But I guess I’ll have to do so tomorrow. Robert the Bruce learned from a spider that one must try, try, and try again.

My final effort today was to stick My Passport into the back of the computer and try to look at all the pictures I had transferred yesterday. This needed all my willpower. But, surprise, surprise, it was achieved in seconds. Elizabeth’s set of ‘Derrick through the ages’, does not appear chronologically, but I have decided to leave it that way. Today’s offering is from 1958. This was taken by Mick Copleston during one of our billiard sessions in his front room at the top end of Amity Grove. Since he always won, I can’t think what I was looking so relaxed about. Maybe I was just trying to look dreamy.

Speaking of relaxation, it is quite amazing how getting one process to work reduces the tightness around one’s head and lengthens the temper.

Feeling more optimistic, I decided to go for broke and transfer 1263 pictures direct from my camera Scandisc into iPhoto. No problem. As if this weren’t enough enough to lift the spirits we were able to watch a full-screen slideshow accompanied by gentle modern jazz music on a loop. Magic.

Tomorrow is the grand rugbyfest day, which will be fully explained then, and for which Jackie has been preparing food since this morning. It therefore seemed only right that I take her out for a meal this evening. Her choice was Imperial China in Lyndhurst. We enjoyed a marvellous and plentiful set meal, accompanied by T’sing Tao beer in her case and a Georges du Beouf red wine in mine.

Carry On Walking

It was such a glorious day that we decided to set off early to find some of the wonderful locations we had stumbled on yesterday. Jackie drove me as far as Deadman Hill on Roger Penny Way, with an agreement to meet in Frogham carpark after two hours. Shortly before I reached Ashley Walk on Godshill Ridge, Jackie, who had driven on to Frogham, drove back, passing me. She paused to explain that she was going home for her phone in case we needed it. That, as we will see, was a fruitless exercise.

As usual, generations of thoughtful ponies had prepared my passage across the heath. Gliding along on layers of bracken stalks and desiccated droppings, my walking boots felt like carpet slippers. The fresher excreta was best avoided, especially as it was above that that the numerous clouds of midges gathered. These flying ticklers reminded me of those by the River Wandle in Morden described on 2nd November last year. On the approach to Godshill a large pool of water had not yet dried up. A short, fat, hairy pony, reminding me of Ernie Wise, was drinking from it. As I neared the animal it raised its snout, turned, and lumbered towards me in an amorous manner, with green matter hanging from flaring nostrils and liquid dripping from its whiskers. The green matter, fortunately, was pondweed. I wasn’t sure about the liquid, but as it was nuzzled onto my suit jacket sleeve, I rather hoped it was water.

Roadside daffodils were now in bloom. What a difference a day makes. Soon after spotting some of these in Godshill, I was tempted by the entrance to Well Lane, which sported a footpath sign, to depart from my planned route which did not include leaving the beaten track. It was a mixed blessing that I did so. Labouring up the steep rise ahead of me were an elderly man and his ageing dog. This was Peter Trim. Peter had lived there for twenty six years, all but the last he had spent guiding walkers. He knew these forest areas like the back of his hand. Which was just as well for me. He described the route I should take to reach Frogham. Initially it involved two stiles and a bridge over a stream. Fields had to be crossed. When I had finished speaking with him I got some of it right.

This friendly widower pointed out his garage to me. I had walked past it without noticing it, largely because I was watching him climb the slope. That was an omission. The facade of this structure is covered in small paintings Peter has produced, each one having some significance for him. He described many of these for me. The Riding for Disabled logo represents his years as a volunteer for that organisation. One more worth singling out is that of the rear ends of four ponies, showing the cuts of their tails, each kind indicating a different territory, as an aid to identification. This is midway on the right side of the gallery. The dog hobbled across the front as I was taking the photograph. Peter urged it to remove itself. I asked him to let it be, as it would add to the ambience.

Since he arrived in Well Lane Peter has never wanted to be anywhere else. A sweep of his arm took in the whole of the valley below, where much wartime preparation had taken place. He recited much, but all I’ve managed to take in is testing of bouncing bombs in the Second World War, and Boer War rifle practice. Someday a visit with a notebook might pay dividends. I’m sure this man would be amenable.

Almost as soon as I had taken my leave of Peter I realised the value of his guidance. Just a few yards down the lane, building materials and a wire fence blocked the path. I could just ease myself past the obstacle, reach a gate I needed to open, and cross the first stile. I was now on farmland. Across the stream there was a sheepfield to the right, its flock grazing in the sunlight. As I traversed the bridge I was rewarded with a rare sight indeed. Trooping in single file from a copse onto the field to the left was a stately parade of magnificent stags. A small rabbit hopped over to meet them. He didn’t stay long. Maybe he’d had in mind a comparison of scuts, and realised theirs were bigger than his. In any group there is always a straggler. This was no exception. As the rabbit reached the trees, the lagging member trotted down from the bank.

The final stile opened onto a still very muddy area. In contrast to yesterday’s farmer who had ensured only the most intrepid wayfarers would enter his land, this owner had laid a series of helpful stepping stones.

Consulting my Ordnance Survey map I turned right onto the minor road ahead. So far, so good. Then I turned left too early and found myself on Hart Hill. A string of ponies were making their way to a gorse bush above me as I realised I shouldn’t be up there and turned back to the junction at which I should have gone straight on. A woman was standing in her garden on a bend in the road. She told me I was well on my way to Frogham, I had to go straight on, cross the brook, turn right and walk up over a ridge which she indicated on the distant horizon. As I continued a car stopped and the driver asked me for directions. I ask you! She asked me for directions! Although I was a bit dubious about it, she decided to go straight on. Soon she turned around, stopped, and got out her mobile phone. I quickly realised why. The road had ended. It now became a scarcely trodden footpath. I carried on, seeking the brook. All that remotely resembled a brook was a ditch alongside the footpath and a few little streams that were now not much more than mudholes, running across the path into it. Eventually, the path becoming less and less well travelled, my nerve cracked, and I reversed my steps to the helpful woman’s house. By now I had to negotiate my way among a large group of ponies lolling about all over the road. Rounding a bend I met a really evil-looking black and white terrier of some sort. It guarded the gate to a property. As far as I was concerned it was on the wrong side of the closed gate. Silently waiting for me to come alongside its home, it let out savage war cries and rushed, snapping, at my legs. I had to kick out a bit.

The helpful woman was not at home. I decided to go back and have another go. This time a driver, getting into a van told me there was no way through to Frogham using that lady’s directions. His advice was to go back the way I had come and look for a footpath on my left. I found it. There, facing me, were the stepping stones I had crossed earlier. That wasn’t going to be any use, so I went on to Newgrounds where I met another woman who confirmed the first woman’s directions. She said it would take me about an hour and a quarter. Now, since Jackie would be expecting me in the Frogham carpark at that very moment, that was a bit awkward. But we both had our mobile phones, and Jackie was very patient and had Miranda Hart to entertain her, and it was a good hour to lunchtime, so all would be well.

Ah. No signal. Try again. I had a signal but she didn’t. I left a message. I did that several times in the next three quarters of an hour. What I didn’t know was that she was doing the same, and had even driven off to find a signal, to no avail.

Before setting off yet again, I had a really good look at the map, and, there, clearly marked, not very many yards from where I’d turned back, was Ditchend Brook. I reached it in double quick time, especially when, as anticipated, I had to encounter the terrible terrier again. This time he had brought his little mate along. Warding off two snapping, snarling dogs is a bit more difficult. I had not received instructions about how to cross the lovely cool rivulet with clear water running over an albeit shallow stony bed. Of course I had to walk across it. Which, trousers hoisted, I did.

This was hopeful. Just turn right, up and over the heath, and Frogham and Jackie await. Ah. But, which of the numerous tracks criss-crossing the heath would be the right one? I rather liked the look of one which skirted areas marked as Burnt Balls and Long Bottom. Hopefully it would lead to Hampton Ridge, which runs down to Frogham. Paying attention to the contour lines on the map, I should stay along the bottom edge of that ridge, otherwise I’d end up on Thompson’s Castle. Since my Thompson family live on Mapperley Top near Nottingham, I didn’t think there would be much point in that.

Hampton Ridge is a wide thoroughfare. Once on there it was downhill all the way. Jackie was waiting. I was three quarters of an hour late. From her vantage point, not having any idea of the direction I would be taking, she had actually spotted me coming down from the ridge, and jumped up and down waving her arms in the air. Sadly, I didn’t notice.

As we settled down to lunch at the Fighting Cocks pub in Godshill, Jackie commented that, what with Burnt Balls, Long Bottom, and Fighting Cocks, it had been rather a ‘Carry On’ walk. Her quip refers to the scurrilous series of films throughout the 1960s, all entitled ‘Carry On……………’. They were notorious for their suggestive scenarios and double entendre dialogue. Well, whichever way you look at it, this morning’s effort had been a bit of a carry on.

The lunch was amazing. We took the pensioners’ special, two items for £7.95. We both chose starters, pate for Jackie and whitebait for me; and each had haddock chips and peas to follow. The starters alone were a meal in themselves. All homemade and very well cooked. Peroni and Otter Ale were drunk.

Aldi’s pork spare ribs were almost as good as Jackie’s special fried rice which combined for our evening meal. I finished the Saint Emilion while Jackie savoured Hoegaarden.

The Village Lunch

Running Hill was glorious this morning as I set off to walk a quirky Q linking the two fords with the Fleetwater phone box. This red phone box, incidentally, no longer takes coins. Bishops were in the process of moving people out of Barter’s, a rather large yet homely house which has just been sold.

The only humans I saw were in cars. Steaming exhalations emanating from ponies’ nostrils, snorted downwards, soared upwards and evaporated. Come to think of it, mine were doing the same. Poppy nutted Libby out of the way so she could get to the water bucket. Berry had said that this horse was the one in charge. She demonstrated this today. No resistance was offered by the wilder animal.

Sheep were strung out grazing in the sunlight.

We visited The Trusty Servant Inn, known locally as ‘The Trusty’, for lunch. This was a monthly village gathering attended by both familiar and new faces. The pub, in winter months, provides one course from a selection of four or five, for £6 a head. Jackie chose fish and chips; I had shepherds pie; and we drank Peroni and Doom Bar respectively. The village is proving to be most hospitable. At our end of the long row of linked tables one subject of conversation was the alleged Grinling Gibbons work over our entrance hall fireplace. No-one can yet verify the provenance of this. Nor has anyone come up with a definitive origin of the word Seamans. Oz thinks Richard Reeves in Lyndhurst might help with the latter. We also spoke about ancestry, names, and nicknames. Oz, actually Robert Osborne, has been Oz since he was a ten year old schoolboy. Friends of mine sometimes call me Del, and, when they want to be really amusing, Del Boy, with reference to David Jason’s classic television character Derrick Trotter. Oz would not answer to Ozzie, and Diane declines to be called Di. Diane and Bill; Oz and Polly (Pauline); Eileen and David; and Jackie and I got to know each other quite well in the time. At the far end of the table were Mary; and Jeanie and Nick, and a few others we didn’t meet. Mary had driven past us en route; Jeanie was the woman on whose door I had knocked in search of Seamans Lane information on 9th December last year; Nick is the husband who wasn’t in. We had a few words with them when we left. I list these names in full in the hope that this will help me remember them.

While I was walking in the morning Jackie went shopping in Totton’s Lidl. Among other purchases she came back with a child’s play-tent and a fan heater. The reason for the heater is that she is beginning to feel cold in the bedroom, whereas I don’t notice it. After lunch we decided to visit Aldi in Romsey where I had seen an electric blanket. Initially there was no sign of one. Searching under a pile of pillows like a terrier throwing up soil from a foxhole, we unearthed the one I had spotted, fortunately hidden from the view of anyone else who might have liked it. By the checkout there was a tub of ‘Hand Cooked Potato Chips’. This amused us. Like almost every display near a checkout, this one contained supplementary items dumped by people who had changed their minds. The woman on the till was very pleased when I told her that if there were an Olympic sport in checking out, she would be in the team. Her speed and friendliness were equally impressive.

Our evening meal was the same as yesterday.

Have You Got An iPaD?

Running Hill was full of ponies as I set off to walk the ford ampersand on this crisp sun-kissed day. Others, throughout the route, had begun their day-long quest for fodder. In ‘Furzey Gardens road’ some half a dozen were lined up as if in a trough. One was forced to turn its head to stay in frame. They are reaching higher and higher for prickly greenery. Sheep in a fold munched, basked, and idled away the morning. The avian residents were very vociferous. I recognised a blackbird in a hedge, and robins and pigeons flitting and flirting across the lanes of Minstead.

Close to the ford, opposite an aptly named house called ‘The Splash’, lies Minstead Study Centre. Taking the motorists’ warning sign literally, I have been calling this establishment a school. On passing the centre and the nearby twig circle mentioned in posts of 4th, 26th, and 30th December 2012, I was reminded that Berry had clarified both the purpose of this educational facility and the source of the ‘pagan’ circular constructions. The truth is far less mysterious than I had imagined.

The Study Centre is a forestry learning establishment for schools who send groups of children to discover the delights of the New Forest. I have, in fact, seen crocodiles of escorted children emerging from the forest track. One of the exercises these young people are given is the creation of the circles. So I am not likely to encounter ‘The Wicker Man’, from the 1973 British horror film, remade in America in 2006.

This afternoon wagtails wandered about our lawn. When Sam phoned to give me an estimated time of arrival for him and Malachi, who are staying for a few days, Malachi asked to speak to me. Sam passed him the phone. This little chap, who is not four until March, began with ‘excuse me’. He went on to tell me he had just seen a sign which said you could buy coffee.

When they arrived, Malachi, taking off his shoes, asked the question we had feared. ‘Have you got an iPad?’. We hadn’t of course. Fortunately Sam had an iPhone. This meant we were half way there. We still had to access the internet. Our old laptops were not adequate to download Malachi’s games. The iPhone was, but we required a password to access our home hub. Of course we couldn’t remember it. Eventually, I remembered how to access BT wifi with Fon. And we got Sam on. I ask you, its enough to remember all these terms, without throwing passwords in as well. Malachi was soon esconced on the sofa with a game he had downloaded. With a little help from his Dad he played games of varying degrees of difficulty.

Jackie produce a delicious beef stew and bread and butter pudding. Malachi drank milk. Sam and I enjoyed Selexione Sangiovese Shiraz 2011, a rather nice Sicilian wine. Malachi had to be persuaded to eat enough of his dinner before he was allowed to get back to his games. After his bath I struggled to maintain his interest in my rendering of Winnie the Pooh. My own son seemed more intrigued.

New Forest Pagans

Today I walked the ford ampersand, with a slight diversion to the village shop on the way home. I was alerted by a clinking coming from beside Minstead Hall. This emanated from the local bottle bank which hitherto we had been unable to find. I spoke to a man emptying his bottles into it. He pointed out that the area wasn’t very tidy. He wouldn’t tidy that up but he did tidy the forest. He only goes into the forest because of his dog, but always brings litter back with him. If every dog-walker brought back one item he thought the forest would be clear. I said I had been amazed that people who loved the area enough to visit it would be so casual as to drop drink cans and food wrappers in it. I have not mentioned it before, but the verges do have these articles thrown onto them. I told the man I would follow his example. We were joined by a woman called Carol, introduced as the Mayoress. She thought I must be the man her daughter had seen walking around.

By the junction leading down to the Study Centre and the ford, a car driver negotiating her path through a pony trio had to be very patient with the third in the string.

There were a number of dog-walkers out today. I also met a young couple by their car trying to transfer their feet from muddy boots to everyday shoes without either falling over or touching the road with their stockinged feet. I well know it is an awkward procedure, almost as difficult as trying to get a foot back into a sodden shoe without slipping it directly into the mud. That is of course quite impossible. We exchanged pleasantries about having footwear sucked off by the mud.

As I passed the still extant twig circle I had seen since 4th December I reflected on Becky’s observation on my post of 26th. She had Googled the two circles mentioned and come up with the sensible suggestion that these circles were the work of a Druid Grove. The Sylvan Grove of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids was formed at Samhain in 2004. Its Home Page speaks of pagan pub moots around the New Forest. Jim Champion, a forest photographer has posted a picture of a ‘Stone Circle in Wick Wood, New Forest’ taken in 2007. This is identical to my shot of 26th and is situated near Acres Down, as is mine.

This afternoon Helen and Bill, and Shelley and Ron came to visit and stay for the evening meal. Jackie produced a succulent gammon joint with a vast range of vegetables, followed by apple crumble which was much enjoyed and based on the sisters’ Uncle Max’s recipe. Red and white wines were drunk. We had enjoyable conversation throughout, distributed presents after the meal, and played Scrabble.

Obstacles

The landscape after the deluge was pretty waterlogged today, but the light was bright and clear, giving us beautiful skies.

Apart from a diversion to Acres Down, my walk took the form of a roughly drawn ampersand. I turned right at Minstead Hall, left down to the ford, right at the ford, through Fleetwater to Acres Down, and back via the other fork, going straight into the village from there.

Five or six ponies approached me as I walked down Running Hill. They completely blocked the road. I can’t say I was scared, just marginally apprehensive, to be surrounded by these creatures we have been warned not to touch. Apparently they can bite. I used my usual method of negotiating them, which is to hold my line and walk on. Normally this works well. This time the horses had the same idea. One in particular, the light-brown white-maned creature in the centre of the picture, was into the head-to-head approach. Close enough for me to smell its not unpleasant mustiness and eye its not very pleasant teeth. As I rejected its desire for further intimacy, used the better part of valour and walked around this beast, I did momentarily think I would rather have been in one of the cars whose drivers were patiently waiting for the road to clear. On skirting my interested pony I said ‘I’m not supposed to touch you, mate’. I received no reply, and one of the most disconcerting aspects of these animals is that they are always absolutely silent.

Sheep in the field alongside what I call Furzey Gardens road were silhouetted against the sky.

When taking the right fork after the ford I exchanged greetings with two Highway Maintenance workmen seated in their stationary truck.

Reaching the main road between Emery Down and the A31, I noticed for the first time a chalked sign advertising the Acres Down Farm Shop, and decided to go down and check it out. There was also a ford on this road, with fast-flowing water streaming across it. Its footbridge looked rather inaccessible, but I thought I would give it a go. Not a good idea. There were three deterrents to taking this route: the thick, squelching mud; the piles of glistening horse shit; and the low branch requiring a limbo dancer’s technique to get under it. Feeling intrepid, I persevered and reached the bridge. One glance across to the other side made it clear that a better option would be to wade through the clean, fresh water. I stepped into it and did just that.

The farm shop wasn’t open. According to a notice it didn’t open for another ten minutes. I thought I would wait. A gentleman suggested I should ring the front door bell of the house next door. I did. A young woman told me it wasn’t open on Mondays. As she said this she looked at me quizzically and said there was a notice which contained this information. ‘Ah, yes, I read that.’ I said, ‘I’m retired you see. Ah, yes. Monday. Sometimes I don’t know what day it is’. This was the point at which I sensed her instincts were telling her to back away. She stuck with it, however, and explained that her sister ran the shop and its stock was largely meat and eggs from the farm; various chutneys and pickles; and seasonal gifts. I thanked her, saying that was just what I needed to know, and I could now report back on my find. As I left, the helpful gentleman was starting to drive off. Claiming to be a dodderer he said he’d forgotten the shop wasn’t open on Mondays. Since I had told the young woman that he had suggested I ring the bell, she must have thought we were a right pair.

Returning down the road to Minstead which takes me to the left prong of the fork, I discovered evidence that my prediction yesterday, that the rainwater would reach the cones by the vast pool, was correct. Water now trickled between the cones onto the private drive. Rounding the corner now blocked by this water, I met my Highway Maintenance acquaintances. This time they were leaning on their truck, one having a fag. He was their spokesperson. Perhaps because it was about three quarters of an hour since I had last passed them, he greeted me with: ‘We’re not skiving. We’re waiting for a machine to clear all that water round there’. Only when the water was cleared would they be able to determine what needed to be done to rectify the situation. I told them about the obstacles to using the Acres Down ford footbridge. They advised me to contact Hampshire County Council. I said I wasn’t bothered enough for that and thought not many people walked that way. They agreed.

As I walked up the road from the ford, the machine, not unlike the vast vacuum cleaner I described four days ago, passed me. I considered the smoker would have time to finish his cigarette.

This evening we are going to The Amberwood Christmas quiz, where we will be fed what are promised to be very good and plentiful snacks. Anything worthy of note will be recorded tomorrow because we will probably be late back.